1 As I've noted, I'm so taken with class-analysis as a method of understanding why people think the way they do I'm almost a communist myself -- a strange sort of communist, I guess, but there you go. ____________ You never want to go the full Pol Pot. (back to reading.)

2 Into the smokehouse with the lot of them.

3 Be careful ace,
That Marx dude makes a few good points, that reel you in, but this way be danger!

4 Welcome. _

5 The Marxists always take  great care to kill their 'favorites', first.

6 Journalism....how hard is it to suck the cock of pols?

7 Rand Paul. The spine is strong in this one.

8 Ace.....I love ya, but after spending a year(s) reading your treatises on preference cascades that never came to pass, I don't think I'l buy into this one. Sorry dude.

9 They're aping the attitudes and beliefs of the group they aspire to be part of as a way of gaining a sort of backdoor entry into it- _________________ You're really close to understanding-- "The Tingle!"

10 Ace, As you go through your analyses just remember that the map is not the terrain.

11 I think there is some truth to the uncertainty new members of the middle or upper middle class face.  Like myself.  My parents upper middle class, I passed that.

Most made it on their own and don't want any shit from some liberal who woke up with a trust fund.

They also know how fragile those assets are, so they defend them harder.

Rich kids are less hungry.  I have two, and one is hungry, the other thinks he's little lord Fauntleroy. 

Neither will give up their guns, and both know dad made his shit so they better not lose it.

12 >>>As you go through your analyses just remember that the map is not the terrain. what does that mean, specifically? How is that saying used? Sounds interesting, I want to add it to my working vocabulary, but it's new to me.

13 Making lots of money and becoming famous is hard to do, but saying things like "Rand Paul has no qualifications to speak on foreign policy" is a much easier way to show that he belongs in that company.


Should have called him a chicken hawk.  There's a proud tradition to uphold.

14 But, oh, that magic feeling.  Nowhere to go. 

15 Ace-Time for Brian Eno's "An Ascent."  Please. 

16

>>>a way of gaining a sort of backdoor entry into it-

 

You see right through me, Ace.

17 This is why it was hilarious when unlettered bums started showing up at Occupy encampments, and you couldn't tell them from the enlightened revolutionaries.

18 >>>As you go through your analyses just remember that the map is not the terrain.

I would assume that a map shows you how to get from point A to point B, however it doesn't show you the hills and valleys and muckity muck you will have to go through to get there. 

19 I don't think liberals (AKA Democrats) are that complex.  I divide them up into two major categories with subdivisions.

Socialists who just want to spend other people's money to feel good about themselves helping the "poor".


1. The largest number are stupid idiots who think it will help
2. A smaller portion do it for religious reasons they don't understand.
3. The smallest group think it is just the "right thing to do".


The largest group are the communists

1. Hardcore Marxists who want 50s style Soviet Russia here.
2. Anarcho-communists who want to tear it down first and rebuild then rebuild it as a 50s style Russia
3. Political communists who call it "politics" and refuse to admit they are communists

20 68 percent of the requests Google received from government entities in the U.S. were through subpoenas. These are requests for user-identifying information, issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”), and are the easiest to get because they typically don’t involve judges.

22 percent were through ECPA search warrants. These are, generally speaking, orders issued by judges under ECPA, based on a demonstration of “probable cause” to believe that certain information related to a crime is presently in the place to be searched.

The remaining 10 percent were mostly court orders issued under ECPA by judges or other processes that are difficult to categorize.

21 >>>This is why it was hilarious when unlettered bums started showing up at Occupy encampments, and you couldn't tell them from the enlightened revolutionaries. yup.

22 Ace, I think you would enjoy this book, by former US Senator from CA, GOP.

The map is not the terrain is sort of explained.


http://tinyurl.com/avcrgcv

23

Who needs a map when you've got Tomtom?

24 And the band played on ...

25 Without disagreeing with your analysis of journalists, and I’ve certainly met writers at writers conference who fit your description, I think the explanation for why the middle class members who are newly in the middle class support capitalism is much simpler: they still interact directly with it on a daily basis, and remember that it, and not theories of pie, are what got them into it. They know not only that it works, but that it is the only thing—it’s a natural law, not a theory. Perhaps not consciously, but they know it because they’ve lived it. They recognize that trying to damp down the effects of capitalism over here will only divert the costs (often amplified) over there.

26 Marx gets pretty heavily invested in the labor end of market value, which is a cynical, opportunistic perversion.

New ideas and products and their relative availability best fuel markets which promote individual freedom.

If you allow yourself to get talked into a hopeless outlook, as SCOAMF's barely concealed mantra is want to do, you are ripe for commie harvest.

27 It's only a matter of time until we are required to wear dots on our foreheads, letters on our clothes or tattoos on our arms.

28 Socks. TheyÂ’re whatÂ’s for dinner.

29 Speaking of Communists-- I wonder if Hillary is going to whip out her-- Nikita Khrushev impersonation for The House hearings.

30 Moral vanity is the key attribute of liberalism. It just looks funny these days because of the amorality of the liberal tribe.

31 Another vociferously liberal group: People from small towns and rural areas who want to Make Something of Themselves and distance themselves from their origins, of which they are ashamed. So they overcompensate by being TurboLiberals.

32 :::As I've noted, I'm so taken with class-analysis as a method of understanding why people think the way they do I'm almost a communist myself -- a strange sort of communist, I guess, but there you go.::: Well, that's fine, but if you start saying "the dialectic" in normal conversation, I will find you and punch you in the satchel.

33 Pretty soon, "Wealthy" will be defined as anyone who can pay to feed their family without subsidies from the government. That day is coming, comrades, as it is the end goal of the ruling class.

34 'And the band wore blue suits and the music  played on ...'

35 .....or wont if you're literate

36 James garner has a great line in the film "Barbarians at the Gate" when he plays F Ross Johnson of RJR Nabisco during the leveraged buyout war on it-"Sweetheart the circles I run in they think anything less than 8 figures is foodstamps and if I get this deal I don't just have fuck you money I have fuck the world money!"

Yeah the media they are not even busboys at Davos on their own merits.

They get their based on their way with words with the sheep.

37 In short, scumbags like other scumbags and don't like you pointing and laughing at their scumbagginess.

38 It's not about class at all. It's about tribalism or better yet a supremacist/elitist attitude based not on wealth necessarily but belief systems. There is nothing that should necessarily separate Phil Mickelson from say Warren Buffet, except for the fact that Mickelson had the temerity to speak the truth about being outraged of having to pay 63% in taxes. Buffet and other cronies of the government proclaim they don't need it and so are not attacked, despite the fact that behind the scenes they are doing everything to avoid paying any taxes at all. The left and the wealthy who ascribe to their warped weltanschauung seek to hypocritically maintain and grow their wealth and influence and by embracing socialist tyranny, prevent people from climbing the ladder to economic success and prosperity and to keep them permanently as serfs to the government.

39 in other words they are a cult

40 Fascinating premise, but I think liberal behavior is simply driven by "Daddy" and "Mommy" issues.

Liberals are children who have never grown up.

41 ace, it's not communism you are recognizing, it's cultural signifiers. There are things that identify people as One Of Us, One Of Us. Hell, look at this hive of scum and villany. Guys get shirts and longbows v. crossbows and ewoks and all of that. Understanding the injokes is a cultural signifier that you belong here. Politic stances (note that I do not say beliefs) have become another cultural signifier. Parroting Rand Paul isn't qualified means that you are a star bellied sneetch and thus a Good Person. You don't have to think and struggle and reason, you can glom onto being a Correct Thinking Person Of Moral Superiority by showing that star. Hell, this is the twitter version of having A Brief History Of Time out on the coffee table. It doesn't matter that you can't understand a word of it and haven't even opened the book. What matters is that you look smart. I must say, it is tempting to be on the Left. This struggling with the foundations of my beliefs and dealing with the implications and ramifications thereof and attempting to develop a coherent framework shit is hard. Much easier to paint No H8 on my tits and thus show the world how much better than you I am.

42 The revolutionaries had iPhones and sipped pricy bottled water, the bums had a bottle of Mad Dog in a paper sack.

43 While Ace is a good writer and a philosopher, he has it completely wrong here. The reporters are like hallway monitors who "report" on the misdeeds of others to deflect criticism away from themselves. Journalism is a way for a dishonest person to gain political cover for their social infractions in the same way the leaders of a charity consider themselves above reproach.

44 >>> I think the explanation for why the middle class members who are newly in the middle class support capitalism is much simpler: they still interact directly with it on a daily basis, and remember that it, and not theories of pie, are what got them into it. Indeed, and I did want to say stuff like that, but my main thrust was extracting from this analysis the one thing that I thought was true. As you say, there are many, many better reasons for the middle class to oppose socialism. But obviously these are *rational* reasons, and my purpose here is to explain the irrational or sub-rational, and so rational reasons aren't important to me (for these specific purposes). I could explain that a liberal believes what he believes for perfectly understandable and rational reasons -- and there is some of that at work, certainly. But it's hardly new or interesting to say that someone believes what he believes for transparent, rational reasons.

45

 

You can go ahead and remove doctors, for the most part, from that upper middle class bracket if you are going strictly by income and not intellect.

 

Money is money and class is class.

They don't always go together.

 

 

 

46
Hillary is a more accomplished liar than her squeeze Billy Bob.  They're both serial liars with long histories of obfuscation, perjury, subordination of perjury and booty thumping the help.  

47 And they're off. House hearings.

48 Much easier to paint No H8 on my tits

*focuses camera*

49 35 sans_sheriff,

COMARDES!  Chariman Soetoro cannot feed all of you beluga caviar because THAT Kulak there has a rake of his own and is wrecking our rakes at the collective FARM!.......


//Civillian National Security Force

He's been telling us who he is the whole time.

50 yeah, Cicero, and also why it is meaningful to have Kanye West show up at the Occupy camp bc the proximity to his celebrity makes these fools believe that they are cool just like him and maybe they might be friends one day.

51 Well, that's fine, but if you start saying "the dialectic" in normal conversation, I will find you and punch you in the satchel.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at January 23, 2013 02:01 PM (mOyDx)

Be careful ace, I'm not sure I want to see an "intellectual off" between you an EoJ if this is his opening play.

(By the way, I'm not sure if that makes you a communist or post-modernist in the style of Foucault, who was a Marxist, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to engage Marxism to understand it exactly.  Hagel may be sufficient.)

52 hat does that mean, specifically? How is that saying used? Sounds interesting, I want to add it to my working vocabulary, but it's new to me. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 01:56 PM (LCRYB) _ It's a paradigm from Alfred Korzybski who's a Polish philosopher scientist . The premise is that the description is not the described. Basically, don't confuse the GPS with the road while driving. _

53 @23 !!!!!!!!

That link to book is  spy ware, sorry, don't use it.  It wants to install a search bar, etc. 

Language in Thought in Action, try Amazon.

54 Thus they (and other bitter clingers to the lowest rungs of this would-be New Aristocracy) are the most aggressive about enforcing the Barriers to Entry into the group -- they consider themselves part of the New Aristocracy, but only barely, and because they are only barely, part of the New Aristocracy, they fight especially hard to keep the riff-raff out, and are the most obnoxious about flashing the Tribal Signifiers that identify them as part of the New Aristocracy. Right on. This guy is up in Canada, but defines this well: The CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos hosted the party. But he isn’t in any film. He just wanted to — in his words — party with “cool people.” That’s what he said. More here (the network Breitbart often appeared on): http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/09/30/cbc-canadian-bash-corp

55 Interesting perspective.  I, too, wonder about the inner workings of the liberal mind.

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory

I think it is a roundabout assessment that there are probably more tangible or real world stimuli that results in liberal psychoses, like living in a liberal echo chamber, perhaps, not wanting to work hard and be responsible for one's own destiny, etc.

56 A full 91% of you disapproved of Congress before the election, 94% of the incumbents were re-elected. Forgive me if I call you stupid, you should already know that by now.

57

...the map is not the terrain.

 

This is also like the difference between 'Empirical versus Theoretical'.

 

58

Marx (and all socialists) hate the middle class.  You can see this in Stalin's war against the kulaks.  The middle class must be destroyed in order for socialism to work.

The     middle class thinks mostly for themselves, which is anaethema to socialist totalitarian dogma. 

By the way, don't ever forget that Marx preached the dictatorship OF the proletariat, not the dictatorship BY the proletariat.

59 Excellent Post Ace.

60 Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table. David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya' ' Bout the raising of the wrist. SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY PISSED... John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. Plato, they say, could stick it away; Half a crate of whiskey every day. Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, Hobbes was fond of his dram, And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am" Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

61

Much easier to paint No H8 on my tits and thus show the world how much better than you I am.

 

If you paint No H8 on your tits, you are indeed better than me.

 

As long as there are pics.

62 http://tinyurl.com/astqp8d - Left-Wingers Are a Danger to Society

63 which is to say, in this case, Having a general, all encompassing theory as to how these people have become assholes, don't forget that it's okay to call individuals assholes on an individual basis. Or something.

64

BEAT CRAZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyCjExc72Xw

65

 

If I were a Marxist, I wonder if I would be the kind who knows what is best for everyone not as smart as me and impose it on them

or

a complacent serf, content to have the hard stuff I don't understand removed from my life.

66 BillyJeff working theory had US defense contractors selling fuselage metal working, tool machinery and harddrive blueprints via Loral Corp and Hughes Aircraft to the ChiComs. Benghazi is an extension of the democrat "American jingoism writ small" project.

