On Human Nature and Politics

[Jackson]

Who would be more aware of human nature than ......human beings?
Yet, a large portion of the population is willing to remain oblivious to their own nature, or, at the least, to pretend to be unaware of same.

History reveals it....
Experience reveals it....

Liberals ignore it.



1. Classical liberals, i.e., Conservatives truly understand humannature, as shown here:
Each kind of government is a reflection on the way human nature is understood. The Founders did not feel that man is either perfect, or perfectible. James Madison, Federalist No. 55, February 15, 1788 “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.”
Therefore, a government must account for this nature, thus checks and balances.


2. Federalist 10- checks and balances, to keep 'passions' in check.
Tocqueville tells how centralization of power can lead to despotism. Beware of government by experts and bureaucrats.

a.Other views of human nature might be that people are basically good, or that human nature is plastic, and it only takes the right politics to perfect it. This is the view of communist governments, as Lenin expounded in the ‘New Soviet Man.’ Such governments have never worked, and, in fact, caused some hundred million deaths during the last century.

b. Burke and Tocqueville both observed a new intellectual type: thinkers inebriated by revolution and the dream of a radically new social order, and dismissive of the inherited wisdom of the past.





3. “The second principle is a belief in the sinful nature of man. They didn't buy the notions of the French revolutionaries that Man is basically good, or the Marxist revolutionaries a century later that human nature is perfectible. They knew that Man was as the Bible describes him—a sinner, self-centered, corruptible, and not to be trusted.
(Sowell, "Intellectuals and Society")

a. For that reason, they knew Man needs government—government strong enough to preserve law and order. But also that Man needs to limit the power of government, because those who run the government have the same sinful nature as everybody else.

Here's the way that seminary student James Madison put it in Federalist Number 51, possibly the most often quoted phrase out of the Federalist Papers. He says, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the places. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.’ “ Citizens for a Fashionable Republic |



The Constitution is the attempt to produce equanimity through the judicious use of checks and balances.

"The Constitution is the attempt to produce equanimity through the judicious use of checks and balances."

The founding fathers were wise enough to see the flaws in the human nature of man. And we are seeing that in bright lights with our present president. We are all witnessing the successful attempts of bypassing the checks and balances by use of the Executive Orders. Congress is no longer an integral part of our system of government.

We have lost the use of one our checks and our form of government is now out of balance. Are we going to do anything about it? Our Founding Fathers have provided relief for such an occurrence. Will we use it?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I think that conservatives want the balance of power to be shifted in favor of corporations, by far.

I think leftists have absolutely no idea how the real world works and are scared shitless of liberty. How about we just abolish the Sixteenth Amendment altogether and scrap the IRS, given that the income tax system is the root of all the evils leftists go on about anyway . . . if, like the Tin Man, they only had a brain to grasp that.

On the contrary, liberals know exactly how the real world works, which is why they're the greatest advocates and defenders of liberty.

Needless to say liberals are most often defending citizens' civil rights from conservatives hostile to expressions of individual liberty.

Oh, look, PC and Erand, another compliment from the naïve and historically illiterate children of mobocracy tendered as an insult!

Let's review Erand's masterful post.

I see two partisan toadies celebrating their ignorance and inability to comprehend simple English, while attempting to blame their personal shortcomings on someone else.

Human nature has not changed for thousands of years. What was true about human nature in 1776, is still true today, and yes, it does apply to all people, including liberal/socialists. It has been expressed by many different philosophers, from many different cultures, at many different times, and in many different ways, but it all means the same. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Failure to understand that simple truth, puts a person, and/or a nation in jeopardy. Any person put in a position of trust must be carefully watched and controlled, because the human tendency is to take advantage of that trust and use it to benefit themselves and their friends.

Our founders, recognizing the danger of concentrated political power, devised a means of spreading political power to the states and among three branches of the federal government. Liberal/socialists have spend decades attempting to concentrate political power at the federal level. It is as if they never read a history book.

Now back to the partisan toady of mobocracy (neo-liberal fascism):

On the contrary, liberals know exactly how the real world works, which is why they're the greatest advocates and defenders of liberty.

Au contraire, leftists are interminable children: les enfants terribles of the soiled diaper brigade. They smear the excrement of license and perversion, which they mistake for freedom, all over the liberties of others. In other words, they suppress, usurp and impose.

Needless to say liberals are most often defending citizens' civil rights from conservatives hostile to expressions of individual liberty.

Needless to say, leftists ceaselessly conspire to undermine the constitutional restraints of limited-divided government that stand in the way of their statist agenda. This collectivist treachery flies under the banner of faux civil rights asserted against the imperatives of the inalienable human rights of the individual. Eventually, the grown ups will have to take up arms against these pitchfork wielding barbarians and put them down.

