PrintWhat Liberals Really Respect
"I think he did the right thing," said the man, emphatically, in reference to Bill Clinton's 1990s infidelity with Monica Lewinsky. The sentiment, expressed during a conversation I had some years ago, was really no surprise. You see, the fellow was a fine specimen of his political species.
In every civilization, you have, to use psychological terminology, well-adjusted individuals and dysfunctional ones. Of course, dividing people into two groups will always be problematic, as moral status is a continuum. As we walking, talking anachronisms like to say, we're all sinners; it's just a matter of degree. Nonetheless, some people do try to exercise virtue in their lives, while others are so immersed in vice that they could mistake it for virtue. However you characterize it, though, in our time, the dysfunctional vice-lovers are described by what is another lacking term: liberals.
Many people believe that things such as politics can be compartmentalized; they act as if ideology is akin to taste. They figure that, sure, liberals believe some different things, but, really, they're people just like us. Well, of course they're people. But the fact is that if someone believes differently from you, he isn't "just like" you; for this to be true belief would have to be irrelevant. In reality, however, all movements, good and evil, start with belief. And a devout liberal is no more like a traditionalist American than is a pious Muslim.
I remember another very liberal man I knew who, when explaining his desire to vote for Democrats in Florida, said that their opponents seemed "too honest." You may wonder why honesty, of all things, would turn anyone off. Is it that he suspected that those politicians' exuding of sincerity was artifice? This is often part of it, actually. You see, people tend to assume that others operate by the same principles they do (which is another reason why traditionalists can mistake liberals for normal); the man in question, for instance, is someone who at one time cheated a certain business I know of out of some rental fees while working on its grounds as an independent contractor. His justification was, "I deserve it." "Hey, everyone's got a game. So don't pretend to be a goody-two-shoes," the feeling-thinking goes. But there is more to it.
One time I read an internet posting made by a woman who had stopped renting to some Christians who had been tenants at her property. Her reason?
They made her feel bad about herself.
People who have no intention of dispensing with vice don't like moral standards they pale in comparison to -- which is why moral relativism is all the rage today, and why there is rage at Christianity -- and they don't like moral standard-bearers they pale in comparison to, either. Why do you think the Bible states, "What fellowship hath light with darkness? The darkness hates the light"? Immorality loves company as much as does misery -- just not the kind of company whose light makes one more miserable.
This explains something that has befuddled some people recently: the fact that while Senate hopeful Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren should be hopeless after revelations surfaced that she advantaged herself by lying about her heritage, she's actually neck-and-neck in the polls with her opponent, Scott Brown. It's no surprise, though. Her state, Massachusetts, elected and re-elected reprobate Ted Kennedy -- despite his decadent, drunken romps, one of which resulted in the death of a young woman -- until his death. It wasn't just his name recognition, either. Massachusettsans re-elected Barney Frank even after it was found that his homosexual lover -- a male prostitute Frank had initially hired for sex -- was running a call-boy operation out of the congressman's home. But even that was small potatoes. While Louisiana ex-governor Edwin Edwards (D) once said, "The only way I'll lose an election is if I get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy," Massachusetts's standards are a bit different. Former Bay State congressman Gerry Studds did have a sexual affair with a teenage boy -- and was re-elected six more times until he, like Frank, decided to retire.
Of course, many who vote for such vice-squad leaders would justify it by saying that they're "open-minded," and these same people are so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. They would also say that such politicians reflect their "values," and they certainly do. But whatever other visceral reasons there may be for unreasoned decisions, there is this one: the Kennedys and Franks and Studdses and Warrenses of the world certainly won't make their constituents feel bad about themselves. And these men in the mirror definitely aren't too honest for a liberal to believe, even though little they say is true.
As for Warren, why would liberals care that she lied to get ahead in the system? Everyone's got a game. Remember? It's what rank-and-file liberals do themselves. Just like the man I mentioned earlier who cheated the business. Just like the former owner of that business who, although a devout Democrat who supported high-taxing politicians and even hosted one at his home, made it known that he expected his employees to cheat on their taxes and that if you didn't, you were an "a*****e." And just like George Soros, who has justified his unethical currency trading by saying that the system itself is immoral. So simply do it. Play the game. Just don't pretend to be a Boy Scout. And this brings us to what liberals really respect.
Many years ago, the subject of the Boy Scouts came up on Bill Maher's old show Politically Incorrect. With his usual smirk, Maher at one point offered the following left-handed defense of the group (I'm paraphrasing): "The nerds need some place to go." Of course, what he fancies being nerdy is called something else by us anachronisms: virtue.
Now, there are reasons why liberals don't recognize or respect virtue. First, they usually don't believe in it, since liberals are relativists and virtue is an absolute. This is why moderns will speak of "values" and only rarely of "virtues." But then there is another thing. To acknowledge the light displayed by the Boy Scouts or something else liberals pooh-pooh would be to admit their own darkness. So it's better to just portray virtue as nerdiness at best and, at worst, as intolerance.
So with the appearance of virtue being only a façade because, really, everyone's got a game, what can liberals respect?
Playing the game well.
This is what people such as the fellow in my first paragraph respected about Bill Clinton: he played the game. He outmaneuvered his adversaries. He was a master of the con. Ah... It's sort of like private eye Jim Rockford's fast talking to extract information or the perfectly executed con in the film The Sting. It's just so...cool. It is the right thing. And so did Elizabeth Warren do the right thing -- when you fancy the right thing the wrong one.
Now it may be clearer why it has been said that "[i]n a democracy, people get the government they deserve" and why Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." It also may be clearer how you can make yourself needed if you aspire to be a master: sell vice to the people and make sure they deserve you. Initiate them into sin with vile sex education in grade schools, co-ed dorms and corrupted college professors and courses, and thoroughly decadent popular culture. And pave the way for the acceptance of vice by spreading moral relativism. "Hey, who's to say it's wrong? If it feels good, do it."
Lest I be misunderstood, I don't say that every single liberal is of the typical mold; there is also the anomalous, deer-in-the-headlights, starry-eyed sort who fits the stereotype of the naïve but misguided liberal. Nonetheless, there is a reason why studies show liberals to generally be greedier, more covetous, more selfish, less charitable, and less loving than conservatives, as Peter Schweizer's piece "Don't listen to the liberals -- Right-wingers really are nicer people..." outlines well. But it's not that, as Schweizer writes, "your politics influence the manner in which you live your life"; it's that your moral and philosophical foundation influences both how you live your life and your politics.
For a long time now in the West, the dominant philosophical disorder has been godlessness and relativism, and it has always correlated with some dark political ideology. It was twisted French Revolution ideals in one place, Nazism in another, and communism in yet another. In our time and place, it is known as liberalism.
Thus, it's no surprise that we see in our nation such social disorder -- many of the people in our nation are morally disordered. And if civilization is to survive in any form worthy of the name, liberalism -- and, most importantly, its root causes -- must die.