67 >>>While Ace is a good writer and a philosopher, he has it completely wrong here. The reporters are like hallway monitors who "report" on the misdeeds of others to deflect criticism away from themselves. Journalism is a way for a dishonest person to gain political cover for their social infractions in the same way the leaders of a charity consider themselves above reproach. multiple things can be, and usually are, true at the same time.

68 @65

Remind me, who the fuck is Joe Johnson?

69 Well, that's fine, but if you start saying "the dialectic" in normal conversation, I will find you and punch you in the satchel.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff

Point of Order; I thought we settled on the phrase 'yam bag'.

70 This is alsolike the difference between 'Empirical versus Theoretical'.

Posted by: wheatie at January 23, 2013 02:06 PM (fH4X9)

Towards a Theory of Medical Fallibility by Gorovitz and MacIntyre hits similar themes: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3560992

71 Posts like this are one of the reasons I like AoSHQ so much. 

72 multiple things can be, and usually are, true at the same time.

Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:08 PM (LCRYB)

PUT DOWN THE BONG!

73 But obviously these are *rational* reasons, and my purpose here is to explain the irrational or sub-rational, and so rational reasons aren't important to me (for these specific purposes). ace, is it you, let's say it's you, who notes that the most vociferous union members are the ones who need the union to keep their jobs? Yeah. Same thing.

74 What I don't understand is why prominent people(journalists,actors,etc.) pretend to be so taken with the average everyday democrat. PROUD to be part of such a low-life group of thugs...pretending to be superior, but having to associate with the FSA, etc. I can't believe that people who are so concerned with image care tobe lumped together with the riff-raff that is the democrat base. How they are able to mentally disassociate themselves from the Bama pho bunch. Just don't get it.

75 The illusion of superiority from holding a set of views is a strong one. It crashes badly when the reverse of it- the beliefs of what The Other is like- prove horrendously false. Even when jesting they aren't fully joking around. Like the guest at my wedding who told me I was an unwhackable mole. He was also drunk, but I know why he was saying it. The more Others that don't quite fit, the harder for the illusion to survive. The more stereotypes found, the easier.

76 And thus: It is indeed personal. Personal elevated to the point of religious/cult/spiritual. When I told my FIL that man-made global warming was bunk, he literally, almost had a heart attack and with a foaming, spitting mouth, verbally attacked me, like his life depended on it.

77 :::Making lots of money and becoming famous is hard to do, but saying things like "Rand Paul has no qualifications to speak on foreign policy" is a much easier way to show that he belongs in that company.::: That's a very astute observation. It's signalling. A mating call. Like saying "Bush lied." And it's a way of trying to buy an in to the the Elite on the cheap, because they want to be the ones making the decisions after the purges. They want to set the gruel ration and pass out favors to the worthy. And just like the rank-and-file Bolsheviks did, they'll find their dumb asses on the bread line while the same rich party leaders entrench themselves in the power structure. Liberals really should be put in a pit and fucking burned with kerosene. They're just so stupid, useless and ignorant.

78 Interesting analysis; I tend to think that they have rejected organized religion and filled that void with the worship of their political party.

79 So when you denigrate liberalism, you're knocking the very thing that Elevates them into the Upper Classes. (In their minds, subconsciously.) In. their. minds. See? Liberalism really is a mental disease. And whith most diseases, you either cut it out, or nuke it from orbit until it glows.

80 Much easier to paint No H8 on my tits and thus show the world how much better than you I am.

Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Team Stompy. at January 23, 2013 02:02 PM (VtjlW)

--

Should you choose to give up and go that route, Rule 34 specifies what your   last post contain.

81 >>>ace, it's not communism you are recognizing, it's cultural signifiers. There are things that identify people as One Of Us, One Of Us. Hell, look at this hive of scum and villany. Guys get shirts and longbows v. crossbows and ewoks and all of that. Understanding the injokes is a cultural signifier that you belong here. Politic stances (note that I do not say beliefs) have become another cultural signifier. Parroting Rand Paul isn't qualified means that you are a star bellied sneetch and thus a Good Person. You don't have to think and struggle and reason, you can glom onto being a Correct Thinking Person Of Moral Superiority by showing that star. ... Yes but cultural signifiers are a way to signal your culture (obviously) and when we say "culture" we're talking about class. If you don't like the word class, that's fine, but to me "culture" = "class." Obviously these words being words of abstractions they can be defined multiple ways. I'm talking about culture. I take that as synonymous with class (or at least nearly synonymous and very analogous to class). If you disagree, fine, read in "culture." But personally I don't see the distinction. Class divisions are rooted in culture. "Knowing which spoon to use" and such. Knowing which books one is supposed to say one likes and which one is supposed to say are common trash. And so forth.

82 I lived in an honest to God communist society.
None of these people have the balls to be real communists and wouldn't adhere to the rules because they believe it's for YOUR own good. Not theirs.

83

Ace, incoroporate this into your take:

 

 

Liberals hate the idea of earning wealth, and don't care for people who have earned their wealth the hard way. They also despise those who inherit wealth.

 

 

But they will buy lotto tickets in hopes of getting rich. Acquiring wealth in this way is considered "clean".

84 multiple things can be, and usually are, true at the same time. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:08 PM (LCRYB) SO THATS WHERE MY STASH WENT. I should have tested the ewok hair...

85 >>multiple things can be, and usually are, true at the same time.
Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:08 PM (LCRYB)




.......a common observation from NYC, alternately the city of endless opportunity while at the sametime the world's largest gulag.

86 "And the band played on." Back to the song that I started "Name That Tune" with last night. Well played sir.

87 >>>Interesting analysis; I tend to think that they have rejected organized religion and filled that void with the worship of their political party. that is also true but the same sort of process attaches to that: "I think well of myself because I worship the One True Obama, I'm good because of my membership in the Church of the One True Obama, therefore anyone who attacks the One True Obama is attacking me..."

88

 

In the book I'm reading on Russian history, Marx's daughter and son-in-law commit suicide because they are despondent over the Tsar having given property rights to the people.

Invests more people into middle class/ stable society/ bad for communist revolution.

 

Funny bit is, shortly after they offed themselves, the Tsar dissolved the Duma.

89

 

Liberals have used 'permissiveness' as a basis of their appeal.

 

'If it feels good, do it.'

 

'Don't tell me what to do!'

 

This was done to provide an alternative to the preachiness of the religious right.

 

But now...having won over their useful idiots...they are into their Totalitarian Phase.

The Left has become the same preachy control freaks that they used to rail against.

 

90

>>>Actually there is one group that is even more aggressive about such things-- people who really aren't in the New Aristocracy at all, having neither the income, the fame, nor accomplishments to actually be in that group, but who aspire to be part of it.

>>>This is where you find most of your liberals, actually.


I've clonked trolls over the head with this one frequently. That after they "win" and we do become socialist, and I am made to "see" the "light"* that I would still be over them telling them what to do, because, I actually have accomplishments, experience, skill, and talent, and therefore valuable to the party, while a loser is always a loser. I've yet to have a troll come back with a good retort.


* I know excessive use of scare quotes, bare with me.

91

So when you denigrate liberalism, you're knocking the very thing that Elevates them into the Upper Classes. (In their minds, subconsciously.)

___

For  young  donks,  it's  much  simpler.  They  just  want  to  be with  the   kewl   kidz.  The  reporters,  who  are  New Aristocracy  arrivistes,  set  the  table  for  the  lemmings  who are  following  them  right  over  the  cliff  into  the  abyss.

 

The  media  types  need  to  identify  the  kewl  kidz  and  their causes  celebres in order to gain a following for the New Aristocracy and  keep  the  circle  jerk  going  ad  infinitum.

92 >>>ace, is it you, let's say it's you, who notes that the most vociferous union members are the ones who need the union to keep their jobs? Yeah. Same thing. I do say that!

93 :::19 >>>As you go through your analyses just remember that the map is not the terrain. I would assume that a map shows you how to get from point A to point B, however it doesn't show you the hills and valleys and muckity muck you will have to go through to get there.::: You need to get yourself a Terrain Map, friend.

94

Posted by: tsrblke (work) at January 23, 2013 02:09 PM (W8k4K)

 

You mean...reading a book about surgery is not the same as actually doing some surgery?

*gasp*

 

95

modern journalism is a way to gain "intellectual" credibility with the ruling caste without the work.  See Chelsea Clinton, Maria Shriver, John Kennedy Jr, Caroline Kennedy, Barbara Bush (the younger), Cuomo (the younger), Jackie Kennedy, on and on and on.  Its their Farm Team 

96 I believe human actions and behaviors can be distilled to the simplest essence, and that they have much in common with animal behavior

The Left just wants to be in charge. In power. For no other reason than they think themselves to be the fittest. And they will set about achieving the task by any means necessary.

Look at the African lion. When a male wants to take over a pride, he kills that pride's alpha male, then kills that male's offspring. He replaces those offspring with his own. He has defeated the systems' institutions (the pride's original male leader) delegitamized the accomplishments of that system (killed the offspring) and instituted a suitable replacement legacy (his own offspring). All by brute force. Because it's what lions do.

97 #94 no no one of those maps with the built in bumps.

98 I read a good article a couple years ago - I forget who wrote it and what the title was - that touched on this same idea, that the Democrat journalists/professors/bureaucrats especially dislike entrepreneurs because they can often afford the lifestyles of celebrities and high-ranking politicos and yet don't have the credentials that the journalists/professors/bureaucrats have.  The Democrat upper middle class base (headquartered in NoVa and suburban Maryland) believes that they are more rightly entitled to the upper class lifestyle than some hick from Plano, TX that owns a successful aluminum siding business and is incensed that the hick makes enough money to afford the things that are denied to them. 

99 >>>For young donks, it's much simpler. They just want to be with the kewl kidz. same deal. Exactly the same deal. "I ape the attitudes of those I consider cool and thus I become cool." Well, if cool was just a matter of aping attitudes everyone would be cool, wouldn't they? Wearing the same earrings as the Prettiest Girl at School doesn't make you the Prettiest Girl at School-- and yet, a lot of less-pretty girls will wear the same earrings hoping that this sort of Sympathetic Magic is real. (Sympathetic Magic -- taking a sample of a Thing confers on you the properties of that Thing. Thus, if you want to be sexually potent, you drink a potion which includes part of a Potent Animal, like an elephant tusk or a tiger scrotum.)

100 Guys get shirts and longbows v. crossbows Why would I want an icky longbow?

101
As history has shown, of course, since it is so personal to them and that they so want to see other people remain below them, this is when they start advocating the government to do violence against those people.

Leftism is the root cause of almost all violence in the world.  Even for a caveman group that worked for days to kill the mastodon, there were other groups that just wanted to come take it.

102

>>no no one of those maps with the built in bumps.

 

A relief map.

 

103 "Thus they (and other bitter clingers to the lowest rungs of this would-be New Aristocracy) are the most aggressive about enforcing the Barriers to Entry into the group -- they consider themselves part of the New Aristocracy, but only barely, and because they are only barely, part of the New Aristocracy, they fight especially hard to keep the riff-raff out, and are the most obnoxious about flashing the Tribal Signifiers that identify them as part of the New Aristocracy." This part is right on. Hubby sells cars on the higher end for a living and sees it all the time. A couple comes in and said couple is well-off. The person who either made the money or had it to begin with is usually completely normal, dresses like the average joe, reasonable, etc and so on. The person who did not make the money (married into it in most cases) is the one who comes in dressed to the nines and behaves like an obnoxious ass while sneering superiorly at you. In other words, they put on the airs.

104 93 Ace,

Yes Ace but the fish breathes water because ace the water is what the fish breathes.

While an interesting rhetorical turn is sort of circular.

The fish breathes water because it has a set of organs evolved to that purpose and thus it is the easiest way for the fish to clean its blood and maintain health.

In the same sense unions have devolved into a coalition of people who are allied to freeze out competition for wages in a field and overcharge capitalists for subpar work in many cases.

I can truncate that into "to protect their fucking jobs doing nothing, nothing getting done becomes their protected job." but it does not communicate more than a state of being and chicken and egg observation.

105 Well, that's fine, but if you start saying "the dialectic" in normal conversation, I will find you and punch you in the satchel. Posted by: Empire of Jeff ---------------------- I see what you did there.

106

Posted by: Jones in CO at January 23, 2013 02:15 PM (8sCoq)

 

Yes, liberals practice the antithesis of "live and let live". They are haranguing scolds, demanding that others do for them what they will not do for themselves.

 

"Take away my right to a gun" being a current example. 

107 >>>The person who did not make the money (married into it in most cases) is the one who comes in dressed to the nines and behaves like an obnoxious ass while sneering superiorly at you. In other words, they put on the airs. Guys who are Complete Bad-Asses usually do not have to keep saying "I am a Complete Bad-Ass." Same deal.

108 :::Wearing the same earrings as the Prettiest Girl at School doesn't make you the Prettiest Girl at School-- and yet, a lot of less-pretty girls will wear the same earrings hoping that this sort of Sympathetic Magic is real.::: No? What about a suit made out of her skin?

109

94...You need to get yourself a Terrain Map, friend.

 

Yeah, topo maps are cool.

 

But even topo maps don't tell you where the rock slides have destroyed the trail...or if the river crossing is above flood stages.

Current conditions are always in a state of flux.

 

110 But personally I don't see the distinction. Class divisions are rooted in culture. "Knowing which spoon to use" and such. Knowing which books one is supposed to say one likes and which one is supposed to say are common trash. And so forth. Oh I completely and totally agree. I was just trying to give you an out for saying no no no no I'm not a communist, it's about culture not class. It's social anthropology that I'm performing, not a dialetic critique. It's the same thing, of course, but, you see, it's signaling to the Horde that you aren't a godless Commie. Fuckity mcfuckerson, now I have to hunt up iowahawk's into the red heart piece. So bitter I didn't write it. So. Very. Bitter.

