justoffal
Diamond Member
- Jun 29, 2013
- 25,313
- 17,271
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Dealing with Lefty is like walking through a briar patch with a jock strap on and nothing else. You know how to get where you want to go but you also know that getting there is going to be a real pain in the ass. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the effort. The idea of talking and debating with people who begin each and every conversation with the idea that you are a total know-nothing and that they bear in their cognitive resources the fountain of all irrevocable knowlege is not only tiring it tends to make a person bitter in the process of trying to make a point or even have an opinion free from harassment and snickering of the Academia-addled disciples of cloward-piven-alinsky.
But for our own enrichment and for the betterment of my very good friends here at PH and of course for myself I find it beneficial once in a while to re-play certain scenarios in my mind and to discover what they might have to offer that I may have missed. Hence we have the Devil's advocate method for keeping ourselves intellectually honest.
The term Devil's advocate was invented to identify the opposing set of arguments in a conflict of the minds so as to be able to examine the value of a given set of ideas and or precepts that may form a school of thought. We can thank the Catholic church for this contribution to our body of intellectual examination tools for in the argument of Canon law the sixteenth century church officials established the Advocatus Diaboli versus the Advocatus Dei style of legal vetting. It is occaisionally worth the effort because all honest minds know that the process of being who and what we are comes with the constant danger of self isolation at tmes and the tendancy to ignore pertinent facts such as they relate to our own realities.
I find that by and large conservative values have served me well and that the occaisional self-purging via the process described above most often leaves me very nearly where I started but then again I find that I do learn valuable lessons from that process that I might otherwise have missed.
This is not to say that we should try everyting either. Our intelligent minds are to be trusted when it comes to decisions that preclude trying perverted sexual behavior or bank robbery for instance just to see what it's like....no...I'm talking more about intellectual positions and opinions that we form oft times due to exposure to many like minded people. Nothing wrong with those but I encourage all to engage in the what I see as the very healthy process of listening carefully to the other side before responding and knowing why we feel the way we do or don't.
This I find to be lacking in most left wing approaches to life in general. Most lefites despite their station in life and despite the higher education pride that they so love to throw in your face....are sinlge issue ninnies with very vulnerable interior mentalities hiding a mountain of fears and insecurities. If you have the time and patience...which I find I most often do not these days....you can find those vulnerabilities and if your are patient enough you can get maybe one in ten lefites to see them too.
I know they think we know nothing of their lives or expriences...well they are wrong. I find that most conservatives have a very well rounded viewpoint of life and come from a wide variety of backgrounds and many of the amazing people here have experienced much in the way of adersity and personal challenge. So wee see then that Conservatism isn't just a postion that we take in a debate or even a peresonal preference but it is so much more than that. It is in fact the sum total of honest life experiences that are apolitical and simply pragmatice by their very nature. Liberalism may persist but conservatism just Happens!
I offer as proof.... Rahm Emmanuel...... the once golden boy of the Obama Administration. A left wing Zealot and strong armer if there ever was one. I think it's a thing of beauty to watch him run smack into the wall of reality there in Chicago now right behind Detroit as far as bankruptcy is concerned. He was forced to deal with the realities of limited municipal budget processes and was thereby thown into the light of conservative reality by having to make tough but absolutley necessary decsions about the local school system. For that he has drawn the IRE of his own constituency including the local Unions who now want to crush him in the upcoming mayoral elections.
Rahm has been forced to be the Devil's advocate and is now seeing the light of fiscal reality in a way that he was always shielded form before.
JO
But for our own enrichment and for the betterment of my very good friends here at PH and of course for myself I find it beneficial once in a while to re-play certain scenarios in my mind and to discover what they might have to offer that I may have missed. Hence we have the Devil's advocate method for keeping ourselves intellectually honest.
The term Devil's advocate was invented to identify the opposing set of arguments in a conflict of the minds so as to be able to examine the value of a given set of ideas and or precepts that may form a school of thought. We can thank the Catholic church for this contribution to our body of intellectual examination tools for in the argument of Canon law the sixteenth century church officials established the Advocatus Diaboli versus the Advocatus Dei style of legal vetting. It is occaisionally worth the effort because all honest minds know that the process of being who and what we are comes with the constant danger of self isolation at tmes and the tendancy to ignore pertinent facts such as they relate to our own realities.
I find that by and large conservative values have served me well and that the occaisional self-purging via the process described above most often leaves me very nearly where I started but then again I find that I do learn valuable lessons from that process that I might otherwise have missed.
This is not to say that we should try everyting either. Our intelligent minds are to be trusted when it comes to decisions that preclude trying perverted sexual behavior or bank robbery for instance just to see what it's like....no...I'm talking more about intellectual positions and opinions that we form oft times due to exposure to many like minded people. Nothing wrong with those but I encourage all to engage in the what I see as the very healthy process of listening carefully to the other side before responding and knowing why we feel the way we do or don't.
This I find to be lacking in most left wing approaches to life in general. Most lefites despite their station in life and despite the higher education pride that they so love to throw in your face....are sinlge issue ninnies with very vulnerable interior mentalities hiding a mountain of fears and insecurities. If you have the time and patience...which I find I most often do not these days....you can find those vulnerabilities and if your are patient enough you can get maybe one in ten lefites to see them too.
I know they think we know nothing of their lives or expriences...well they are wrong. I find that most conservatives have a very well rounded viewpoint of life and come from a wide variety of backgrounds and many of the amazing people here have experienced much in the way of adersity and personal challenge. So wee see then that Conservatism isn't just a postion that we take in a debate or even a peresonal preference but it is so much more than that. It is in fact the sum total of honest life experiences that are apolitical and simply pragmatice by their very nature. Liberalism may persist but conservatism just Happens!
I offer as proof.... Rahm Emmanuel...... the once golden boy of the Obama Administration. A left wing Zealot and strong armer if there ever was one. I think it's a thing of beauty to watch him run smack into the wall of reality there in Chicago now right behind Detroit as far as bankruptcy is concerned. He was forced to deal with the realities of limited municipal budget processes and was thereby thown into the light of conservative reality by having to make tough but absolutley necessary decsions about the local school system. For that he has drawn the IRE of his own constituency including the local Unions who now want to crush him in the upcoming mayoral elections.
Rahm has been forced to be the Devil's advocate and is now seeing the light of fiscal reality in a way that he was always shielded form before.
JO
