For decades liberals have lobbied against punishment and for rehabilitation. The argument was that a mugger or murderer was just a victim of his environment someone caught in the crosshairs of bad nurturing and neighborhood. Accountability is unwarranted because the person bears no responsibility: he knew not what he did. And so successful was this movement that our penal system was largely reorganized based on the rehabilitation model. Why Ive even argued with people who insisted that punishment doesnt work" (apparently theyd never heard of Singapore caning and virtually zero crime).
So question: where are the calls for rehabilitation as opposed to punishment for racists" such as Clippers owner Donald Sterling?
And the rehabilitation mentalitys absence isnt just apparent in the social ostracism and career destruction visited on those accused of the One Liberal Deadly Sin of racism"*.
(*Some exceptions may apply.)
It isnt even just apparent in the social persecution of supposed haters" in general from Brendan Eich to the Boy Scouts to devout Christians.
Just consider leftism-disgorged hate-crime" law. It proves ever so explicitly that somehow liberals have discovered the utility of punishment; after all they will justify this legislation by saying that since some crimes target whole communities theyre so destructive that a message must be sent. It appears that when their own ideological ox is being gored the people who authored the atheist version of the Devil made him do it" want Devils Island.
A good example is Donald Sterling. Its not enough that he has had his reputation destroyed been fined $2.5 million and been banned for life" by the National Bolsheviks Association. There are people who want newspapers to stop accepting his ads. And the bigoted Al Sharpton proving hypocrisy knows no bounds had actually said that the Clippers should be disbanded. Yes and maybe we should adopt the North Korean model of purging Sterlings family and friends too. But how much punishment is enough? How many pounds of flesh will sate the rapacious and blood-stained leftist palate? Would only a gulag and a long slow painful death suffice for the worlds Sterlings?
None of this is a surprise if you understand that liberals dont operate based on principles but feelings; in keeping with this liberalism isnt an ideology. It is a process. Even Marxism has a vision for how society should be (unrealistic though it is) but liberals do not. The only consistent definition of liberalism is a desire to change the status quo" which means there will always be without a guiding vision directionless unprincipled change and action. Liberals are the children who ever fight the parents simply because that is the nature of the brat and they do this even when yesterdays liberals have become the parents.
How does this relate to punishment? A person operating on principle on a vision will try to tame his emotion and say: heres the crime heres what justice dictates so here is the proportionate punishment. But with liberals there is no justice its just us" as theyre governed by the shifting sands of convenience. Their feelings tell them that they hate the transgressor and that they want revenge and its never enough to satisfy them viscerally. Its as with the feeling of hunger: no matter how much you eat theres always another appetite mere hours away.
This governance by emotion helps explain why *Some exceptions may apply." It sheds light on why liberals havent made a federal case out of Bellville NJ Democrat mayoral candidate Marie Strumolo Burke who lamented proposed tax-rate changes and was caught on audio exclaiming This is gonna be a f*****g n****r town!" It illuminates why they did nothing when then NBA owner Jay-Z threw a 2010 party in which no whites were allowed. It even explains why Sterling whose views were long known received not only a special dispensation but also acclaim and awards from the left. As part of their political phalanx liberals dont hate Burke; they dont hate bigoted blacks such as Jay-Z; they dont even hate rich old white men who pay their dues and pay off the cause. And disconnected from Truth and thus having situational values" its easy for libs to live in a world of rationalization. Just give them plausible deniability in their own minds so as Mark Cuban once said about Sterling they can shrug off the sin as the eccentricities of a fellow who plays by his own rules." But dont you dare out yourself if youre a white guy. Dont become a liability to the cause. Its as if the mistake isnt the act (at least if youre one of the initiated) the mistake is getting caught.
But with those who arent part of their phalanx liberals will hate hate hate; they will hunger for vengeance and since vengeance never eliminates hate (only forgiveness does) there is never an end to their retribution.
To be clear Im not saying that outrage over racism" is always mere artifice. Sometimes it is. Sometimes its reminiscent of medieval heresy accusations which could be leveled against an individual by vindictive people with an axe to grind. But much of the time if not most the anger is real.
Its just selectively triggered.
In rare cases the transgression itself may be enough to induce the emotional response. Most of the time however its some combination of transgressiontransgressorsituation. Transgressor can negate transgression as when a black person makes a bigoted remark; or transgressor can magnify transgression as when a white Republican makes a corresponding remark. If a white Democrat or Democrat enabler does transgressor status plus a situation in which you somehow maintain that plausible deniability gets you by. If its a wealthy powerful black man whose success is necessary for the cause as with Barack Obama well then youre bulletproof. Then again if youre a wealthy powerful white man whose failure is necessary for the cause as with George Allen and macaca" youre history.