111 Look at the African lion. When a male wants to take over a pride, he kills that pride's alpha male, then kills that male's offspring. He replaces those offspring with his own. He has defeated the systems' institutions (the pride's original male leader) delegitamized the accomplishments of that system (killed the offspring) and instituted a suitable replacement legacy (his own offspring). All by brute force. Because it's what lions do. But what happens when a neutered house cat (lib) takes on a lion (right)?

112 97 Jones in CO,

so we're free to start competing with their fitness directly then?

That is in the end what this must devolve into if current trends keep up.

Time to cut the deal with Hispanics and destroy the left or divorce and bury them with work then.

113

Interesting theory.  Let me offer another plausible but similar theory as to why  it is personal.

 

Liberals  have  no  belief  system in  any  higher  authority.  Their higher  authority is their  ideology.  It  is their  core  belief,  their identity - as you say.

 

Conservatives  tend  to have a  stronger  faith in  God.  No matter what happens,  they  have  faith in  God's  salvation.   Politics is temporal.  Their identity is not tied  to their ideology - in this case a conservative  ideology.  Rather their ideology  flows  from their core belief  of a higher God.

 

These  are  mere  generalizations, but equally plausible  a theory as any other.  Humans  must  believe in  something,  we  get we are sinners,  and we know their  must be  a  salvation.   You can put your faith in God and gain  redemption  through  him.  Or you can put your faith in an ideology  and  gain  your  redemption  through  man.

 

 

114 "And it's a way of trying to buy an in to the the Elite on the cheap, because they want to be the ones making the decisions after the purges. They want to set the gruel ration and pass out favors to the worthy.

And just like the rank-and-file Bolsheviks did, they'll find their dumb asses on the bread line while the same rich party leaders entrench themselves in the power structure.

Liberals really should be put in a pit and fucking burned with kerosene. They're just so stupid, useless and ignorant.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at January 23, 2013 02:11 PM (mOyDx)"

My best guess is that the logic in their heads goes something like this:

"I basically agree with every aspect of the Democratic platform, so if they just included a plank for killing Republicans and redistributing their wealth, I'd be down with that, too. There will be a lot of wealth to redistribute before they do anything I have moral qualms with." The assumption there is that any of that redistributed wealth will go to them and not to the party leaders. At that point, the useful idiot's purpose will have been served.

115

>>Guys who are Complete Bad-Asses usually do not have to keep saying "I am a Complete Bad-Ass."

 

 

This makes me miss 'Someguy'.

116 This is all just theater. No one's going to jail, and no bad guys will be rounded up and shot.

117

 

Is this the part where we come to understand our enemy?

 

 

What's next?

118

I can't speak to the motivations of those, like journalist Terry Moran, who aspire to the New Aristocracy. I've read Whitaker Chambers' autobiography, 'Witness', and what came across was Chambers' fervent belief  in communist ideology (prior to his religious and philosophical transformation) combined with an equally strong desire to belong, to be part of something greater than himself. Maybe on some level he did consider it as access to a New Aristocracy, but he didn't couch it in those terms.

 

Liberalism/Progressivism/Communism/Transnational Socialism promise paradise on earth, uninhibited sexual liberation without consequences, secular redemption, no prospect of judgement or punishment for the faithful, and lots of free shit. All it requires from its followers is slavish, uncritical obedience. It's Sugar Candy Mountain, all rainbows and sunshine, where all the pretty flowers pick themselves. One can see its appeal.

119 For young donks, it's much simpler. They just want to be with the kewl kidz. The reporters, who are New Aristocracy arrivistes, set the table for the lemmings who are following them right over the cliff into the abyss. The media types need to identify the kewl kidz and their causes celebres in order to gain a following for the New Aristocracy and keep the circle jerk going ad infinitum. Posted by: kallisto at January 23, 2013 02:14 PM (jm/9g) for all ages maturity means responsibility repsonsibility means rational thought and common sense f* that, they say Or, as stretch pelosi would say : we can all be artists, now

120 r to paint No H8 on my tits

Now I know why the line was so long at Chik-Fil-A

121 I would assume that a map shows you how to get from point A to point B, however it doesn't show you the hills and valleys and muckity muck you will have to go through to get there. Posted by: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain at January 23, 2013 01:58 PM (bj+Nc) Depends on the map. The ones I use(d) allow you navigate from Point A thru Z without a compass, and especially a GPS. If you're good, you can call all sorts of nasty shrapnel spewing devices to within 20 meters, or so. TACAIR is much more fun, though. Watching nape canisters hit the deck can be erotic. Terrain Association is becoming a lost art.

122 You know, Hillary is some poor bastard's mother in law.

123 regularize is not a word

124 Yes, liberalspractice the antithesis of "live and let live". They are haranguing scolds,demanding that others dofor them what they will not do for themselves. "Take away my right to a gun" being a current example. Try that and see me bitterly clinging to their throat.

125 But even topo maps don't tell you where the rock slides have destroyed the trail...or if the river crossing is above flood stages. Current conditions are always in a state of flux. Posted by: wheatie at January 23, 2013 02:19 PM (fH4X9) Or, where the rattle snake is lying in wait.

126 >>Guys who are Complete Bad-Asses usually do not have to keep saying "I am a Complete Bad-Ass."


>>>This makes me miss 'Someguy'.

Where is our resident professional guitarist ? You know the one with subject mastery from brain surgery to particle physics?

127

 "...they consider themselves part of the New Aristocracy, but only barely, and because they are only barely part of the New Aristocracy, they fight especially hard to keep the riff-raff out,"

Marx had a name for this...the Vanguard of the Proletariat.  Reporters have positioned themselves as the mouthpiece for the New Aristocracy and as such, become the gatekeepers for the new-speak and thereby control the national conversation.

128 okay I have to mute this fossil until she starts taking questions

she's reading scripted lies at the moment- I'll wait til she's lying off the cuff to listen in

129 Friedrich Engels' naked body glistened in the moonlight let in by the window. The breeze was cool, but the lavender-scented petrolatum he had smeared over every inch of his flesh prevented th- Sorry. Wrong thread.

130 no no no, cockhead. It's not personal. Some people are good at plumbing. Other people are good at designing software. But that doesn't mean that those same people are good at analyzing social phenomena. You have no business analyzing social phenomena. Except for comic book movie adaptations. I'm not even sure you understand what your political philosophy as – I'm not sure what you want to "conserve." Mostly, I think you are the kind of person who would undoubtedly murder Jews if you were a German living in Germany through the 1930s. I think there is no doubt about that.

131 dafuq?

132 >>> It's social anthropology that I'm performing, not a dialetic critique. it's social anthropology, yes, but: 1, communism was based in the same ideas (it was a "scientific" view of history, you know) and 2, most people who talk like this -- social anthropologists or whoever -- are in fact communists. I agree with you, obviously, and I'm kidding about being a communist. I think this is a useful method of analysis the right hasn't looked at much but maybe should. I think we ignored it because it seemed communist -- communists always nattered about it -- and We're Not Communists. I think people on the right also don't like Freudian ideas about unconscious motives much. Part of this is having this sort of thing used as a weapon against them; but I find the weapon is useful attacking the other side, too. But, as you say, yes, the actual analysis has no political charge, it's just social anthropology, but communists are the early (and sole) entrants in the field of applying this sort of thinking to politics. I don't know of too many people in this field who aren't pretty communist, though.

133 Try that and see me bitterly clinging to their throat.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 23, 2013 02:23 PM (pz3Br)

 

 

No need to do that unless they do get your guns...

 

d;^)>

134 Terrain Association is becoming a lost art. Posted by: 98ZJUSMC Waiting for the Sun at January 23, 2013 02:22 PM (Vz0Jf) You know, I fervently wish I wasn't one of those people who thinks whichever way I'm facing is North. Though I am told this made me a kick ass companion when hiking, back when I used to go Outside. I was the only person in the group who wouldn't argue about which way we should go.

135 COL Kurtz would have known how to handle the islamist threat

pig after pig, cow after cow, army after army...

136

Where is our resident professional guitarist ? You know the one with subject mastery from brain surgery to particle physics?

 

 

 

He's busy finding more people who won't play with him.

137

This is a fucking beautiful post Ace, beautiful.

 

One more thought.  In addition to having moron journos as the rabid members of defending the commies, one other needs to be thrown in there.  The petit class of middle income folks who have captured their paychecks and economic security.

 

Public sector fucking workers and unions.  They are terrified of the free market.  Which is why they are such rabid democrats.  What we need to do is show the competent public sector workers that competition rewards merit and they will do much much better with free market principles.

 

Than voting and thinking in lockstep with their dullard, fucktard commie sloths who just suck at their job and yet can't be fired.

 

Rand Paul hit it perfectly:

 

WHO THE FUCK HAS BEEN FIRED (AKA ACTUALLY LET GO) FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT FOR THIS CLUSTERFUCK.

 

IS STATE DEPARTMENT MADE OF ZOMBIE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES THAT JUST NEVER FUCKING DIE?

138 seems like poor ergie was stung by this. No, ergie, you're not exceptional, you're not even above average. You're a below-average fool and a c*nt, and bellowing out your communist nuttery doesn't make you part of the Elite whose jocks you sniff at so vigorously.

139 I don't know of too many people in this field who aren't pretty communist, though.

Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:25 PM (LCRYB)

-

I would say that is because those on the left tend to view humans as animals easily manipulated, while those on the right expect humans to express free will.

140 When you feed the Leftist, whether it be financially, culturally, or spiritually through bonds of friendship, you are giving your tacit endorsement for him to continue to attempt to ruin you.

141 134 Ace,

one of the "gifts" of long term PTSD in some cases is the ability to inhabit other people's situation to reverse engineer control of a trauma point.

Be careful using any form of that construct though you stare too long at the moonbat boss the moonbat stares into you.

142 A contour map.

143

ace, it's not communism you are recognizing, it's cultural signifiers.

 

Interestingly enough, I believe that historians doing class/social history these days are looking more at patterns of interactions and values - signifiers - as a metric of class rather than the Marxist-style means of production or income-based analysis.

144 >>>I would say that is because those on the left tend to view humans as animals easily manipulated, while those on the right expect humans to express free will. I hate to say this but: Both are true.

145 142 Truman North,

Yup that is why the answer is now divorce in my eyes.

They have crossed to a point and supported a man so odious to our founding principles I will never again trust them.

146

 

I still think that Steven Crowder was brilliant...in that Halloween video he did, where he 'took the kids candy away and gave it to other kids'.

 

That, is the essence of Communism/Socialism.

 

'We have to take your candy away, and give it to the other kids.'

 

Most of the useful idiots who have bought into the 'Socialism is Cool' meme...won't realize that it's not cool, until their candy is being taken away.

 

147 Ace, rather than trying to re-invent this stuff whole cloth, start with someone who nailed the first time around.

Read The True Believer by Eric Hoffer and then you'll have a point of reference.

148 ....Reporters have positioned themselves as the mouthpiece for the New Aristocracy and as such, become the gatekeepers for the new-speak and thereby control the national conversation.
Posted by: Diogenes at January 23, 2013 02:23 PM

That is exactly right but only a single facet of the usurpation.
Another is their perception that resistance is futile against this Borg so they assimilate thinking there are sides to be on so they will join the winners.
That and they would cheer if you were dragged dead from your home.

149 I think it is called-- cultural anthropology--no?

150

Posted by: hannah arendt

 

Dude, your supposed to lick the window and fuck the couch.

 

Not lick the couch and fuck the window.

151 Wait..shit. They have both cultural and social anthropology? Gawd.

152 If you're on the right and you've witnessed the past 5 years I don't know how you could possibly disagree with the notion that "humans are animal-like and easily manipulated, and respond similarly to the same stimulus as herd animals." Look: At our best, we exhibit free will and are free thinking and are truly, uniquely human in our capabilities and our purview. But we are *RARELY* at our best. N'est pas? So the great bulk of the time we are behaving like the timid, frail omnivorious pack animals we are.

153 basically, your "conservative" utopia would include 24/7 surveillance of every person in the country. No access to abortion or contraception. The deportation of persons who don't have their papers in order. Segregated schools. Segregated transportation. Permissible dueling. Nine-year-old slave laborers in coal mines. And the olds have a duty to die – maybe we can get Bill Gates to build euthanasia centers where the olds can go. Like Edward G Robinson in Soylent Green lying on a gurney, with an overdose of phenobarbital, listening to Vivaldi while watching a 3-D film of deer bounding through an Aspen Grove

154 146 Ace,

Mankind's goodness comes from hard work and discipline to suppress animal instincts Ace in my observation.  The left likes to pretend that community and restraint as they have been graced with by our nation are the natural innate state of man.  They do not comprehend the bigotry involved in that PoV or the danger of taking work for granted.

If the default state of man is order and rainbows why is Mali Mali?

This can't end well in my eyes having a pack of unimind evangelical hedonists on the prowl.

155 who's the nutter @ 132?

156

If it's emotional, it must be personal, and if it's personal, one next wonders what makes it so personal. And what makes it personal is that liberalism is not, for many, about politics, but about identifying themselves -- and their egos -- with Better People whose august company they aspire to join.

 

---

 

I  wish  to expand  on this.   It is not  Better  People  wos august company  they aspire to join.  It  is  they  want  the "salvation"  this  brings  for the  "sins"  the committ  or  the guilt  they  have. 

