Harry Reid and the end of liberal thought

[Ishmael]

Harry Reid and the end of liberal thought

By Dennis Prager

May 23, 2006

The highest-ranking Democrat in America, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, described the Senate bill making English the national language of the American people as "racist." And the New York Times editorial page labeled the bill "xenophobic."

Welcome to the thoughtless world of contemporary liberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality.

One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual -- their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors -- liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm.

This is easy to demonstrate.

Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:

Racist
Sexist
Homophobic
Islamophobic
Imperialist
Bigoted
Intolerant

And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:

Peace
Fairness
Tolerance
The poor
The disenfranchised
The environment

These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways.

First, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person.

Second, these words make it easy to be a liberal -- essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy. That is one reason young people are more likely to be liberal -- they have not had the time or inclination to think issues through, but they know they oppose racism, imperialism and bigotry, and that they are for peace, tolerance and the environment.

Third, they make the liberal feel good about himself -- by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc.

Examples could fill a book.

Harry Reid, as noted above, supplied a classic one. Instead of grappling with the enormously significant question of how to maintain American identity and values with tens of millions of non-Americans coming into America, the Democratic leader and others on the Left simply label attempts to keep English as a unifying language as "racist."

Another classic example of liberal non-thought was the reaction to former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers' mere question about whether the female and male brains were wired differently. Again, instead of grappling with the issue, Harvard and other liberals merely dismissed Summers as "sexist."

A third example is the use of the term "racist" to end debate about race-based affirmative action or even to describe a Capitol police officer who stops a black congresswoman who has no ID badge.

"Phobic" is the current one-word favorite among liberal dismissals of ideological opponents. It combines instant moral dismissal with instant psychological analysis. If you do not support society redefining marriage to include members of the same sex you are "homophobic" -- and further thought is unnecessary. If you articulate a concern about the moral state of Islam today, you are "Islamophobic" -- and again further thought is unnecessary. And if you seek to retain English as America's unifying language, you are not only racist, you are, as the New York Times editorial describes you, "xenophobic" and "Latinophobic," the latest phobia uncovered by the Left.

There is a steep price paid for the liberal one-wording of complex ideas -- the decline of liberal thought. But with more and more Americans graduating college and therefore taught the liberal list of one-word reactions instead of critical thinking, many liberals do not see any pressing need to think through issues. They therefore do not believe they have paid any price at all.

But American society is paying a steep price. Every car that has a bumper sticker declaring "War is not the answer" powerfully testifies to the intellectual decline of the well educated and to the devolution of "liberal thought" into an oxymoron.

When I first read this I thought it might have been a satire having seen the very words used so often by the 'Progressives/Liberals' here on the board. To bad they won't bring dueling back.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Anarchist!

Anti-Christ!

Nazi! Facist!

That list is so incomplete...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Here's the one that pisses me off the most:

Republican = Christian

Democrat = Person of Faith

 

[Ishmael]

Here's the one that pisses me off the most:

Republican = Christian

Democrat = Person of Faith

Good observation bro.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Di nada...

 

[Ishmael]

'Gutter' Spanish bro.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I was in Houston, workin' as a bouncer for the gay bar...

Damned Mexican hits my car; gay cop happens to be right in the parking lot, ahem...

Well the Mexican, of course, no habla'd, until the cop pulled his gun at which time he spoke great English and just happened to have enough cash on him to cover the damages.

Show strength to thugs, and that's all this invasion amounts to.

 

[Ishmael]

I was in Houston, workin' as a bouncer for the gay bar...

Damned Mexican hits my car; gay cop happens to be right in the parking lot, ahem...

Well the Mexican, of course, no habla'd, until the cop pulled his gun at which time he spoke great English and just happened to have enough cash on him to cover the damages.

Show strength to thugs, and that's all this invasion amounts to.

LOL You should see the look on their face when you're standing in line or something and they're yapping away in Spanish saying something derogatory about anglos and you turn around and speak Spanish back to them. Shuts them up, unitl you leave of course.

Ishmael

 

[busybody..]

It's certainly not the first time that Mr. Reid has used stark language in the debate over immigration. "Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits without paying taxes," he said in 1993. "These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world."

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I think times are different. I think you may get it in your face, like Osama, they sense weakness...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

It doesn't matter to Democrats when you hoist their leaders upon their own petards, for they know 90% of the time, they're just saying what needs to be said for that election cycle; they've learned to treat the whole of history in discreet, two-year increments, each having little to do with the one before...

 

[busybody..]

Didya see where the CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE LAW FIRM Milberg Weiss

gave MILLIONS to the Dums?

Including Hideous Rotten ClitBitchtm?

They can no longer scream CULTURE OF CORRUPTION, cause they are gonna have to fight real hard to have the label away from THEMSELVES

 

[Ishmael]

It doesn't matter to Democrats when you hoist their leaders upon their own petards, for they know 90% of the time, they're just saying what needs to be said for that election cycle; they've learned to treat the whole of history in discreet, two-year increments, each having little to do with the one before...

Go to TownHall and read George Wills commentary from this past Sunday. Something else we've discussed over the years.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

I think George and the guy he writes about have properly noted the symptoms and have made a grand mis-diagnosis. There is no such thing as a progressive. There are naive do-gooders, Socialists, Facists, and Communists. Of course they are weak on external enemies, their war is an internal one.