This isnt to say that most liberals are fully conscious of what animates them. Self-awareness is often lacking among man and this is especially true among philosophically dysfunctional men (who we today often call liberals). All most leftists know when spewing venom at a supposedly racist" conservative is that they hate the person and they assume its only because of his transgression. Living situational lives where everything is compartmentalized they generally dont know what truly drives them or consider at the moment theyre wallowing in hatred that in the past theyve reacted very differently to liberals in the same boat.
Of course another factor is that liberals dont view these transgressions the way a normal person would. They often feel" think" would be the wrong word because again leftists generally operate emotionally that a blacks or liberals uttering of a racial remark is of a very different moral species than when a white conservative does so. A black has a right to such sentiments because of the legacy of slavery." As for a white liberal it was perhaps just a weak moment a slip of the tongue; after all the person has proven his credentials with his public face as a good leftist foot soldier. If a white conservative says the same thing however (which never seems nearly as common) it just reflects the deep-seated bigotry that you have to know resides in his dark soul.
Going even deeper understand that this accords with liberals favored reality-denying modern isms. Nominalism states there is nothing that objectively makes both a tiger and a buff tabby cats" categorically speaking we just happen to view them that way. Likewise a normal person may see two bigoted statements or two acts of punishment as occupying the same category but there is objectively speaking no such thing as a category called bigoted statements" or acts of punishment." Such classifications only exist in our minds so we can assign these labels as we see fit. And in deference to relativism which boils down to the notion that theres no right or wrong neither punishment nor rehabilitation can be inherently good or bad and consistency can be no better than inconsistency.
At bottom this is how devout leftists view the world. Subscribing to the Protagorean proposition Man is the measure of all things" and the apocryphal one Might makes right" when they win culture wars and take control they make themselves the measure of all things. Perhaps the best characterization of their philosophy is occultist Aleister Crowleys formulation Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
And what they wilt do is persecute you. Remember that nice-guy conservatives the next time you want to fight them using Queensbury Rules.
For decades liberals have lobbied against punishment and for rehabilitation. The argument was that a mugger or murderer was just a victim of his environment someone caught in the crosshairs of bad nurturing and neighborhood. Accountability is unwarranted because the person bears no responsibility: he knew not what he did. And so successful was this movement that our penal system was largely reorganized based on the rehabilitation model. Why Ive even argued with people who insisted that punishment doesnt work" (apparently theyd never heard of Singapore caning and virtually zero crime).
So question: where are the calls for rehabilitation as opposed to punishment for racists" such as Clippers owner Donald Sterling?
And the rehabilitation mentalitys absence isnt just apparent in the social ostracism and career destruction visited on those accused of the One Liberal Deadly Sin of racism"*.
(*Some exceptions may apply.)
It isnt even just apparent in the social persecution of supposed haters" in general from Brendan Eich to the Boy Scouts to devout Christians.
Just consider leftism-disgorged hate-crime" law. It proves ever so explicitly that somehow liberals have discovered the utility of punishment; after all they will justify this legislation by saying that since some crimes target whole communities theyre so destructive that a message must be sent. It appears that when their own ideological ox is being gored the people who authored the atheist version of the Devil made him do it" want Devils Island.
A good example is Donald Sterling. Its not enough that he has had his reputation destroyed been fined $2.5 million and been banned for life" by the National Bolsheviks Association. There are people who want newspapers to stop accepting his ads. And the bigoted Al Sharpton proving hypocrisy knows no bounds had actually said that the Clippers should be disbanded. Yes and maybe we should adopt the North Korean model of purging Sterlings family and friends too. But how much punishment is enough? How many pounds of flesh will sate the rapacious and blood-stained leftist palate? Would only a gulag and a long slow painful death suffice for the worlds Sterlings?
None of this is a surprise if you understand that liberals dont operate based on principles but feelings; in keeping with this liberalism isnt an ideology. It is a process. Even Marxism has a vision for how society should be (unrealistic though it is) but liberals do not. The only consistent definition of liberalism is a desire to change the status quo" which means there will always be without a guiding vision directionless unprincipled change and action. Liberals are the children who ever fight the parents simply because that is the nature of the brat and they do this even when yesterdays liberals have become the parents.