 

Man   is  born  with a  yearning  to  belong,  a  need  for a  great  purpose.   Man  also  is a guilty  creature,  unique  among  all  animals.  Man  needs  redemption   to   wash this  guilt  away.    This  applies  to all mankind, and  all  religions  in  essence  are   a  response  to this.

 

Personlly,  I  take  comfort  in that.   For  me  that is proof that there is   a  higher power.

 

But  you  can't  get rid of that need simply  be disclaiming a  belief in  God.   Those  yearnings  still  tug  at  man.   Liberal  ideologies  try  to take  their  place.   But  they  fail.  Because   true   salvation  is neve  earned.   Christians  are  comforted  in knowing  they  will be  saved.   They  may worry  about their  families  salvation  as well, but outside that small cohort,  it  doesn't  matter much.   They  are  content.  Being  content  leads to happiness.  Liberals having never  earned  righteous  salvation   keep   seeking it.  They  are never  content.   This is why they are always  angry.  

157 152
I had a Dachshund that would fuck  and lick anything.

158 I hate to say this but: Both are true.

Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:29 PM (LCRYB)

-

Which would explain how democrats are good at winning elections through manipulation, yet their policies fail due to people exercising free will.

159 To put it into religious language: God may have given you free will, but he can't exercise it for you. (A take-off on my new favorite saying: "I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you," something I think I saw here, in a comment, a few weeks ago.)

160 Well done ACE well done. I was just talking about this with a coworker. I couldn't agree more so I sent him the artical, all I can say is very well done and thought out. Thanks for the work.

161

127 But even topo maps don't tell you where the rock slides have destroyed the trail...or if the river crossing is above flood stages.
Current conditions are always in a state of flux.
Posted by: wheatie at January 23, 2013 02:19 PM (fH4X9)

 

Or, where the rattle snake is lying in wait.

 

Posted by: frozenbeach at January 23, 2013 02:23 PM (LpQbZ)

 

-----

 

Yep.

Or, where the bears are.

 

162

You are misnamed.  Hannah Arendt was not statist.  You are.

163 I'm ashamed that my country doesn't produce public officials of higher caliber, character and competence


the fact that the same people float from job to job, from FLOTUS to Senator to SecState, for example, means that it is not about competence, but connections and opportunity

164 >>>I'm not sure what you want to "conserve."
Ignorance of our beliefs is another liberal social norm noted by ace. Apparently he is accurate about some things at least.

>>>I think there is no doubt about that.
Demonizing and Dehumanizing are another liberal social norm noted by ace. So far he is batting a thousand.

I could explain our* political philosophy to you. But you would not care to listen long enough to learn what we are about. So I'll just give you this; Humankinds individuality is not a mistake, and is inseverable from who we are. Our desire to become part of a family, community, or nation is subservient to that basic premise that in our lives our individual will reigns supreme. Any social system applied to humanity must respect first that notion, then build from it, not reject it, and seek to diminish it.

* while I cannot in any way speak for everyone, I think I could do a dang good job hitting the vast majority.

165 "I agree with you, obviously, and I'm kidding about being a communist. I think this is a useful method of analysis the right hasn't looked at much but maybe should. I think we ignored it because it seemed communist -- communists always nattered about it -- and We're Not Communists.

I think people on the right also don't like Freudian ideas about unconscious motives much. Part of this is having this sort of thing used as a weapon against them; but I find the weapon is useful attacking the other side, too.

But, as you say, yes, the actual analysis has no political charge, it's just social anthropology, but communists are the early (and sole) entrants in the field of applying this sort of thinking to politics.

I don't know of too many people in this field who aren't pretty communist, though.

Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:25 PM (LCRYB)"

From a theoretical perspective, one of the downfalls of Communism in the Soviet Bloc was the fact that those who were shut out of power in those societies did analyze the behavior of those who had power in terms of class interests, so it's definitely a method which can go beyond the constraints Marx tried to put on it, by directing toward only one inevitable outcome of the Communist future.

More broadly, the primary problems with Marx are that he had absolutely no understanding of the way in which future technology could undermine his theories and no self-awareness of how the technology current in his day pushed him into making unfounded assumptions.

And, I've always found his claim that, contra philosophers prior to him, the point was "not to interpret the world, but to change it" as the sort of thing someone who really doesn't understand philosophy would say.

166 A take-off on my new favorite saying: "I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you," something I think I saw here, in a comment, a few weeks ago.) __________________ A more sophisticated variant of-- Do you need a puppet show?

167 she's not answering questions- she's just burying the committee in a blizzard of words

168

But we are *RARELY* at our best. N'est pas?

 

 

Holy fuck, I didn't realize I was supposed to wear pants for this topic.   Your Highness.

169 >>>I think it is called-- cultural anthropology--no? ... If you look it up (I did a couple of months ago) you'll find that it's called all sorts of things, the divisions bleed into each other, and Europe has an entirely different nomenclature for this (calling it, I think, "sociology," which has a much different meaning in America). Some make distinctions between anthropology of isolated primitive tribes (social anthropology I think) and anthropology applied to current/modern societies (cultural anthropology). So maybe you're right there. From what I gleaned, though, it's a melange. Personally I found no hard definitions I could seize on.

170 Actually that is three levels of sophistication. The God's will thang would be the highest. Puppet show the lowest.

171 So this Dem Congressman has the answer: the House GOP is to blame for the 4 dead men in Benghazi

172 :::141 I don't know of too many people in this field who aren't pretty communist, though. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:25 PM (LCRYB) - I would say that is because those on the left tend to view humans as animals easily manipulated, while those on the right expect humans to express free will. Posted by: Vashta Nerada at January 23, 2013 02:28 PM (3ETnh)::: The attempt to quantify humans as if they were identical copies and predict their behaviour is part and parcel of the typical sociopathic lack of empathy and complete unawareness of human nature that typifies leftists. They don't understand themselves and they have not a hope in hell of understanding their fellow man. That's why the appeal of "scientific" models of political organization is so strong for them. They don't HAVE to have empathy. If the masses aren't falling in line, they're defective and can e shipped off for re-education or slave labor. It's easy, EASY for this to happen. We have extremely recent examples of the atrocities and excesses of communism. And yet, these fucking sociopaths keep dragging us down the same path.

173 57 A full 91% of you disapproved of Congress before the election, 94% of the incumbents were re-elected. Forgive me if I call you stupid, you should already know that by now. Posted by: Frankenstein Government at January 23, 2013 02:05 PM (GOG1H) It's kinda like lawyers....they suck....except my lawyer, he's great.

174

Spot on. The low info voters, many of them, really don't expect to get invited to pizza night in Lake Como with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but parroting their political stances gives them some self-identification with these celebs.

 

Similarly, when Jon Stewart mocks a conservative, they all laugh. The sad thing is that they laugh not so much because it's funny (it actually sometimes is funny), but because it makes them feel part of the "in" group. And it's always better to be in with the in crowd and mock someone, than to be an outsider who is being laughed at.

175

Jones I salute you.  I cannot watch a shit show where Hillary! throws the blood of dead men, whose lives she wasted, on her political opponents.

176

So, which country ever pulled itself out of bread and circuses death spiral?

 

All the things we think will save us we once had, and here we are.

177

Most Social Anthropologists (or Non-Physical Anthropologists) tend to play with their own doodie. 

To the exclusion of most  everything else.

Really.   Anthropology is Humanities, not Science.

178

basically, your conservative "liberal" utopia would include 24/7 surveillance of every person in the country. No access to abortion or contraception. Forced abortion, infanticide, and broken families. The deportation of persons who don't have their papers in order. Segregated schools. Segregated transportation. Permissible dueling. Nine-year-old slave laborers in coal mines. Unarmed, citizenry preyed upon by state and criminals alike. Nine year old sex-slaves under the guise of "sexual freedom." And the olds have a duty to die – maybe we can get Bill Gates to build euthanasia centers where the olds can go. Like Edward G Robinson in Soylent Green lying on a gurney, with an overdose of phenobarbital, listening to Vivaldi while watching a 3-D film of deer bounding through an Aspen Grove

FIFY

179 171 >>>I think it is called-- cultural anthropology--no? ... If you look it up (I did a couple of months ago) you'll find that it's called all sorts of things, the divisions bleed into each other, and Europe has an entirely different nomenclature for this (calling it, I think, "sociology," which has a much different meaning in America). Some make distinctions between anthropology of isolated primitive tribes (social anthropology I think) and anthropology applied to current/modern societies (cultural anthropology). So maybe you're right there. From what I gleaned, though, it's a melange. Personally I found no hard definitions I could seize on. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:37 PM (LCRYB) ______________________ I always thought cultural anthropology was the study of the structure of a society--and making comparisons of tribal differences--but then I'm dyslexic and haven't always studied in America.

180 178 Invictus,

The United States in 1939-1941

Ponder that for a minute.

Our leaders, our voters, the world as it is now.

Yeah....I'm gonna go farm dirt for a while.

181 But, as you say, yes, the actual analysis has no political charge, it's just social anthropology, but communists are the early (and sole) entrants in the field of applying this sort of thinking to politics. I don't know of too many people in this field who aren't pretty communist, though. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:25 PM (LCRYB) I've never quite understood that, though my pet theory is that it's displacement of value judgments on social groups. When observing a society, you need to be able to step back and report what you see. That is very different indeed from refusing to make value judgments. Being able to set out the social strata and cultural differences that make up various sub-Saharan African groups does not mean you have to be all eh and shrug your shoulders about that pesky stoning of rape victims thing. What is being taught, however, is that it is a higher intellectual achievement to ignore it and shrug your shoulders and who is to say that one culture is better than another. It's a misapplication of objectivity. It is, of course, impossible to do that. Human beings are judgey motherfuckers. Thus, the guilt of doing so gets displaced into ever so smug exhortations to simply all be one comrade and these problems will go away. Like I said, that's just my pet theory and there are holes you can drive a truck through in it but it's my Precious so there.

182 >>>Really. Anthropology is Humanities, not Science. undeniably, it is a bullshitty field, but I don't think it's without value. Before things are truly quantified and measured, we have such bullshitty fields. Alchemy proceeded chemistry, for example. But some fields are simply not nearly mature enough yet to produce a rigorous science. I don't know if human behavior will EVER be so quantifiable. So this is what we have, for now, and possibly for ever.

183 Look: At our best, we exhibit free will and are free thinking and are truly, uniquely human in our capabilities and our purview. But we are *RARELY* at our best. N'est pas? So the great bulk of the time we are behaving like the timid, frail omnivorious pack animals we are. There are three types of animals: Wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs. I am a sheep dog. I don't go looking for trouble, but, fuck with my pack...

184 I mean if we killed all the psychologists and lawyers, sure, but they are in charge and don't want to go quietly. What can you do?

185 154 If you're on the right and you've witnessed the past 5 years I don't know how you could possibly disagree with the notion that "humans are animal-like and easily manipulated, and respond similarly to the same stimulus as herd animals." Look: At our best, we exhibit free will and are free thinking and are truly, uniquely human in our capabilities and our purview. But we are *RARELY* at our best. N'est pas? So the great bulk of the time we are behaving like the timid, frail omnivorious pack animals we are. Posted by: ace at January 23, 2013 02:32 PM (LCRYB) I agree we have tendencies towards both ends. I think that what we are doing is trying to encourage people to embrace the free will and personal responsibility stuff. What the lefties do is encourage people to embrace the more "animal" tendencies and then use that to exploit them for their own purposes, usually power-related. And now that we've got, what at least four generations that have been pushed towards embracing the "animal" instincts it's a lot harder to push back against.

186 >>>Look: At our best, we exhibit free will and are free thinking and are truly, uniquely human in our capabilities and our purview.

Humans can be debased to the point that their individuality devolves into merely seeking selfish self interest. Once in that state, while more complicated than say sheep or cattle humans can be herded. Since liberals reject human individuality they seek to debase it to its most controllable state, this is done by replacing all metaphysical contemplation with hedonism, and to the extent metaphysics is allowed in conversation at all it revolves around only two topics, the moral path for the collective, and the moral imperative for submitting to the collective. No moral quandary exists in the liberal mind beyond submitting to the collective, once that is done, one may satisfy their "individuality" by feeding it's base desire for pleasures without guilt or further thought.

So no not exactly like cattle. You do have to convince humans to give in to their worse selves by promising them moral affirmation while doing so, so long as they are pliant to the group goals. So a bit more complicated than cattle but very doable.

187 186 Invictus,

If the subjugation of tyranny over the minds and hearts of man is at their hands?

You kill all the psychologists and lawyers if that is what it takes.....

188 The rejection of a bullshitty, non-rigorous field of study in an area where no rigorous science is possible leaves only the option of having *no* theoretical take on the field. It's not like there is a scientific understanding of human behavior and we're just ignoring that in favor of the soft fields of psychology and cultural anthropology. Rigorous sciences in those areas do not exist and probably will *never* exist, so our choice here is between *some* analytical framework (and some guesses and some assumptions) or none at all.

189 Yeah....I'm gonna go farm dirt for a while.

Posted by: sven10077 at January 23, 2013 02:41 PM (LRFds)

 

The White Russians fought. The lost.

190 I like this piece. Good job, Ace. So much of human activity comes down to -- we are tribal, hierarchical, status-obsessed apes. We are designed to live in a world with uncertain food supplies (winter, bad hunt, drought, etc). You really want to be high status and closer to the top than the bottom of the hierarchy when there's not enough food for everyone in the tribe. Somebody is gonna die. Somebody is gonna starve. It's important that it's not you and your family. We also are built to live in a world with competing tribes nearby. Other tribes competing, often violently, for that same uncertain food supply.

191

liberalism is not, for many, about politics, but about identifying themselves -- and their egos -- with Better People whose august company they aspire to join.

