The more we learn behavioral psychology, the more we understand that ideologies are as much a product of people’s nature as of observed experience. The perverted doctrines that actuated the Bolshevists may be immanent in a portion of humanity. Some people are determined to see every success as a swindling of someone else, every transaction as an exploitation, every exercise in freedom as a violation of some ideal plan, every tradition as a superstition. How delicious that, as we approach the bicentenary of his birth, Karl Marx should have turned into the thing he loathed above all: the prophet of an irrational faith.

Daniel Hannan, Inventing Freedom

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”  Albert Einstein

A lot of great explanations on the Left’s mental state made it to print in the last few weeks.  Much of it advanced themes that have probably been known for some time, but there’s a real concentration of this sort of analysis going on right now by Conservative writers.  They are rallying to explain the Left, each in their own way, and in doing so are exposing Leftist Man like never before.  If the Left could shift their attention away from crafting political narratives to sway public opinion for a few moments and take a breather to look around, they might get a feel for how the reasoning world sees them.

In an essay today entitled Hate is the Force that Gives the Left Meaning, Daniel Greenfield asks the question, “The Left finally has its Un-American tyranny.  So why is it [still] so angry?”  Greenfield then answers the question in his typical definitive, dispositive, fashion.  He explains that since the Left cannot rely upon their solutions to ground their political offense, all that remains available to them are the negatives they can frame about their opposition.  Those negatives get drawn any number of ways.  The only necessary element is that they’re negative.  How, why, based on what, none of that really matters.  It’s the negative conclusion that keeps them going and gives them something to build on to advance their cause.

In The Poison of Postmodern Lying, Victor David Hanson explained how good intentions are the only truth that matters – how democratic laws and objective truth must give way to the more powerful truth of social justice [which the Left will define for us.]

In Progressives Without Progress, Daniel Greenfield discusses how the Left see scarce resources as an unsolvable problem.  [Forget that markets do this without any controls.]  He shows how the Left’s rationing makes things more scarce and more technologically backward, and how their planning causes a conformity of unimaginative redistribution that solves nothing.  He shows how the Left’s utopian police-state economics deny progress and kill off the human creative spirit.

In The Kindergarden Of Eden, Evan Sayet illustrated how the Left demonizes and makes enemies out of the those individuals in society who don’t follow the Left’s utopian plan, notwithstanding how those same people create real solutions to real problems.

In The Closing Of The American Mind, Allan Bloom shows how the Left removed all of the traditional cultural standards that used to moderate and frame the appetites of free Americans, and replaced them with a sterile orthodoxy obsessed over the avoidance of politically incorrect taboo outcomes.  In other words, Bloom asks, and answers, the question of whether a Left life is a life worth living.

Recently Thomas Sowell put his spotlight on the Left’s narcissistic personality disorder in a column entitled Visceral Hatred Has Always Set Left From Right.  The thinking goes that the Left’s good intentions, by themselves and without outcome evidence, give them all the self-esteem they need.  To mention how the Left’s solutions don’t actually get to the outcomes they intend is not merely a scientific judgment, it’s a vile attack on their self-worth.  The Left has always had trouble separating the person from the idea, which perhaps explains why they so readily resort to ad hominem attack.  Sowell points out, in other words, how the Left’s penchant for ad hominem attack hoists them on their own petard.  Criticize their good intentions and you criticize them.  There’s a certain consistency of error here, but still wrong whether applied to themselves or against those they disagree with.

With all of this good, free, substantive analysis a mouse click away, you’d think some on the Left might risk noticing, or might even offer a substantive rebuttal.  But not only do the Left seem disinterested in understanding themselves, they don’t seem too interested in understanding Conservatives either.  We know all the flavors of hate, all the special names the Left reserve for Conservatives, but we have very little evidence that the Left have any deeper understanding of us.

“Postmodernist relativists claimed that things like “truth” were mere fictions to preserve elite privilege.”

“[G]ood intentions  .  .  .  are the only truth that matters.”

“If ignoring bothersome laws .  .  . serves a greater social justice, then such dereliction also becomes “truth.”

“Without notions of objective truth, there can never be lies, just competing narratives and discourses.”

“But outside of math and science, whose natural truth man so far cannot impugn, almost everything else in America has become “it depends.”

The Poison of Postmodern Lying by Victor David Hanson

Under these ground rules, there’s nothing the Left won’t say.

The problem with viewing the world through the lawyerly lens is the prerequisite of conflict. The whole business exists to force someone to behave according to a law as interpreted by some judicial or quasi-judicial third party.

Conflict means a disagreement exists between at least two parties. The progression of law, therefore, is built on conflicts by people who, for whatever reason, cannot otherwise agree to get along. Where there is a-priori agreement, no law enforcement is necessary.

As an aside, so the Left can avoid inserting the canard of criminality in their expected rebuttal, obviously I’m not talking about criminal matters.

Now, the Elbert County Left love this legal business. Whether it’s a zoning matter enabling them to push the government to make some code to control land use behavior the way they want, or whether it’s an electoral claim to harass the Republican leadership of the county, the law is a game in which they can at least score points, and maybe even win.

One hopes that the Colorado legislatures who create the enabling statutes for governing the playing fields of county zoning and election law, do so with the intention that what subsequently occurs in those domains will inure to the benefit of Colorado citizens living with the consequences.