How does this relate to punishment? A person operating on principle on a vision will try to tame his emotion and say: heres the crime heres what justice dictates so here is the proportionate punishment. But with liberals there is no justice its just us" as theyre governed by the shifting sands of convenience. Their feelings tell them that they hate the transgressor and that they want revenge and its never enough to satisfy them viscerally. Its as with the feeling of hunger: no matter how much you eat theres always another appetite mere hours away.
This governance by emotion helps explain why *Some exceptions may apply." It sheds light on why liberals havent made a federal case out of Bellville NJ Democrat mayoral candidate Marie Strumolo Burke who lamented proposed tax-rate changes and was caught on audio exclaiming This is gonna be a f*****g n****r town!" It illuminates why they did nothing when then NBA owner Jay-Z threw a 2010 party in which no whites were allowed. It even explains why Sterling whose views were long known received not only a special dispensation but also acclaim and awards from the left. As part of their political phalanx liberals dont hate Burke; they dont hate bigoted blacks such as Jay-Z; they dont even hate rich old white men who pay their dues and pay off the cause. And disconnected from Truth and thus having situational values" its easy for libs to live in a world of rationalization. Just give them plausible deniability in their own minds so as Mark Cuban once said about Sterling they can shrug off the sin as the eccentricities of a fellow who plays by his own rules." But dont you dare out yourself if youre a white guy. Dont become a liability to the cause. Its as if the mistake isnt the act (at least if youre one of the initiated) the mistake is getting caught.
But with those who arent part of their phalanx liberals will hate hate hate; they will hunger for vengeance and since vengeance never eliminates hate (only forgiveness does) there is never an end to their retribution.
To be clear Im not saying that outrage over racism" is always mere artifice. Sometimes it is. Sometimes its reminiscent of medieval heresy accusations which could be leveled against an individual by vindictive people with an axe to grind. But much of the time if not most the anger is real.
Its just selectively triggered.
In rare cases the transgression itself may be enough to induce the emotional response. Most of the time however its some combination of transgressiontransgressorsituation. Transgressor can negate transgression as when a black person makes a bigoted remark; or transgressor can magnify transgression as when a white Republican makes a corresponding remark. If a white Democrat or Democrat enabler does transgressor status plus a situation in which you somehow maintain that plausible deniability gets you by. If its a wealthy powerful black man whose success is necessary for the cause as with Barack Obama well then youre bulletproof. Then again if youre a wealthy powerful white man whose failure is necessary for the cause as with George Allen and macaca" youre history.
This isnt to say that most liberals are fully conscious of what animates them. Self-awareness is often lacking among man and this is especially true among philosophically dysfunctional men (who we today often call liberals). All most leftists know when spewing venom at a supposedly racist" conservative is that they hate the person and they assume its only because of his transgression. Living situational lives where everything is compartmentalized they generally dont know what truly drives them or consider at the moment theyre wallowing in hatred that in the past theyve reacted very differently to liberals in the same boat.
Of course another factor is that liberals dont view these transgressions the way a normal person would. They often feel" think" would be the wrong word because again leftists generally operate emotionally that a blacks or liberals uttering of a racial remark is of a very different moral species than when a white conservative does so. A black has a right to such sentiments because of the legacy of slavery." As for a white liberal it was perhaps just a weak moment a slip of the tongue; after all the person has proven his credentials with his public face as a good leftist foot soldier. If a white conservative says the same thing however (which never seems nearly as common) it just reflects the deep-seated bigotry that you have to know resides in his dark soul.
Going even deeper understand that this accords with liberals favored reality-denying modern isms. Nominalism states there is nothing that objectively makes both a tiger and a buff tabby cats" categorically speaking we just happen to view them that way. Likewise a normal person may see two bigoted statements or two acts of punishment as occupying the same category but there is objectively speaking no such thing as a category called bigoted statements" or acts of punishment." Such classifications only exist in our minds so we can assign these labels as we see fit. And in deference to relativism which boils down to the notion that theres no right or wrong neither punishment nor rehabilitation can be inherently good or bad and consistency can be no better than inconsistency.
At bottom this is how devout leftists view the world. Subscribing to the Protagorean proposition Man is the measure of all things" and the apocryphal one Might makes right" when they win culture wars and take control they make themselves the measure of all things. Perhaps the best characterization of their philosophy is occultist Aleister Crowleys formulation Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
And what they wilt do is persecute you. Remember that nice-guy conservatives the next time you want to fight them using Queensbury Rules.