 

Oh, you're absolutely right.

 

But you're wrong. It's not liberalism, it's the entirety of US politics.

 

If one cannot see where the right (and the center, and the fringe) do the same things, keep in mind lefties are oblivious of their own motives also.

192

>>> I don't think it's without value.

 

It?   no. 

The Cultural Anthropologists, though...they aren't of any value. 

193 189 MikeTheMoose,

No not like cattle just about precisely like chimps.

Go to a simian cage and watch the fun, chimps murder for social standing.

194 If you're on the right and you've witnessed the past 5 years I don't know how you could possibly disagree with the notion that "humans are animal-like and easily manipulated, and respond similarly to the same stimulus as herd animals." I prefer to phrase this in the words of Tommy Lee Jones from the first Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."

195 There are three types of animals: Wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs.
I am a sheep dog.
I don't go looking for trouble, but, fuck with my pack...

 

Posted by: rickb223

 

I've always been a fan of  Gary's  dicks, pussies, and assholes theory.

 

Your's seems to work nicely as well.

196 191 Invictus,

The Finns fought and won.

How hard do you think I will get if I have good men around me?

That in the end is what this all boils down to comrade.

197 "individuality" yeah, you're all so unique. Paraphrasing an old kinks song, aren't you so lucky to have been born in the greatest country of all time? all you are is in-group obsessives with a paranoiac need to win. All you care about is domination. As far as your philosophy is concerned – you really have no philosophy. All you do is elevate the particular to the universal. Your experience becomes the experience of everyone else who has ever lived. You're a knucklehead, in another word. you are the very opposite of "individualist"

198 LET THE MARX FLOW THROUGH YOU

Real Marx-knowing commies, back when there were real Marx-knowing commies, used to rank the "state bourgeoisie"--the "nomenklatura," "new class," etc. (pretty much what we call "professionals")--highest among the enemies of revolution/liberty/etc.

Basically, when the aspirational affiliations of society's loudest voices are with an existing (or an in-waiting) leadership, you get fascism ("capitalism"). Of course in real life communism is fascism, because there's no way around that stuck-at-fascism thing that keeps happening every time the "revolution" starts. But in theory they're different things, and back when Marxists were dissident philosophers, not "professionals," not statists, not apologists, the difference was really important to them.

Imagine.

199 "79 Interesting analysis; I tend to think that they have rejected organized religion and filled that void with the worship of their political party." Yes, aping the USSR and other totalitarian regimes. And the pseudo-religion of Party is barbaric and vicious. They have little of the introspection, self-doubt, or piety that traditional religions have tried to cultivate in their believers. They're the righteous, the enlightened, the ones fit to rule. The rest of us are cast in the role of ignorant, superstitious heretics, to be tolerated only as long as we behave and keep our mouths shut. And with occasional crucifixions to remind us of our proper place, of course.

200
oh hannah, go find your five sisters and get your shine box.

201 @178

  No country which I'm aware of, Invictus--WE shall be the first, as is our right, given WHO we are.

202

There are three types of animals: Wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs. I am a sheep dog. I don't go looking for trouble, but, fuck with my pack...

 

Yes, exactly that. No one (except a couple mass-shooter psychos) thinks of themselves as a wolf, and no one much thinks of themselves a sheep either.

 

Politics is about identity.  About making yourself the sheep dog.

203

 

 

 

I like Ace's posts about the psychology of the nutbag left.

 

He described most of the assholes who post comments on NYT pieces, or Daily Kos, or most emplooyees at the post office.

 

He's spot on. I posted something on FB about North Korea, and an acquaintance was upset about it...now, was she upset because she unconsciously likes the way North Korea was foremd as a Communist haven, but doesn't want anyone to know what happened?

 

Was she just made that I said we (the US) needs to do something about it, and why aren't we doing anything about Africa! She is a hardcore liberal, and is definitely aggressive about it.

 

There is a racial component to the psychology of almost everything liberals do, that is something Ace didn't include. It's there alright.

 

 

204 Identify the wolves and slay them in the name of the sheep.

205 199 hannah ardent,

You are a retard, I lose not a whit of sleep that in raw economic math I am probably in the bottom of the top3d or so income wise in my community.  That would be YOUR occutard militia friend.  "Winning" in our case is the very opposite of what YOU claim it is the 'winning" of the freedom not to give a fuck about bob and Ralph and be content with MY life.  That you can't grasp this in saner times in our history would have made me pity you that you and your media allies are empowering SCOAMF to try to inflict your nihilism at the end of an economic suicide pact makes me hate you.

206 :::194 >>> I don't think it's without value. It? no. The Cultural Anthropologists, though...they aren't of any value. Posted by: garrett at January 23, 2013 02:44 PM (fVcpq)::: The problem arises when students of this bullshit fuck a commie immigrant because she's mad at her daddy and then her scrawny, pinko fuck-trophy grows up to be President. This is not healthy for America.

207 The Cultural Anthropologists, though...they aren't of any value.

Posted by: garrett at January 23, 2013 02:44 PM (fVcpq)

 

Sure they do. They give sciency permission to choose the more animalistic and less civilized route. Of course, a civilized man is rarely more honorable than a barbarian.

208

That's why everyone is always stupid or evil.

 

The stupid, who get tricked, and how to save them from the manipulations of the evil, who are always the other guys.

209 (a bunch of cr*p) Posted by: hannah arendt at January 23, 2013 02:32 PM (C+mto) Careful, sweetums. You're reading from your own agenda again.

210 203 Irongrampa,

I would make the argument the United States sipped at the bread and circuses moonshine and put the bottle down for WW2.

We as rendered as a whole will not, I know you don't like my answer but my oath was to the document not to the flag.

211

There are three types of animals: Wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs.
I am a sheep dog.
I don't go looking for trouble, but, fuck with my pack...

 

I really don't understand why this analogy is so popular - I think that Colonel Gross, unwittingly or not, was basically claiming that the "sheepdogs" are basically sociopaths who happen to be on the right side. Not much difference between a wolf and a dog, except that one happens to be a tamed and the other a wild predator. What I have read of his work indicates that this interpretation is not just a flawed analogy, but really represents the basic thrust of his thinking.

C.S. Lewis was both more skeptical about human nature and more complimentary towards the righteous warrior in his essay "On Chivalry," and I think he was closer to the truth as well.

212

Permissible dueling?

 

Interesting. 

213 No country which I'm aware of, Invictus--WE shall be the first, as is our right, given WHO we are.

Posted by: irongrampa at January 23, 2013 02:48 PM (SAMxH)

 

From your mouth to God's ears. I am not lost to all hope, but I am doubtful.

214 hannah arendt would never trust a state that decided how and where she would be educated, where and how she could work, where and how she cared for her health, and whether she was capable and permitted to defend herself.  You lie

215 Sure they do. They give sciency permission to choose the more animalistic and less civilized route. Of course, a civilized man is rarely more honorable than a barbarian. Posted by: Invictus at January 23, 2013 02:50 PM (OQpzc) ______________ Ya I think we have cultural anthropology to thank for Noble Savage Syndrome which was probably the inspiration for Al Gore's Warming.

216 *there are classes of reporters/journalists, too many in the local news biz try and do have "honest" reporting this piece really is a testament to those with large salaries...

217 Celebrity worship is relationship/status porn. Our brains are built to want to work really hard to make the Big Stud and Top Bitch in the tribe like us. Our brains reward us for seeing naked chicks -- even when it's just porn -- because our brains weren't designed for a world of magazines and internet porn. If you saw a naked chick you were doing something right and the brain turns on the reward centers. Way to go! Keep it up! Same way hunted animals get fooled by fake mating calls. Our brains are also built to try and make the tribal leaders like us. 4,000 years ago, if you heard the Big Stud Chief and his wife discussing their personal life and their kids and their fears .... that meant you were good friends with the top. It meant you were high status. The top of the pyramid had taken you into their confidence. Today when we hear celebs open up about their lives --- our brain reward us. Good job! Keep it up! Our food supply is secure, we are buddies with the Chief! Laughing at Jon Stewart demonize Repubs is like laughing as the Big Chief makes jokes about the tribe across the river are goat-fuckers. If the Big Chief is telling you jokes that can only mean you are personal friends with the Big Chief. Brain rewards that. it's why loneliness hurts so much. Our brain is screaming -- you fucked up! You are an outcast! Go back to the tribe and grovel before winter comes you idiot! Apologize, cry, weep, debase yourself -- do whatever is necessary to be let back in the tribe!

218 you fuckers lost the election. That's all that matters. Grover Norquist had his big chance, now it's over. The rest of everything else is the future, not the day before the New Deal. You are losers.

219 You speak of a Method as if the Method had its own intelligence and its own will. It doesn't. Like any tool -- like a gun -- it can be used for whatever purposes a human being decides to use it.

220 Interesting.

Posted by: SH at January 23, 2013 02:51 PM (gmeXX)

 

Bringing back the code duello would certainly bring back civility. Women will never let us have it, more's the pity.

221

47
Hillary is a more accomplished liar than her squeeze Billy Bob. They're both serial liars with long histories of obfuscation, perjury, subordination of perjury and booty thumping the help.

 

I prefer congenital to accomplished and to serial.

222

They have little of the introspection, self-doubt, or piety that traditional religions have tried to cultivate in their believers.

___

Humility.  Pretty  much  AWOL  in  current  social  climate, wherever  you  look.

223 Ergie, the Enlightened Intellectual, offers us these bon mots: "You are losers." "You're knuckleheads." You are a very low-status person, Ergie, and trolling a site you barely understand doesn't elevate you any.

224 >>>As far as your philosophy is concerned – you really have no philosophy.

Ah yes, tell me how you will remain willfully ignorant of our philosophy by claiming it doesn't exist. You cannot admit it exists because to do so makes it a topic of debate. And no matter what you can't allow the conversation to turn to what we believe. Will you deny that Aristotle's Ethics and Politics do not exist? That Locke never wrote philosophy? That the Federalist never went to print?

Just deny the existence of what you disagree with; the way of the Liberal Open Mind®. BTW, you argue poorly. I could argue your side much better than you are doing.

225 hannah arendt Hitler won his election too.  You don't ike what you see in the mirror.  You seem so angry.  You prove his point.

226 I think that what we are doing is trying to encourage people to embrace the free will and personal responsibility stuff. What the lefties do is encourage people to embrace the more "animal" tendencies and then use that to exploit them for their own purposes, usually power-related. And now that we've got, what at least four generations that have been pushed towards embracing the "animal" instincts it's a lot harder to push back against.

Posted by: Mandy P., lurking lurker who lurks at January 23, 2013 02:42 PM (qFpRI)

--

Plus, the lefties get to hand out my money to sweeten their deal.

227 yeah, you're all so unique. Paraphrasing an old kinks song, aren't you so lucky to have been born in the greatest country of all time? Ooh, ooh, a troll, can I play with it? Hannah seems to have gotten lost on her way to Little Green Shitbags. Charles Fuckface Johnson just pulled the banhammer on Ludwig von Quixote after an epic meltdown by the Mad Quixote. So there's an opening over there. But man am I gonna miss the antics of Luddy. "Billions will die!!!!!11!eleventy!!1!"

228 222 Ace,

A big part of how we got here is the loss of "shame" as a tool in society's quiver.

We have empowered the indulgence of many of man's basest instincts with minimal pain and wonder why people cede so much of their liberty, but if they have never felt that freedom responsible for total gain and loss how can they respect or value it?

The safety net devolving into the serenity hammock is killing our system.

229

185...There are three types of animals: Wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs.
 

I am a sheep dog.
 

I don't go looking for trouble, but, fuck with my pack...

 

I've always liked that sheep dog analogy.

 

I like this one too:

 

There are three types of people...

 

1) People who make mistakes, and never learn from them...thereby dooming themselves to repeat the same mistakes, over and over.

 

2) People who make mistakes, and learn from them...and never make the same mistakes again.

 

3) People who observe the mistakes of others...and avoid ever making those mistakes themselves.

 

I try to be in group No. 3.

Liberals, on the other hand...are in group No. 1, and seek to drag us all into it with them.

 

230 Ace puts up a great take on "how shit is" and then bigfoots his own post.

Ah well, some posts are more for the post than the comments after all.

231
and yet here you are hannah.  here with your misery to talk to us, because you are the loser in life.  so you must try to take down others.  re-read Ace's post and be amazed at his description of you. 

and your shine box?  do you have it?

232 I'm a Chupacabre.

233 I'm pointing and laughing. At you, ace. You're a loser. You said this was the most important election in your lifetime. Then you lost. So go ahead and talk about the foundational kernel of Marxism lying at the heart of cultural anthropology, or whatever. Fuck you.

234 You are losers.

Posted by: hannah arendt at January 23, 2013 02:54 PM (C+mto)

 

Not until we surrender. We are just regrouping.

235

Seriously, you people think the average democrat is evil and trying to destroy the country? Of course, yes, lots of you do.

 

Why is this sort of analysis, apt for the left, never turned on oneself?

236 226 Ace,

It doesn't even know enough to know that our apparent inelegance is most often an affectation.  Many of us can put on our dancing shoes and make fairly deep points.  We just try not to let the joint get too classy.

Crimps the ability to snare hobos and protocol droids.

237

A big part of how we got here is the loss of "shame" as a tool in society's quiver.

----

 

Sven --  how true.   Society   needs  to bring  back  shame.   There  are  many  examples,  but  there  used  to be  some   shame  in having to  be  on  food  stamps.   They were stamps.  Everyone  in  line knew you were on them.  Now they are a credit card.   No  one  knows.  The  shame  aspect is gone.  Just  one of many.