 

[PoliticalChic]

18. Many of the anointed feel that if you just provide man with good food, housing, health care, education, and jobs, that people will naturally want to behave themselves. The truth of the matter is that people can have all these things and still commit all sorts of crimes, including so-called “white collar” crimes.
Sowell (The Vision of the Anointed) notes that two vastly different views of mankind are seen in the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

“Where the American Revolution deliberately created a government of elaborate checks and balances, to constrain the evils (that man yields to), the French revolution concentrated vast powers in its leadership, so as to allow those who were presumably wise and benevolent to effect sweeping changes with little hindrance” (p. 119).




"... those who were presumably wise and benevolent...."

This was pretty much the way that Progressive Woodrow Wilson portrayed the bureaucrats of his desired "Administrative State."


a. The Progressives envision an ‘Administrative State’ that moves to solve social ills as they develop by expanding through the addition of unelected bureaucrats, czars, commissions and ‘experts,’ a la the European type of government.
Moreover, nearly all of the regulations imposed are devised by unelected civil servants and political appointees to whom Congress, undeniably in breach of the Constitution’s separation of powers, has delegated legislative, executive, and judicial responsibilities;… what remains undecided within the administrative agencies is generally dealt with in courts unresponsive to the electorate. https://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/digital/rahe/default.asp

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

We get that conservatives despise democratic government. No need to drone on about it.

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

It's the government that protects your rights. It's the power of the big central government to do such things as overturn unconstitutional gun control laws passed by the smaller governments of the states and localities that protects your rights. You owe the protection of your rights to big government.

Once again, the statist mentality shines through—or is it crawls out from under? No. The only thing the people owe their government is their eternal vigilance.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. —Thomas Paine

 

[PoliticalChic]

19. And, while we are comparing those characteristics of the modern Liberals with their predecessors, the mobs of the French Revolution....

....High on the list of differences between the American and French Revolutions is the attempt by the latter to stamp out religion and replace it with 'reason.'

In lieu of religious holidays, which were banned, the earlier revolutionaries put on “Fetes of Reason.” The first was in November 1793, in the Notre Dame Cathedral, which had been renamed “The Temple of Reason,” with “To Philosophy” carved on the façade and the altar named the “Altar of Reason.” It was an ACLU fantasy come true!
(Coulter)






France’s new leaders – fishmongers, cobblers, butchers, and lots of lawyers and journalists- set out to invent a new, nonreligious calendar. It began with “Year 1,” witch was really 1972, and had 12 30-day months based on ‘reason’ and ‘nature.’ Each month was three 10-day weeks.


a. “Has any reform been more futile? The Government’s arrogant discard of Christianity means that weeks have been extended to ten days instead of seven. The revision’s intent is to supplant the papal calendar with a uniform alternative of twelve months of thirty days each, based on the system of ancient Egypt.

Bibles themselves were torn up to make paper gun cartridges in the grim days of 1793, and now the biblical week has been guillotined, each month instead divided into three decades of ten days, with the year, with the year beginning at the autumn equinox and five to six holidays added to balance idealism with our solar orbit.

Not content with regimenting the calendar, the government has introduced a new metric system for weight and measure. There are even proposals for a new clock of precisely 100,000 seconds each day. Reason, reason!...The new calendar is the kind of logical idea imposed by clever people that completely ignores habit, emotion, and human nature and thus forecasts the Revolution’s doom.” From the novel “Napoleon’s Pyramids,” by William Dietrich

b. Napoleon abolished the French Revolutionary Calendar on January 1, 1806.






20. Now, let's see where the current Liberals/Democrats/Progressives fit into this....

a. "Today’s is the National Day of Prayer, but Charlotte, North Carolina Mayor and newly minted-Obama Cabinet member Anthony Foxx is declaring today a National Day of Reason for his city.
In the proclamation, he says, “The application of reason, more than any other means, has proven to offer hope for human survival on Earth.”
Charlotte, NC Mayor Anthony Foxx Dismisses National Day of Prayer, Calls for National Day of Reason | Fox News Insider


b. "Several current and former lawmakers have also expressed their support for the day, including Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif., Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., and former Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif.

The American Humanist Association, whose slogan is "Good without a God," created theNational Day of Reason with the Washington Area Secular Humanists to raise awareness about government threats to religious liberty and up the profile of the non-religious community. The day will includes acts of service and discussions on rational thought.
Anthony Foxx Declares Thursday 'A Day Of Reason,' And of Prayer, in Charlotte - US News



The hallmarks of the radicals that began with the French Revolution: slaughter, abolition of religion, and the mob mentality.

 

[bripat9643]

We get that conservatives despise democratic government. No need to drone on about it.

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

It's the government that protects your rights. It's the power of the big central government to do such things as overturn unconstitutional gun control laws passed by the smaller governments of the states and localities that protects your rights. You owe the protection of your rights to big government.