 

[Ishmael]

I think George and the guy he writes about have properly noted the symptoms and have made a grand mis-diagnosis. There is no such thing as a progressive. There are naive do-gooders, Socialists, Facists, and Communists. Of course they are weak on external enemies, their war is an internal one.

True, but it's what the 'Progressives' call themselves. That too will eventually become synonomous will all that's been tried and rejected at least once in the past.

I just wish the Libertarians would get their shit together WRT foriegn policy. They can make a case for their stance on drugs now. They just aren't articulating it well yet. But the foriegn policy stance is frightening.

Ishmael

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

To get the votes, that will have to change. But my purpose is not to put them in power, but to give conservative politicians more power over the moderates in '08...

 

[Ishmael]

To get the votes, that will have to change. But my purpose is not to put them in power, but to give conservative politicians more power over the moderates in '08...

Here's the deal as I see it bro. Illegal immigration is the slavery issue of our time. It's NOT going to go away soon. The house sorta gets it, the senate doesn't have a clue and neither does the prez. The two latter mentioned are counting on our iddy biddy attention spans so let them skate through. And they think some well executed compromise will do the trick. Just as the Senate of the 1850's thought the runaway slave law and the Missourri Compromise would make slavery go away. I don't think they understand there's an anger out in the sticks that is turning into a fury.

The only substantive move they could possibly make to buy themselves some time for rational debate is to slam the borders closed. But they're too beholding to the modern day slave holder (businesses dependent on illegals) and the revenues they represent to take that step.

The time is ripe for the rise of a third party, or a new party. There is also the very real possibility of some serious violence. Interesting times are a coming.

Ishmael

 

[unregistered]

 

[Ishmael]

Shit, I checked in thinking maybe you two had driven a stake through the old bastard's heart.

He's doing a fine job all by himself. Last I heard ole Harrys poll numbers in his home state are lower than Bushs.

Ishmael

 

[zipman]

Reid is pretty much an idiot.


Oh, and here's one more for your list:

Anyone who disagrees with Bush or Republicans = supporting terrorism.

 

[~hellbaby~]

I'm not reading that whole thing, I watched it when it happened and mentioned it in this post. That piece of legislation should have gone through without opposition. It doesn't do shit anyway. It changes no laws in tact, it doesn't get rid of that computer bitch asking you if you want her to speak in English or Spanish. My electric bill still comes in Spanish and my mac machine still doesn't assume I speak English.
I was so pissed when the lot of them kept going on about how unfriendly it is to have a common language. Not an 'official' language, nothing like that. As if not wanting to acknowledge most folks speak English in the US wasn't bad enough they then went on to push that illegals, upon becoming legal, should get back social security money taken from the wages from the job they got illegally with someone elses social security number. No jail, nooooooooo give them the fucking s.s. that we can't even figure out how to fund for the ones who didn't commit felonies to earn it.

 

[Ishmael]

Anyone who disagrees with Bush or Republicans = supporting terrorism.

Usually an assumption on the 'supporters' part.

It seems that our European brethren are just now getting paranoid about the barbarians they've let through the gates. I don't know what the hell they're going to do about it, neither do they apparently. But they do recognize the Muslims for the threat they represent and are taking steps to seal their own borders.

The fact that they're still fearful of a headon confrontation not withstanding, France has already declared that they're going to nuke any Islamic Republic that fucks with them. After all those years of close association it seems they're no closer to understanding the Islamic Fundamentalists mind and motivations than we are.

Hmmmm, new thread material.

Ishmael

 

[unregistered]

 

[zipman]

Usually an assumption on the 'supporters' part.

It seems that our European brethren are just now getting paranoid about the barbarians they've let through the gates. I don't know what the hell they're going to do about it, neither do they apparently. But they do recognize the Muslims for the threat they represent and are taking steps to seal their own borders.

The fact that they're still fearful of a headon confrontation not withstanding, France has already declared that they're going to nuke any Islamic Republic that fucks with them. After all those years of close association it seems they're no closer to understanding the Islamic Fundamentalists mind and motivations than we are.

Hmmmm, new thread material.

Ishmael

Yes, it is an assumption that any rational person realizes is just bullshit whether it is made by Bush's administration to stifle dissent or Bush's supporters to poorly deflect criticism.

And yes, France does have some problems down the road.

 

[Ishmael]

Yes, it is an assumption that any rational person realizes is just bullshit whether it is made by Bush's administration to stifle dissent or Bush's supporters to poorly deflect criticism.

And yes, France does have some problems down the road.

Guess what Zip? In some cases it's well deserved. It's not the dissent, it's the rhetorical forms it takes. When reasoned debate gives way to inflamatory rhetoric those that engage in that rhetoric had better expect to recieve a broadside in return. Crying 'foul' after having first slung the rhetorical mud just makes them look like pansies. Murtha, Reid, Clinton, Dornan, and others have all made more than a few ill advised comments. Their point could have been made in so many different ways rather than falling back on inflammatory and, in some cases, libelous speech forms. All of this without offering anything constructive of their own. None of the above have shown much of any restraint at all and this does have consequences in a world where a word uttered is around the globe in an instant. It's no wonder that the recent speechs from those in the Arab world look like they plagiarized the MoveOn.org web site.

One would think they'd give some consideration to the fact that our enemies are saying the words those in disagreement with the administration want to hear. One can dissent without giving aid and succor to the enemy.

Ishmael