238 Yay we won.  That's all that matters fuck the consequences we got the W.

239 Hannah's off her meds.  And proving his point

240 >>>you fuckers lost the election. That's all that matters.

You are so right. You should be out there celebrating and enjoying your life instead of trolling the insignificant. Oh. I'm sorry, I just assumed you had a life.

241 Get yer AoShq Che-shirts & berets right here! Get 'em before they sell out!

242

Although regrouping doesn't mean we won't hang a general or two.

 

POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES, and shit.

243 Seriously, you people think the average democrat is evil and trying to destroy the country? Of course, yes, lots of you do. No, I think a small number of top level Dems actually are conscious of wanting to do that (Obama I think is included there) and the rest are following along for the reasons Ace covers.

244 Regrouping the White Party? good luck. You need to start making babies. Fast.

245 >>>I'm pointing and laughing. At you, ace. You're a loser. You said this was the most important election in your lifetime. Then you lost. So go ahead and talk about the foundational kernel of Marxism lying at the heart of cultural anthropology, or whatever. Fuck you. drinking already by 1 pm? I retract my previous claim -- surely you are a member of the Elite, just as you always believed. You're a special little snowflake and if other people don't see that well then they're not good friends!!!!

246 Hannah Arendt is race obsessed and doesn't like what she/he sees in the mirror

247 238 Entropy,

They are evil, they colluded with and dreamed of joining the perpetrators of a system that murdered 100 or more million people because they are vain enough to think "we'll get it right this time."

I spare myself the introspection with as wary eyes because frankly I have never yet denied a political opponent their liberty to be idiots nor have I ever attempted to have my political operatives nibble at the apple of the Bill of Rights to undermine their liberty I disdain.

I know it is complicated for a great libertarian idealist who does acrobatics to draw false moral equivalency to justify being in the cool Pothead Doper caucus and all, but if we were half as demonic as the left paints us or they aspire to be we would have nailed them to barns by now.

248 Seriously, you people think the average democrat is evil and trying to destroy the country? Of course, yes, lots of you do.

I think alot of them think this is the JFK party and don't even know what it really is anymore.  So ignorance isn't evil.  Okay awesome.

That makes everything better big E.

249 C.S. Lewis - On Chivalry Thanks Grey Fox. I'll look for that one. I wonder if there is a book of his essays. Headed to the library so I'll ask.

250 246 Ian S,

I think about 30% are in on the gag and given Bill Ayers being a cherished guest of an education group this week I may knock it up to 35%.

I was a lot more generous 4 years ago.

They do not have nice intentions for our beliefs and will only let us exist unmolested if we cede them.

251 Wow, Entropy noticed that a theory that applies to all of human behavior can in fact be applied to all sorts of humans, including us! Wow, he's some kind of sharp-thinker! What an iconoclast! How daring in his mindthoughts! Obviously, Entropy. I know you too are a Special Little Snowflake who thinks he's just so damn contrarian with his Big Daring Thoughts but fucking OBVIOUSLY, dude.

252 I  didn't  lose  any  election.   The guy  I  supported  only  because  he won the  GOP nomination and my  only  other realistic  offering  was  Obama lost.   The  guy  I really wanted to  win -  in  fact  won -  Ted Cruz.  I'm  happy  he won.  But  I   don't  find  personal  worth  in the fact that he won.   I  also  don't  denigrate and name  call those who supported  Dewhurst or the Dem candidate.   Enjoy  the moment.  The guy you supported won.  I'd be happy  too.   But  find  some  personal  identity  in something  other than  your  own  inflated  sense of  self.  You  will be happier in the long run.   I  wish you luck.

253

 Posted by: hannah arendt at January 23, 2013 02:58 PM (C+mto)

 

 

I am reminded of that line in 'Search for Red October'...

 

"You arrogant asshole. You've killed us all!"

 

 

254 Regrouping the White Party? good luck. You need to start making babies. Fast.

Posted by: hannah arendt at January 23, 2013 03:01 PM (C+mto)

 

We are just trying to make it fair. Dominating the world became no challenge at all for a while. Can you point at a valid challenger?

255 Everyone put on your Listening Eyes (yes I meant to do that) -- Entropy's here again to tell us all what's what!!!!

256 You've killed us all!"

But they got the win which is what's important.

257 we think the average liberal is always a statist, invested in the power of a controlling regime and assuming they will get to hold the reins of that power, for "the peoples good"

258 "But you're wrong. It's not liberalism, it's the entirety of US politics." Well, if it's all of US politics then it's all politics, everywhere. But I think you're wrong about that. As a group, conservatives and moderates tend to be far more pragmatic about how their personal beliefs translate into public policy. Nobody's perfect, but curiosity and cynicism are rewarded, which means at some point reality will be acknowledged and policies will be re-examined. Liberals, OTOH, practice a studied ignorance. They generally avoid learning things that would contradict what they think they know, even if it means their plans always end in disaster. A lifetime of shrieking cognitive dissonance is the penance the faithful must endure for Bravely Doing The Right Thing. I'm generalizing, but I think my generalization is more accurate than yours.

259 I'm so late I missed the erg beatdown. Dammit. I knew once I saw the headline this post would summon the faux red poseur like a dog to vomit. Oh gainful employment, how I curse thee!

260 258 Ace,

Entopy was on quite the tear defending the mutant army of anti-semites cropping up at ZH's commentariat.

I think he exists simply to point and say "both sides are bad! both sides are bad!"

261 It's, like, you all complain about how people are selfish. Ever think, for even a second, that maybe you're selfish? Huh?! Everybody's such a phony.

262 "252C.S. Lewis - On Chivalry

Thanks Grey Fox. I'll look for that one. I wonder if there is a book of his essays. Headed to the library so I'll ask.

Posted by: teej at January 23, 2013 03:03 PM (IyoLR)"

 

 

It is called Present Concerns

http://tinyurl.com/b82p6sr

263 Everybody's such a phony.

lol

264 Entropy is a very mediocre thinker who's confused himself for someone interesting. His metier is a constant Better Than Thou trolling. And he's not. He's got a very mundane mind which is locked into its wooby comfort zone of topics and observations.

265 better link:  http://tinyurl.com/b82p6sr  dang formatting

266 I think he exists simply to point and say "both sides are bad! both sides are bad!"

Posted by: sven10077 at January 23, 2013 03:07 PM (LRFds)

 

Until they banned me, I used to raise hell there as Rodent Friekorps. It drove them batty when I pointed out that if Jews ran the world, considering how few of them they are, maybe they really are the master race. The norks and iranians lost their minds.

267 >>>It's, like, you all complain about how people are selfish. Ever think, for even a second, that maybe you're selfish? Huh?! >>>Everybody's such a phony. >>>-- Entropy Caulfield Very close to an actual LOL. Perfect.

268 @GalosGann  -  read  my  posts  from  above.   You  say it is everywhere.   And indeed it is.  It is hardwired  into being human.   There  is  a  basic  difference  in  liberals and conservatives  and it  basically  boils  down to where each  group  puts  its faith, and where each  group  finds its salvation.  But the underlying  yearning  is the  same.   When you find the Truth, you find contentment -  which is basically  happiness.   For the rest,  they  are stuck  in  longing,  they are lonely,  they are not  content, and they are not happy.

269 Rothbard is a jealous god.

270

Sven, how does one contort oneself into believing cutting PBS will balance the budget? Not saying you do - how does anyone? How did anyone, for the last decade?

 

If the democrats are evil and poised to eat the public writ large, what does that make you? The sheepdog. That's how everyone angles themselves. Everyone sees a world where they are the sheepdog, fighting wolves.

 

How is it we've allowed a class based society to creep up on us, telling ourselves we had a classless meritocracy?

 

How do we get sucked into this BigBird and Binders politics? We are half the equation, it's too easy and gratifying to suggest we had no part in creating this.

 

We all, left, right, center, or fringe, make US politics about our own vision of our own identity. Look at our debates. It's not about managing the bean tills. It is about validating who we are and how we see ourselves.

271 I saw that french word there

272 Jew hatred is the Rome of mental illness. All roads in CrazyTown lead to it.

273 Entropy Caulfield's latest observation: Things are bad and should be better. Indeed, *we* should be better.

274 Sven, how does one contort oneself into believing cutting PBS will balance the budget?

Because if you can't cut PBS, you can't cut anything.

275 Ace  -  completely  unrelated.   But are you a fan of  the  show  "Happy Endings?"

276

261...Liberals, OTOH, practice a studied ignorance. They generally avoid learning things that would contradict what they think they know, even if it means their plans always end in disaster.

 

Exactly.

Because then, they would have to admit that what they think they do know...is wrong.

 

Little kids who get lured into the black limo with candy...don't realize that they've been duped...until the pain starts.

 

277

His metier is a constant Better Than Thou trolling.

I don't exclude myself. I don't think I'm any better.

And he's not. He's got a very mundane mind which is locked into its wooby comfort zone of topics and observations.

 

Who's isn't?

I'll tell you this much though, people get pissy when you challenge their self conception.

278 Hey, I made Ace (almost) laugh. My work here is done.

279 269 invictus,

Once upon a time in saner days when we grasped people conspiring to kill you having WMD or wanting it might be bad some of us LGF hands used to take great glee mocking some freeper cases on "have you got your Zionist paycheck?"

I used to sign those forays as: Sven Iot37thC

Initiate of the 37th Circle.

Basically our ceding the academy is coming back to destroy us in spades.

If the right does not start fighting like hell at the state and local level for school choice we're fucked.

280 When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go.

281 We all, left, right, center, or fringe, make US politics about our own vision of our own identity. Look at our debates. It's not about managing the bean tills. It is about validating who we are and how we see ourselves.

Posted by: Entropy at January 23, 2013 03:11 PM (TULs6)

 

Central banks, fiat currency, cronyism and general human shitiness will win in the end. You can't hold back the tide. All you can do is prepare. QED.

 

We can whine about  a riptide, but fighting it, you'll only drown tired.

282 So, how do we fight it? We mock the aristocracy constantly, but it doesn't seem to help.

283 I don't think he's getting the Caulfield reference. That's ok, Entropy, not everybody is cut out for AP English.

284 AmishDude nailed it in one. PBS should be a no-brainer as something the government doesn't need to do, given that Sesame Street is quite profitable and commercial enterprises are quite willing to air things like The Tactical Folder Channel.

285 Jew hatred is the Rome of mental illness.
All roads in CrazyTown lead to it.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at January 23, 2013 03:12 PM (ZPrif)

 

Most european pogroms just happened to happen when it was time for the prince to pay back his loans. Not surprising at all really.

286
where's hannah?, she missed a spot on my shoes.

287 277 Amish Dude,

Precisely, because if Big Bird an IP that let's grant the idiot left their folly and pretend he is *real* cannot support himself on tens of millions then our society is fucked.

PBS simultaneously brags it is "95% supported by private funds" and then goes Jihad when we tell the Bird to pay his own bus fare.

Entropy make no mistake I am not arguing that the electorate did not grant you your wish and protect big bird, but don't expect me not to ponder if in fact given the democrats mad dash to vote America a new electorte vis a vis the illegals who are no more qualified to grasp our system as intended than I am piloting a starcruiser that some may decide perhaps to vote themselves a new nation adhering to our enumerated system.

Victory by rewarding the educator's preference cascade considering their raging failure as a profession beggars my mind.

288 Isn't it also personal for the conservatives?  I don't know about everybody else, but I take it pretty damn personal.  I would say I'm 100% logic when it comes to debating the issue, but I'm pretty passionate about the after-effects.  It boils down to enslavement.  I take being enslaved and watching my kids be enslaved very very personal.  I see this as being one of the big problems with our Reps like Boehner, they don't take it personal...  their retirement and their kids retirement and their grandkids retirement is already setup, so who gives a damn.  In fact, maybe they even need a few more years so they can finish filling up that trust fund, big motivation to compromise and sell the rest of us out.  Service on Congress should not be something anyone can profit from.  It should be true service, like the military.

289 >>>I don't exclude myself. I don't think I'm any better. yes you do, Holden. You came in here to tell us you've realized something about the human condition that all of us have overlooked -- that people are phonies, and sometimes people say they're good but really aren't good.

290

>>Entropy Caufield?

 

I think you mean Holden Cock.

291 I don't know about you but I am a card carrying member of the lumpenproletariat. I am lost to socially useful production, and therefore of no use in revolutionary struggle or an actual impediment to the realization of TFG's classless society.

292 273 Enropy,

Who in the fuck ever told you we were a classless meritocracy, and what scholarship led you to believe it?

Don't cloak your submission to the darker angels of envy to some failure of our system.

Freedom is not a guarantee of success, and nothing should be so big it "cannot fail."

Your kind shackled the engine of pour prosperity and then wonder why the goose died rather than kept laying golden eggs.

Crack a history book written before 1973.

293 296 Stevo,

Try to get into the "carries a gun" career field....it's a good place to hide.

294 Here's a hint Entropy. If you weren't one of the smarter kids in high school, you probably aren't one of the insightful planetary elite as an adult. Kinda like, if you couldn't make the high school football team, you probably don't have any special insight that Tom Brady needs to hear.

295

No, I don't know who Caufield is.

 

You came in here to tell us you've realized something about the human condition that all of us have overlooked -- that people are phonies, and sometimes people say they're good but really aren't good.

They are.

 

How does that make me any different? I'm stuck in the same boat.

296 293 Andrew,

Yes it is, but we are largely ashamed to let ourselves go personal as fuel.  When I get rabid I am shunned by some regulars here, people I greatly enjoy the postings of and respect as minds because we *are supposed to be better* and we do in fact police our ranks more than our opponents.  My fear is not enough of us will shift into survival mode quickly enough when the time comes to have a chance to staunch the wounds and fight.

