The Dissembling Left

A few days ago a friend sent me a NY Times article, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/opinion/trump-liberals-authoritarians.html?unlocked_article_code=1.s00.CyBM.cZJIdFXTL9MB&smid=url-share by David Brooks who wrote about Alexandre Lefebvre’s “stirring and clarifying new book”  (Brooks’ words) Liberalism as a Way of Life.  In it he speculated about why some people are drawn to authoritarianism and made a number of inane and patently biased statements, but none more revealing than “We (liberals) respect autonomy and personal space, dislike hypocrisy and snobbery, and strive to achieve a live-and-let-live tolerance.”  I have to assume Mr. Brooks wrote those words with a straight face, which is why I don’t read his opinions anymore.   Did this supposedly intelligent man miss woke ideology, the cancel and the chaos on our college campuses?  Really!

Books revealed even more about his objectivity when he followed with, “The great strength of the authoritarians who oppose liberal principles, from Trump to Xi to Hamas, is that they play straight into the primordial sources of meaning that are deeper than individual preference…”  From Trump to Xi to Hamas?  Whoa, what could be his basis for such an offensive and patently opinionated statement?

I chose not to challenge my friend  but emailed back saying, “When discussing political matters or politics in general, I try to focus on the results of policy and steer clear of personalities.  And when looking at individual issues, I’ll usually ask one or more of the following three questions in order to put the matter into proper context

• Where’s the hard evidence?
• Compared to what? and
• How much will it cost?”  

and ended the email stating that I believe those criteria can be applied to almost all political issues or public policy questions, with the clear implication he should consider applying those criteria to Brooks’ comments.

My friend either didn’t get the implication or chose not to respond to it and instead wrote, “I agree fully with the importance of evidence for any political position. The problem again is human nature and our multi-faceted, jerry-rigged brains, which tend to pick and choose what we consider to be good evidence.  Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning haunt us all, so it takes huge effort–and a good helping of humility, open-mindedness, and honesty–to get even close to objectivity”.  But what did he really say?

Liberals live in a world that’s nebulous and opinionated – an interesting paradox when you think about it.  My friend ‘agreed fully’ but wrote, “…what we consider to be good evidence,” exposing the liberal predicate for political discussion, i.e., opinion, speculation and conjecture versus the clarity of “hard evidence.”  BTW, the best definition of hard evidence I can come up with is that it’s something that can be measured.  I could have added, it’s also something liberals are averse to supplying.

Obviously, my friend bought into Brooks’ drivel and never once commented about the lack of hard evidence to support Brooks’ contention, nor a word about the second criteria – compared to what?  Perhaps I should have asked, was Trump more authoritarian during his term than Biden who opened the border, is forgiving student loans and mandating DEI policies throughout government?

So, here’s my take on this, it’s only authoritarian if it’s a policy of the Right, but it’s not when Biden relieves sanctions on Iran allowing them to earn billions in oil money to give to their proxies like Hamas so they can destroy Israel.  What was it that Brooks wrote about liberals disliking hypocrisy?

For those who read my posts regularly you may have noticed I haven’t posted in a month.  But today I received an email from “Mike in Edwards, Colorado” suggesting I start up again, so thank you Mike and here it is.  I don’t have much more to say about Brooks or my friend’s perspective because they’re words tell us all we need to know – however, I will close today’s post with a few random thoughts.

• Hate is an ugly emotion revealing more about the hater than the hated; so, my advice to the left is, hate Donald Trump all you want, and feel free to hope & pray that he’s convicted in one of these third-world styled kangaroo courts, but at the same time, you must understand that it’s foolhardy, dangerous and abjectly un-American to applaud the destruction of our justice system.
• How is it that the democrats call for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from any potential case having to do with Donald Trump, but believe that the Mueller investigation of the Russian-collusion hoax, and its continuation in the form of the laptop disinformation caper and the “51 intelligence authorities” who lied about its Russian origins, are OK?
• Does anyone else find it interesting that we never hear spontaneous chants of USA! USA! USA! at democrat rallies?
• DEI is an unconstitutional form of legal preference pretending to help minorities advance to an economically equal competitive status with whites. But what the Left refuses to acknowledge is that DEI is also an artificial means of “leveling the playing field” and in this context, the “playing field” can mean things such as the quality of your airline pilot or your neurosurgeon!
• Biden will only debate on CNN with handpicked moderators, Trumps wants Biden to take a drug test before the debates – this will be the first election since Kennedy- Nixon where they’ll be no presidential debates.

Quote of the day: “If you get that gut feeling that something isn’t right about a person or situation, trust it.” – Unknown