Tuesday, February 02, 2010

How do liberal think?

Boy John Hawkins is really a revelation. He is so good at regurgitating what he heard on talk radio while making it sound even dumber. Perhaps that's a function of reading vs. listening, but his latest article, Seven Huge Flaws in the Way Liberals Think, is just hilariously bad. Here are the flaws.
1) Liberals believe they can change human nature.
2) Liberals believe we can talk everything out with our enemies.
3) Liberals don't have enough respect for our culture and traditions.
4) Liberalism is a fundamentally immoral political philosophy.
5) Liberals believe merely being liberal makes them good people.
6) Liberals have too much faith in government.
7) Liberals have minimal interest in whether the programs they support work or not.
Got that?

Flaw number one is one that we share with Christians. It's also logical. What Hawkin's and others assume is that Human Nature is set and no amount of abuse or support can change. What I think is that we will always have crime, but if the economy improves and people are doing better there will be less crime.

Flaw number two is based on a purposeful misconception. Liberals, for the most part, don't really think we can sit down and talk with Osama Bin Ladin and his ilk; they do think we should be involved in diplomacy with other nations. Conservatives of Hawkin's ilk seem to think that we should only talk with anybody the least bit hostile down the barrel of a gun.

Flaw number three is standard conservative talking point, and to a certain extent true. That said, George W. Bush was willing to overthrow plenty of long term beliefs about privacy and the rights of prisoners and torture; I doubt Hawkins had much trouble with that. We used to believe that Americans were better than other nations because we acted better than they did; we weren't willing to get down to their level. Not sure that's true anymore.

Flaw number four isn't very specific, is it? What Hawkins is referring to is that we believe our political enemies to be devils, while we will excuse any immorality in our political allies. Again, this is somewhat true, but it's true of both parties. And conservatives are far worse about describing their political enemies as monsters.

Flaw number five is true of both parties, in so far as it is true at all.

Flaw number six is a judgment call; I think it's more fair to say that Conservatives believe that Government can't do anything and when they get power they try to prove their point. But perhaps that's overly harsh.

Flaw number seven is standard radio claptrap. Again conservatives believe that all non-military or law enforcement government programs have failed. And yet liberals continue to support government programs. This means they don't care if they succeed or fail. No. What it actually means is that liberals don't share conservative beliefs on the success or failure of government programs.

Oh well - good on you Hawkins - another article, another paycheck. It doesn't have to make sense, does it?

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