297 sshhh.  He's rolling.  do go on.  tell us everything

298

Here's a hint Entropy. If you weren't one of the smarter kids in high school, you probably aren't one of the insightful planetary elite as an adult.

 

Amazing, I don't know. It makes me think maybe I was on to something, to get a response like this.

 

I mean, where does all that come from?

 

I don't think I'm remotely anything to do with the 'insightful planetary elite'. I'm an average low-middle class shmuck.

 

I was the smartest asshole in the whole highschool, though.

299 Sven,

I can calculate trajectories.

300 look up Holden Caufield on wiki.  Then get embarrassed, Holden

301 >>>Entropy is a very mediocre thinker who's confused himself for someone interesting.

>>>His metier is a constant Better Than Thou trolling.

>>>And he's not. He's got a very mundane mind which is locked into its wooby comfort zone of topics and observations.

Yowch! That stung from here.

302 asshole..,probably

303 If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.

304 304 Stevo,

Great, no fooling they value ability to a degree so stay really really drunk and never get a single penny more apprent than your neighbor and pray you don't get purged.

Party like it's 1917!

305 Here is my take from a Christian perspective. People want to feel righteous. That was true back in Jesus' day with the Pharisees, it's true with Muslims and their beliefs, it's true among people who practice various rites and passages today. The desire to feel that you are a good and righteous person is a universal human need. But the fact is, all of us have sin and therefore shame. Christianity, if properly followed, allows a healthy way to overcome that shame through faith in God and living a good life. Liberalism, (or Marxism, collectivism, whatever you want to call it), offers a shortcut to overcoming shame with a perversion of the Judeo-Christian ethic. People like that shortcut. They want to believe in it. Facing their own insignificance and and their own failure to live up to their potential is too painful, by believing in liberalism you temporarily cauterize that wound. The fact that other people believe in liberalism, such as celebrities and so-called smart people like professors, simply gives people the cover or the support they need to believe something that deep down they know is a lie, or at least they are unwilling to find out if it's a lie or not. If a lot of people believe in the lie, and I want to believe in the lie because it makes me feel good and righteous, then I will believe the lie too. Everybody is doing it so it must be right. This explains why they hate conservatives so much. We expose their own lies to them. They are trying so desperately to cover up their own naked shame, and we keep pulling the fig leaf off of them.

306 >>>Who in the fuck ever told you we were a classless meritocracy, and what scholarship led you to believe it? Why I've got the book right here -- it's by Dr. Phonius P. Phony, Ph.D.. HEY...! Wait a minute...!

307 303 Entropy,

Your school must have produced some stars for you not to know who Holden Caufield is then.  Essentially our Eng Lit honors teacher would assign that when our indulgent ego as a class reached critical mass, or he would suggest it as reading prior to that point to us individually when we showed we were arrogant assholes.  I got the nod at 13 days in I was #5.

308 Perhaps that is the secret weapon. Mankind has an innate desire* to believe that he as an individual is a good person that is constantly at war with his base nature which would make him a bad person through selfish hedonism. Liberals offer him an out where he can be a "good" person by merely signing on to their agenda-of-stuff-he-doesn't-give-a-shit-about, and then be free from moral conflict to pursue his base nature guilt free.


*Not ALL people clearly, but an overwhelming majority.

309 Ever notice that men and women are different? People are all, like, men and women are the same and I'm, like, nuh-uh. Like, ever notice how women loooove shoppin'? They always be shoppin'. What's up with that? Or, ever notice that women be judgin' each other? They all nice and fake at work, but after work they be all -- Susan is such a lyin-ass bitch! Bitches be judgmental. Everybody thinks girls be all nice and sweet. But I'm tellin' you. Yo sweet girl be some fake, mean-ass bitch! Don't hate me cause I got the guts to say it.

310 Yeah that has... nothing to do with anything I said.

311 311 Holden Entropy,

Sincerely.  Yes the American system strives to reward ability and yes we as a nation have tried to equalize the starting point of the race but the idea there are guarantees?

Anyway it never ceases to amaze me the things I find out when a coffee house libertarian explains the failure of America to live up to its contract and the topics invariably stray to shit that has nothing to do with the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

Nice post.

312 Oh, there you go bringing class into it again, Ace!

313

If you find a spare minute, read W.J. Cash's Mind of the South, written originally in 1928 and turned into book form in 1940 (published in 1941).  It will reinforce your analysis above; Cash made the point that the most violently racist Southerners in the first 1/2 of the 20th Century were poor whites, who wanted somebody - anybody - to look down on.  HOWEVER, Cash himself was just like the reporters you describe; never financially successful and prone to thinking himself as a "big thinker," all while living at home with his parents. So you have analysis backing up your analysis that was written by someone who probably needed to be analyzed. So take his analysis with a grain of salt, but it's still an interesting, if slightly dated, view of why people do what they do.

 

I've also thought the same thing about thug/rap culture - and the accompanying  demand for respect. Those with very little demand respect - and punish disrepect - from those with even less.  Apparently respect being all they have (money, career, family, and such other measures of success all having gone missing from the equation).

314 Holden Caufield? Sounds like someone who needs a good ass kicking.

315 Anyway it never ceases to amaze me the things I find out when a coffee house libertarian explains the failure of America to live up to its contract and the topics invariably stray to shit that has nothing to do with the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

Nice post.

Posted by: sven10077 at January 23, 2013 03:35 PM (LRFds)

 

 

------------------------------------------------

 

 

Every liberatarian I've ever talked  has said  the same thing:  I want to smoke some pot, man.  I mean, why can't they legalize pot?

316 Well there you go. Obviously I am of the evil libertarian camp. Which you are not. Whoopee.

317 Entropy, you are Holden Caulfied, constantly whining and complaining, whining about others being phony all the while being a huge phony.  Do you see it?

318 313 "Perhaps that is the secret weapon. Mankind has an innate desire* to believe that he as an individual is a good person that is constantly at war with his base nature which would make him a bad person through selfish hedonism. Liberals offer him an out where he can be a "good" person by merely signing on to their agenda-of-stuff-he-doesn't-give-a-shit-about, and then be free from moral conflict to pursue his base nature guilt free." That's exactly what I was trying to say.

319

310....But the fact is, all of us have sin and therefore shame.

 

The problem is...that the Left has lured people in with their philosophy that, "There is no such thing as sin".

So they have no shame.

 

At least not in the same sense of 'shame' that you think of it.

 

The Left has successfully rotted our culture, that that things such as Lying, Cheating, Stealing, Promiscuous Behavior, etc...are all considered 'cool'.

 

People now pride themselves in how good they are at these things.

Even 'evil' is celebrated.

 

The only thing that would 'shame' them...is if they weren't good enough at these things.

 

 

320 Bitches be judgmental. Everybody thinks girls be all nice and sweet. But I'm tellin' you. Yo sweet girl be some fake, mean-ass bitch!

Don't hate me cause I got the guts to say it.

Posted by: Entropy Rock at January 23, 2013 03:33 PM (ZPrif)

 

Yeah, just come home after 4am smelling like perfume and with glitter all over your pants and they go full crazy judgemental. It wasn't my fault the stripper sucked down a lime slice and I had to giver the heimlich and she forced me down and performed unnatural acts is payback for saving her life.

 

I'm the victim here.

321 310 Stephie,

as a fellow Christian of a sort there is I suspect a lot to your post....

Never forget that Marxism shares along with that other bastardization of some aspects of Christianity Islam a sincere desire to use base human desires to control masses towards political purpose.

Were its idiot adherents content to simply try to live by Marx's economic blathering and not act like entitled butchers of human beings I could tolerate it because it is doomed to failure.

Marx hated a few things but Jews and The wealthy most of all because he was convinced by his faith that he was a supreme intellect and that such a mind must understand human nature and understanding human nature with the best mind any just system would reward HIM.

Codified envy cloaked as malignant predatory altruism.

"Communism"

322

Entropy, you are Holden Caulfied, constantly whining and complaining, whining about others being phony all the while being a huge phony. Do you see it?

 

Honestly? Yes.

 

But you apparently don't.

323 ooohhhhh burn

324 I submit that those at the top a more defensive. Snobbery is the tip of the iceberg.

325 That's exactly what I was trying to say.

Posted by: stephie at January 23, 2013 03:40 PM (xG0vx)

 

And why psychologists are evil.

326 320 Soona,

That too, the best minds amongst them are in fact in some ways the purest members of our national population on liberty.  The thing is they have more faith than saints have in Christ that anarchy is a sound plan for order.  I looked to the south to Juarez and knew better.

327

It's not supposed to be a burn.

 

Evidently I put a bug up your butt but that doesn't make half the wild assumptions people leap to true.

328 Girls say they want a "nice" guy. But then they give the asshole football jocks blowjobs under the bleachers. They pretend to be all nice and sweet, but they're not. They're liars. Even the ones that aren't that pretty.

329 318 the other coyote,

If you ever have the ability to speak to an African American soldier in a way that makes them comfortable who has family going back to that period you will find that what held progress in check was the buckra, people whose only claim to power was power over the chattel.

In the system they are crafting the people safeguarding the subjugation are the media elite because they know their only claim to power is the presence of the chattel.

the cycle spins and spins and spins.......

330 so i go out to cut the tomatoes and basil for bruschetta and  we are kicking  one of our own?

331

I'm also not angry.

 

Probably because the trolling has been ridiculous. You have to come at least close to how I percieve myself to insult me.

332

whatever internet tough guy.  I am now gonna deprive you of the attention you crave

333

Internet tough guy? LOL. OK. C-ya.

 

I'm sorry I threatened to kick your ass, btw.

334 i Am angry the tomatoes are rather hard and i know they won't make the best of the bruschetta. but at least the knife  did its task and didn't snip off one of my  clumsy fingers.

335 so i go out to cut the tomatoes and basil for bruschetta and we are kicking one of our own?

Posted by: ette at January 23, 2013 03:47 PM (nqBYe)

 

Ever witnessed sharks when one of them gets cut?

336 fine, back to cooking.  maybe i'll catch up to what went wrong later.

337 Invictus,  yes gruesome .

bl

338 336 entropy,

You have a method, I took great pains yesterday to not be confrontational to you when you implied I was engaged in behavior equal to CJ's despite the factors I listed.  You have a history with Ace trying to correct him on "errors in seeing our won side's flaws" I am not speaking for Ace just observing.  There is perhaps a pattern of you being at best a scold and at worst proto moby for an agenda.

I enjoy your posts when it is not time for the horde to self-flagellate over the poor, poor left.

If you have not noticed the left are not exactly at a disadvantage AT ALL politically these days, would not your time perhaps be better invested in scolding Chuck Todd as I tried?

339 Read an essay by Eric Hoffer called 'Intellectuals and Society'.
Its published in a slim, but meaty and wonderfully readable book 'The Ordeal of Change'. I'm pretty sure its out of print, but not that hard to come by.

340 339 ette,

ette that reads a lot like a French literary description of their gallows humor on mundane tasks Harry Turtledove tried to capture for the Quebecois farmer in "great War The American Front" and was a charming twist of phrase.

341 324 "The problem is...that the Left has lured people in with their philosophy that, "There is no such thing as sin". So they have no shame. At least not in the same sense of 'shame' that you think of it. The Left has successfully rotted our culture, that that things such as Lying, Cheating, Stealing, Promiscuous Behavior, etc...are all considered 'cool'. People now pride themselves in how good they are at these things. Even 'evil' is celebrated. The only thing that would 'shame' them...is if they weren't good enough at these things." I agree that there is no "shame" left in our culture. The shame I am referring to is a much deeper in the soul shame. A nagging feeling that something isn't quite right, and therefore I will feel better if I promote the fight against global warming, or if I vote Democrat because I "care" about the poor. I also agree with Sven that the left uses the base emotion of envy quite effectively in its arsenal. To sum up, I think the left uses our base human nature to stir up hatred and envy. Then it encourages people to abandon any pretense of decency and give in to all carnal desires, with the promise that this can be had with no negative consequences whatsoever. You can do all this with no shame, as long as you pay homage to their gods. Then the left has to lie like the dickens and make their subjects blame everything on conservatives to keep the pretense going.

342

Entropy is not stupid or even mediocre. He is smart as Hell.

 

What he is is an asshole. Look up asshole, it says See: Entropy.

 

I know. He knows it. He knows I know it. Hiya, Asshole!

343

Sven, 

 

Yesterday you set me off. I wasn't nice to you about it, but that's one of those things. Around here, one of the narratives, Luap Nor, anitisemitism. Everybody who actually wants to cut spending ends up being racist somehow. You hit my button.

 

 It's not that the left is poor, poor. Maybe more that they're irrelevant. They don't know what the hell they're doing. They animated by the same bullshit we are. A lot of them really, really, really, really think we want to rape everyone. So they see themselves the same way we see ourselves. They're protecting the sheep from the wolves. They are no less sincere in their beliefs than you are in yours. And yet neither is a monstrous wolf trying to eat everyone. 

 

It's not that I have sympathy for the left. But I'm not about to blaim everything on them. They aren't that influential. 

 

You made a comment up above, about me and 'my kind' fucking up the country or something. If I got a kind, it's liable to be you, believe it or not. I don't think we are terribly terribly different. 

 

But I wish I was the smartest asshole ever born, because then at least I wouldn't struggle to say what I want to say. I am pushing the limits of my vocabulary with the idea I wish I could put down. I think it is more psychological, and I am just not good with that.  