One hopes that the statutes aren’t created for the purpose of enabling a gaming environment where the law can be turned, within the rules outlined by the legislature, to the advantage of one group of citizens over another, based on how well the game is played.

If legislation allows, however, for sharp dealing, or heavily loading the boat on one side by filling public meetings with a noisy minority, or filling courtroom proceedings with a noisy minority, then unscrupulous people will seize those gaming opportunities to serve their own advantage.

Some humans seem to have a gaming instinct, an ability to set aside ethics for personal advantage. And fiat legal structures seem to attract people who look for an unjust enrichment or a power play in their own interest. Where no conflict exists to start the playing field conditions that might sustain a game plan, such people will simply invent the necessary conflict. Fish can’t “go blub” without water in the tank.

Ultimately our legal systems cannot prevail over deficient ethical sensibilities. Our systems cannot withstand continued gaming attacks from a dedicated minority of baby boomer Leftists, many of them sustained by publicly funded pensions, who despite repeated failed attempts to get themselves elected as Elbert County officials, think they should be governing Elbert County’s highest offices, and who do everything they can to impede the officials elected to those offices.

Evan Sayet summed up the syndrome in one passage as follows;

Everyone in the Democratic Party, then is convinced that he or she is a victim, and every one of them agrees on who their victimizers are: the men and women of God and science who do things and make things. Their victimizers are the people who, because they live in the real world, have to engage in discriminating thought and choose the best (but by definition not utopian) answer.

When a Shick, a Thomasson, a Duvall, a Blotter, or a Brown, take umbrage over a bit of zoning code or some judicial matter, they project an alleged offense personal to themselves. Cosmically, it’s them in the cross hairs, their whole world in the chain of causation directly targeted by the alleged harm. For the practicing Leftist, it’s always their water, their money, their property, their minerals, their rights, their speech. Leftist standing is assumed, but never demonstrated.

And since utopia is their measure, and no human being can possibly measure up because human beings operate with imperfect information and imperfect capabilities, and since Leftist standing is a given, the ingredients for an endless umbrage that can never be remedied are also a given.

But don’t fail to notice that the only times less-than-utopian outcomes matter to the Left, the only times they feel targeted, are when they’re not in control. That’s the false alternative the Left presents to the world. Either put them in control, or they’ll selectively engage their grievance machinery and make a living hell out of things as perpetual victims.

The dilemma they present does not materially differ from the one presented by the Taliban – whose world view provides sufficient motivation for them to make war on the West, notwithstanding anything the West actually does to avoid or provoke them. They have an offensive metaphysical foundation in Islam which they can choose to ignore or follow. Reasoning and reality feedback from the world external to their domain are largely irrelevant except to the extent they get in their way.

Those of us outside the cults are constantly placed on the defensive from endless experiments and harmful inventions presented as progress toward their utopias.

The adversarial system that the Left invest so heavily in can be manipulated. Despite systemic mechanisms that push in the direction of objective justice, those principles can be overcome by unscrupulous tactics. But the Left won’t publicly own the ethics they practice to reach the ends they consider justified by any means.

Their post-hoc explanations, which get utterly fantastic when they’re challenged, know no bounds. But their super-sensitivity to anti-utopian harm is no more than a tactic, a practiced art they’ll turn off the moment they get power.

Under the Left it’s one rule for me and another for thee. Under the Right it’s one rule for all and one chain of causation for all. That’s the difference.

Looks like the Elbert County News has gone off the reservation where most of the Elbert County press lives. Good for them.

As you can see from the comments to the Rowland/Gessler story of 1/24 (copy saved here if the above link expires), the Elbert County Left posse came out to reinforce this new skirmish line in their political war on Elbert County.

Most of their rhetoric consists of the usual damnation/salvation dichotomy where they represent everything good and their opposition is all bad.  But they’re not as smart as they think they are.

Mr. Thomasson let slip a comment that undermines all of their moral authority;

. . .but I believe the facts of the case will suffice to keep the court from overturning the verdict. If it goes the other way, it will be because the ALJ made a mistake, not because of some wild claim that the Leftists are after the good Republicans of Elbert County.

If the judge does not agree with the Left, then the judge will have made a mistake.  The Left can not be wrong. Ever.

You need to look at the cases the Left make in and around Elbert County from this perspective – especially the Planning and Zoning cases. Truth is not on the table. Efficiency doesn’t enter into it. Economics, legalities, justice, sound science, none of those dispositive disciplines matter to the Left. Those who don’t agree with the Left have made a mistake. Those who don’t agree with the Left in the future will have made a mistake!

I only know of one guy in history who successfully pulled off a claim of infallibility, and he got crucified for it.

Thomas Sowell wrote today in the Investors Business Daily, “The vision of the left is not just a vision of the world. It is also a very flattering vision of itself.”

The entire column is linked here. (If this link fails, click on the paragraph below for a saved copy.)

Whew! – A lotta’ hatin’ goin’ on Facebook at the New-Plains and Meadowlark pages.
.  .  .must be good for their communities.

The Left own the domain of the Elbert County Planning Commission. It’s their sandbox.

If looks could kill, yours truly would be cold in the ground from the sneers, snarls, scowls, disgust and disapproval they’ve thrown at me on the few evenings I’ve ventured on to that hallowed forum for regulatory orogeny. [Read more…]