I’m no longer a young man. Of my 50 years of drawing breath, at least 38 of them have been years where I have made it a point to observe and understand political activities, both domestic and foreign. I remember Watergate vividly, and that happened when I was 13-14 years old.
In all of that time I have watched the difference between “liberal” policies and “conservative” policies.
And in every major political issue I have followed on the fiscal domestic or the national security debate, liberals have been dangerously wrong every time.
Every.
Freaking.
Time.
Without exception. This is not merely my opinion, this is historical fact. And these are not merely academic disputes, the consequences of wrong-headed liberal policies have been the deaths of millions of human beings and the beggaring of entire socio-economic strata for generations.
I will grant that the social issues are not so clear. There are plenty of times that I have disagreed with social conservatives on key issues, and I feel there have been many such cases where social conservatives have been wrong, but no more than social liberals have been. I’d pretty much say that the battle between social conservatives and social liberals is one where I find myself pretty close to the middle between the two sides. I find abortion to be a genocidal policy that trades the lives of human beings for the convenience of other human beings. It’s hard to identify a more evil act than that. But on the other hand, I’ve never had any problem with a lot of the gay agenda, I just don’t care much for the way they advance it.
But on national security and fiscal conservatism, the difference between the two sides is stark and should be obvious to any rational human being.
“Pull out of Vietnam!” shouted the liberals, and when we did so, millions of humans were slaughtered in the killing fields of Cambodia.
“Cut military spending!” shouted the liberals, and the result was the darkest days of the Cold War and the ridicule of America as a “paper tiger.” Reagan restored America’s military might and the result was the destruction of the most evil empire on earth.
“Expand the welfare state!” shouted the liberals, and the result was a culture of multi-generational squalor, drug use and crime, so much so that Bill Clinton himself signed the welfare reform act that tried to undo some of the damage done by years of entitlement and dependency.
“Unilaterally disarm our nuclear stockpiles!” shouted the liberals, but luckily, so far, cooler heads prevailed and the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction has given the world its longest period of general peace and stability since the early days of the British empire.
In case after case, issue after issue, crisis after crisis, liberals have been not merely wrong, but dangerously misguided and naive.
And yet to this day liberals believe that they are the ones with the answers. And the answers are always the same. “Expand the welfare state!” “Reduce the military!” “Pull out of Iraq!”…
Only a nation of historical illiterates could keep voting these people into positions of power.
So I am forced to conclude that is what this nation is. A nation of historical illiterates. A nation where the majority of people are seemingly too ignorant to be trusted with the most potent ability ever devised on this world. A ballot.
It is hard to see how this will end well. Too many ignorant people vote for the failed policies of the past with an arrogant belief in their own natural superiority. And by all accounts and measures, this nation is not getting less illiterate. To the contrary, they are getting more illiterate every year.
Obama, Pelosi and Reid and their ilk are inevitable. Their policies require ignorance and illiteracy to survive, and that’s just what they feed off of. And the fields are full of plenty of feed for them.
9 users commented in " The politics of being wrong "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThe problem isn’t that we’re a nation of historical illiterates; it’s that this is purposeful.
Drax,
I think you mean that John Dewey and his successors succeeded in using public education to hamstring the Republic by teaching falsehoods to the citizenry.
I was pleased to find out recently that the Dewey Decimal system was not invented by John Dewey.
Yours,
Wince
I am continually amazed at the lack of knowledge about history that my kids have.
So often in conversation I will bring up some historical event and the kids have little to no idea what I’m talking about.
I’ve spent countless hours with them discussing “Global History” with them from their classes, then correcting the things that they are being taught incorrectly. Of course my children were not well pleased about this at first, but when I pulled out books and articles on the various topics they started to get ticked off at the teachers for the garbage they were being taught.
Just look at movies that distorted to show history as THEY would have wanted it to be, rather than how it is. Far too much is not just artistic license, that is more to move the story along or to highlight a connection.
How often we have heard those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, yet the educators seem hell bent on creating ignorant people to serve the political ideology.
It is why I always taught my children to question things. Even me. Far better for them to understand how to find out things for themselves, then rely on any single source, or to be brainwashed by those who are supposed to be teaching them.
There hasn’t been a time when our students haven’t been “brainwashed” by their teachers; it’s just that for the past 50 years or so, that brainwashing has been one which is anti-American; anti-Christian; anti-European; anti-captialist; anti-free enterprise; anti-free speech etc, when, before, it was pro all of these things
Hmm. I’ve thought about politics a lot, especially since my own politics are mirrored almost nowhere in anyone else’s writing.
I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t “think” about their politics – not in any rational sense. It appears to all come down to temperament and tribal socialization, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing to do with the supposed philosophy they dress their politics up in.
It’s the only way I can think of to explain why a typical social conservative can be holding forth about individual liberty one moment, then advocating the use of force to punish “immorality” and impose religion the next, with *NO* cognitive dissonance or awareness of contradictions whatsoever. Or why a leftist can cry about free speech one moment, then advocate suppressing “hate speech” and “false conciousness” the next, and not even understand what you are talking about when you try to point out the contradiction. Or for that matter, a hip libertarian going on about property rights and the creative productivity of enterpreneurs, then defending his “right” to pirate someone else’s software.
If this is the case, then I don’t hold out much hope for historical literacy having any impact on politics at all. Philosophy doesn’t, not even positions that are apparently deeply held.
There’s a certain sort of blindness common to almost everyone I’ve read, where what they know in a rational sense has no impact on what they defend politically. They can have all the knowledge to know that something they advocate politically/socially makes no sense, or at least contradicts other information they acknowledge, and yet they cannot actually seem to understand that, even if it is blindingly obvious.
I’ve actually tried to call someone out on banning cigarrettes due to secondhand smoke concerns, but wanting to legalize marajuana. I couldn’t make them understand their own contradiction, no matter how I presented it to them.
It’s freaking scary sometimes.
PS – my hypothesis is that the liberals end up wrong about national defense and economics every time because the middle class of America is not part of their tribe, and defending them and enabling the conditions in which they can exist goes against whatever fundamental instincts truly drive political thinking. The Bourgeouisie are tribe A, they are tribe (or coalition of tribes) B. Since they coexist in the same (and instinct assumes zero sum) territory, A’s prosperity is B’s loss and vice versa. The Soviet Union could be against everything B says they value philosophically, yet because they threaten A and promise to destroy them and scatter their stuff, they become nominally part of tribe B.
PPS –
In the mind of the left:
Hitler – evil
Mao Tse Tung – revolutionary
Pinochet – evil
Che Guevera – great guy
In the mind of the social conservative right:
Robespeirre – evil
John Calvin – church father
ASEI,
See Politics is the Mind-Killer.
Yours,
Tom
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