 

I can point you to this: tinyurl.com/art2jj3

 

The post, and also the whole blog I found very interesting. It's a psychologist who specializes in narcissism. His thesis seems to be that whole country is systemically narcissistic. That post, not very sympathetic to the hipsters, does put them in a proper context I think. Check it out if you want to. Or don't.

344

Case in point (although I know no one certainly wants to hear it)

 

Then the left has to lie like the dickens and make their subjects blame everything on conservatives to keep the pretense going.

 

Because you would totally be voting for Boehner and McConnel right now, if not for the evil left. No one would bother to keep the Republican pretense going, were it not for the threat of the democrats, who are morally evil.

 

Leftists hate democrat politicians. They're corrupt, they lie, they cheat, their promises are empty. So why keep voting for them? They have to, because republicans are evil. They really believe that.

 

Oh sure, some of them are decent people, but they're idiots. But there a few, a few corporate bigwigs, who are using these idiots, and scheming to enslave the whole country and take us back to the days of the gilded age. They believe that.

 

The exact same thing, but backwards.

 

When you stop and think how much the left terrifies us, and how badly we wish someone would come along, like Reagan, and make things right... how hard is it going to be for some conman to fool us? We are begging for it. It's as hard as picking up the fat girl who's crying in her beer because she's lonely and thinks nobody wants her. The lie is easier. Just let us believe.

345 Every time I start to wonder if this site is nothing more than pointy elbows and recycled cheesecake you come up with something like this---very well written Ace!

346 348 entropy,

Guy politics is the art of the possible and coalition building, if you took my calling out your corner of libertarianism as "your kind" in a hateful way I am not going to be a bitch and act offended you're offended.

You anger me because it is my sincere feeling we should have unified and beat the red.

You made a point about "meritocracy" and yes I am truncating it here but my point is there is no such guarantee.

At the end of the day if you are in fact a libertarian, and if in fact you are "trying to defend fiscal sense and deference to the bill of rights" both sides while not being optimal are also not the same.

If I did not value interacting with you, I would not post to you and I would most definitely not take the time to bother with clarity and a little punctuation.  You are a valued member of the tribe or Ace would not have bothered pointing out a flaw in my opinion.  The point is that we all engage in patterns of behavior and conflict and it is only by analysis of our patterns we can hope to alter them if need be.

I'll peruse you link it looks similar to a point made on fox, it is inarguable that as we try to codify "collective duty" we do seem to be more and more narcissistic and there's the very real potential it is based on electronic media and interaction.

Allow me to give you a few points to consider.

1) when one tries to say "I must vote libertarian because the GOP betrayed fiscal sense!" and use your vote for Libertarianism which is by the way unarguably YOUR right you increase the probability a democrat wins.  Both parties have history on fiscal sense I challenge you to look at the last 30 years of congressional control and tell me "both parties are the same" on debt.

2) I mock the notion that a liberal has equivalency with me on the matter of "wolves and sheep" if nancy Pelosi and her media friends sincerely think my party is bent on codifying "rape babies" show me where the right has set up that system anywhere we hold power for long periods for a test case to get to SCotUS.  I can howver point out to you the immigration patterns, and willful deterioration of civics instruction in schools.

My rage is based on an analytical view of their performance and alliances not the TV giving me a soundbite from a gotcha predation with a volley OUR SIDE NEVER GETS because of the media's alliance with the left.

Similar, unarguably it is likely why the breakup was not done in the 60s but in no way the same.

The United States has a rulebook, I strive to follow it the left doesn't because they hate it.

347 @351:1) ...Both parties have history on fiscal sense I challenge you to look at the last 30 years of congressional control and tell me "both parties are the same" on debt. 2) I mock the notion that a liberal has equivalency with me on the matter of "wolves and sheep" if nancy Pelosi and her media friends sincerely think my party is bent on codifying "rape babies" show me where the right has set up that system anywhere we hold power for long periods for a test case to get to SCotUS. I can howver point out to you the immigration patterns, and willful deterioration of civics instruction in schools. Posted by: sven10077 at January 23, 2013 04:44 PM (LRFds) Awesome, Sven. I can't stand the "both parties are the same" argument. While Libertarians are correct to point out the grave disappointments in the GOP, there's a world of difference between people like Bush and Romney vs. Pelosi and Obama. And we're going to see it in the next 4 years. Do people honestly think we'd be having this fight over the 2nd amendment with a Republican president?

348

Seems to be a dead thread.  My luck, but I think this fits.

 

Four beers and two pulled pork sandwiches down.  A specific amount to be consumed before the sun rises again.. One amount may affect the other.

 

A lot of angles covered in all of the comments on this site, but a common baseline also.

 

MtM @ 189; re: two topics.  Agree and think expansion beyond stated subject is worth the effort.

349

Apply to any scale to libs. (I like 0-7).

 

Watch the bits fliip.  111 and 000 are out.. Max and nothing.

 

One, three,  and five (five is questionable). Above three, options are limited. (you flip another bit). Above seven, another dimension.

350 This was a very good post, Ace, and why I like to occasionally check your blog in spite of our differences. Thanks!

351 ________________________________

Ace,

I think you're on to something here. I had never thought of typical liberal psychology in quite the terms you describe. But I have mostly liberal friends (95%+), and when I think of them in group terms or in individual terms: the class-seeking mentality you describe in no way contradicts other aspects of their personalities. It's a sensible fit. - But I'm not prepared to say it's a certain fit.
Just that it makes sense that what you describe could well be a significant feature to the typical liberal mindset.
As you point out, the desire to in some way (in anyway) be a part of the New Aristocracy (even if only through habitual fantasy and vicarious participation) could indeed provide personal motivation for one to cleave so tightly to liberal doctrine. 

However, even assuming that you have accurately identified a significant feature of the typical liberal mindset, I'm somewhat skeptical that it's the primary feature sufficient to explain the liberal ideology that the typical liberal (without status) adopts.
Rather, I believe the feature you identify would only be more an augmenter to other core motivations of the typical liberal personality.
 
I think first and foremost, the typical liberal genuinely believes that liberal policies are the obvious solutions to societal problems. For instance, the poor and disadvantaged obviously have serious needs. Answer: the big, strong, wealthy Government should make sure that the least of us (the poor and disadvantaged) should always get sufficient help. Even if that means ladling out lots of money to them through endless services, benefits, programs, and even through direct welfare checks.
In a liberal's mind, it is truly offensive that the well-off in this country would continue to soar and flourish in life while the poor and needy get left in the gutter.

Liberalism is a simplistic intellectualism. It's an ironic blind spot to the paradigmatic workings of society. (Because liberals honestly believe you have to be blind not to see the obvious answers to these glaring problems.) They approach societal problems in a manner similar to how a fourteen-year-old approaches the way he thinks he ought to live his life.
Why in the world should he have to be burdened with studying geometry or history? The great majority of people who learn about these things never have to rely on knowing them in 'real life'. They're difficult and annoying to learn about. And doing so takes up valuable time.
And why shouldn't the fourteen-year-old stay up past midnight several times a week if he chooses? He's young and healthy, so he's got plenty of energy. As long as he's up in time to handle whatever he's obligated to handle, what's the big deal? That's his personal time. For the most part, he should damn well be allowed to dispose of his time as he pleases.
And why shouldn't he be allowed to skip dinner or breakfast and eat at fast food restaurants and 7-11's as often as he pleases. He's not going to starve. Again, he's young and healthy. He loves eating the the candy bars and french fries, and he doesn't much care for eating salads and broiled fish. He's healthy. He's eating. His weight is currently under control. Why shouldn't he be allowed to make himself as happy as he can in choosing what and when to eat?
When left to his own devises, the average fourteen-year-old will absolutely approach living his life in just such a simplistic and detrimental way. 

It's all so obvious. It's all so simple. And that's the way the typical liberal approaches societal problems. - Especially because public policies for non-politicians (liberal or conservative) are generalized thought problems. (I.e., generalized abstract problems.) They aren't practical problems within the liberal's own day to day life of which he will be forced to live with the immediate consequences of his choices. 

I think the other problem is that liberals overwhelmingly tend to hang out only with each other. So their simplistic abstract thinking (for which they are not required to face an immediate practical result) is never challenged. Also, they rarely come across well represented new ideas outside their liberal ideology. (See David Mammet's conservative conversion.)  
Instead they are constantly reinforcing their simplistic liberal thinking in an echo chamber. (I've seen it first hand many times. As I'm sure many other conservatives have.)
Crucially, within these social echo chambers liberals build close-knit peer groups within which they are very comfortable. Moreover, they instinctively hate the notion that if they don't know better they could end up being tacitly perceived as the "fool" on the outside looking in at their peers regarding an issue whose answer is painfully obvious.
So, especially on those issues for which they don't have a strong opinion, they thoughtlessly default into the group think. Which is based on well established (and therefore well known) liberal solutions that should be obvious enough to anyone with a brain. They just go with the flow and with what seems to be what anyone should probably already 'know'. 

It's much easier, much simpler that way.

I conclude that politics and its resultant policies are so emotional and so personal for liberals for two reasons:

Firstly, because the answers to societies' big problems are so obvious: to get these obvious answers wrong is especially grievous. Devastatingly bad consequences flow from getting these serious problems wrong. And consistent with the simplistic liberal mindset is to skip argumentation and go straight to assigning motivations to those who get these problems wrong. That, rather than re-examine whether the liberal solution is correct in the first place. (Obviously the correctness of the liberal solution is a given. That only leaves explaining how conservatives could get such an easy problem so devastatingly wrong - especially when to do so causes so much hurt to so many powerless and disadvantaged innocents.) The motivation liberals typically assign is almost always some derivation of: "Conservatives don't really care about the problem of helping the poor. As far as they're concerned, it's just not their problem; so they don't care." (By a significant margin, this is the motivation I have heard assigned to conservatives the most frequently.)
But sometimes it's the more toxic: "Conservatives are greedy. They are simply willing to let poor people rot so that they can have more for themselves." (This one is less common, but unfortunately, not rarely assigned.)    
Once liberals arrive at such conclusions regarding doing the obvious thing to stop massive suffering as well as concluding to the bad motivations of those who refuse to acknowledge the obvious solution: liberals understandably get emotional and even take personal offense. - And this is after they have 'realized' that there is no sense arguing with (and therefore will not bother listening to) someone who doesn't care about poor people in the first place. 

Secondly, to challenge a liberal's ideology is especially problematic for the liberal. Sure, like everyone else (this conservative included) no liberal wants to have to admit he's wrong. It's an ego bruise. So that's not what's especially complicating for a liberal to take up a challenge to his belief system.
Rather, in order for a liberal to participate in defending a challenge to his ideology, he has to engage in an argument where reasons are presented as to why his position is wrong. That means he has to take up and answer these reasons. And when he does that, he sometimes feels a pressure to admit that there are in fact serious problems with the position he's defending. It's less that he's worried he might have to admit he's wrong after all. It's way more that: He fears ending up outside his liberal peer group on that issue. It's an instinctual fear, not a cognitive one. You are literally threatening his standing - intellectually and socially - among his friends. He knows damn well the way conservatives are spoken of among his people (his tribe). He speaks of them that way too. THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL HE'S GOING TO FIND HIMSELF FLIRTING WITH BEING IDENTIFIED IN THAT CATEGORY.
So the argument gets emotional because it threatens him personally.

So, Ace, I must disagree with your observation to this extent:
Liberals take politics and its resultant policies so very personally less because they aspire to be a part of a peer group (the New Aristocracy) they adore; and more so because they fear losing standing in the familiar (i.e., family-like, tribe-like) liberal peer group in which they are already at home. 

352 I think this is an excellent point.  And to many of the commenters, I'd like to point out that it is a mistake to read "class" simply in Marxian terms, that is, economically determined. Before Marx, people did speak of upper, middle, and lower *classes*, rather than a simple 3-level split. It works a lot better.

353 I think this is quite brilliant.

354 I congratulate the author for being brave enough to mention the word communist.  Since Senator McCarthy 99.99% of all Americans are afraid to use the word.  

355 "And people who are only recently enjoying the privileges of a thing will be the most reluctant to see those privileges go away -- people who have enjoyed them for a long time become jaded and stop appreciating their good fortune. (Thus, many, many wealthy layabout aristocrats become enamored with communism.)"

This tendency was succinctly illustrated in a scene from The Aviator culminating in this exchange:

Mrs. Hepburn (the matriarch):  "We don't care about money here, Mr. Hughes."
Howard Hughes:  "That's because you have it"

356 >>>that is also true but the same sort of process attaches to that: "I think well of myself because I worship the One True Obama, I'm good because of my membership in the Church of the One True Obama, therefore anyone who attacks the One True Obama is attacking me..."

Precisely. Spirituality is what separates us from animals. They are unable to totally deny it, and therefore fill it with some other vehicle for satisfaction. No matter if they try to derive some personal satisfaction from their lifestyle choices, their job, their charitable goodness towards some cause, possessions, attention, politics...it is all essentially shallow and will crumble at the first sign of trouble. I can't see the liberal theatre lasting very long when it comes to the time, and it will, that our country's security is seriously threatened.

Fear drives many behaviors, and when their fear changes from them getting their way about something they "believe" in to them getting to live and leave their progeny behind...they will change their behavior as well.

357 Ace, as a life-long Liberal who is now an apostate, what you are saying here is something I've also made note of.  Liberalism is a group identifier.  One might not be rich, but at least one can be part of an "intellectual elite" that separates you from the rest of the commoners.  When Liberals say, for instance, "Americans are so...this or that" [pick your criticism], it's because Liberalism has allowed them to set themselves apart from "regular Americans".  They are now a non-monied elite and better than the rest of us.