Government violates your rights. You have a lot more to fear from government than any single person. Unconstitutional gun controls laws can only be put in place by government. Governments killed 200 million people in the 20th Century. I don't find anything reassuring about that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Right. My bad. You silly children of America's decline and fall tendered your post as an insult . . . not a compliment owing to my learned and superior taste for the limited and divided government of inalienable human rights.

Carry on. . . .

It's the government that protects your rights. It's the power of the big central government to do such things as overturn unconstitutional gun control laws passed by the smaller governments of the states and localities that protects your rights. You owe the protection of your rights to big government.

Government violates your rights. You have a lot more to fear from government than any single person. Unconstitutional gun controls laws can only be put in place by government. Governments killed 200 million people in the 20th Century. I don't find anything reassuring about that.

NY Carbuncle will never see that....he worships at the alter of big government.

And, after all...."Governments killed 200 million people in the 20th Century"....hey....you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.



And, now from another big government proponent....


1. As one of his friends later recalled, "Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov (Lenin) had the courage to come out and say openly that famine would have numerous positive results...Famine, he explained....would bring about the next stage more rapidly, and usher in socialism, the stage that necessarily followed capitalism. Famine would also destroy faith, not only in the tsar, but in God, too."
The Black Book of Communism, p.123-124.


See that....he had the courage!



2. Never let a crisis go to waste!

"The present moment favors us....With the help of all those starving people who are starting to eat each other, who are dying by the millions, and whose bodies litter the roadside all over the country, it is now and only now, that we can-and therefore must- confiscate all church property with all the ruthless energy we can muster....

Our only hope is the despair engendered in the masses by the famine, which will cause them to look at us in a favorable light or at the very least, with indifference."
Lenin, March 19, 1922



3. "For humankind at large Lenin had nothing but scorn: ...individual human beings held for Lenin almost no interest..."
Richard Pipes, "The Unknown Lenin," p. 10




So....you gonna make a federal case out of "Governments killed 200 million people in the 20th Century"?????

FDR knew better than to pay any mind to the "starving people who are starting to eat each other, who are dying by the millions,..."

I mean.....really.

 

[PoliticalChic]

23. Progressives/Liberals see much that they admire in Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin...
"American progressives, for the most part, did not disavow fascism until the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust became manifest during World War II. After the war, those progressives who had praised Mussolini and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had no choice but to dissociate themselves from fascism.

“Accordingly,” writes Jonah Goldberg, “leftist intellectuals redefined fascism as 'right-wing' and projected their own sins onto conservatives, even as they continued to borrow heavily from fascist and pre-fascist thought.”
This progressive campaign to recast fascism as the "right-wing" antithesis of communism was aided by Joseph Stalin,..."
Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism"


a. " Fascism did not acquire an evil name in Washington until Hitler became a menace to•the Soviet Union."
Manly,"The Twenty Year Revolution," p. 48






24. There are, of course, significant differences between fascism and Progressivism, but these are mainly attributable to the cultural differences between Europe and America- and between national cultures in general.

"The excesses of the European versions of fascism were mitigated by the specific history and culture of America, Jeffersonian individualism, heterogeneity of the population, but the central theme is still an all-encompassing state that centralizes power to perfect human nature by controlling every aspect of life., albeit at the loss of what had hithertofore been accepted as ‘inalienable human rights.’"
Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism."




Communism, National Socialism, Liberalism, Progressivism.....all have a the central doctrine:
"....an all-encompassing state that centralizes power to perfect human nature...."

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Of course I'm biased. I'm human. But I'm not denying that I'm not. You, on the other hand, claimed I was incorrect when I wrote that ideologues are subject to human nature, implying that you are not.

In two sentences, you made a broad sweeping generalization about human nature that cast your ideological beliefs in a favourable light while discrediting those beliefs with which you disagree. I would expect you to do that. Leftists do the same thing. Leftists would argue that conservatives also don't understand human behavior, and would be just as wrong. The world is more nuanced than such simplistic bromides. No one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature.

". . . a broad sweeping generalization about human nature"?!

The centuries-old observations of historical experience regarding the realities of human nature and/or the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism are mere bromides? Slogans? Clichés? Since when? Moses, Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Paul, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Montesquieu, Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Carlisle, Burke, the Founders . . . were just making baby talk?

All you're really saying, unwittingly, is that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness and the actualities of the human condition are subjective, as if there were no objective means by which humans distinguish the difference between the variously discrete properties of existence, as if there were no objectively reliable standards by which humans elucidate the rational and empirical actualities of existence. So much for the laws of logic and the processes of the scientific method, eh?

Understanding that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, that the realities of existence beyond, are absolute is the beginning of appreciating just how staggeringly complex and nuanced reality is. Relativists are the simpletons, the boobs of black-and-white think.

As lefty is the consummate relativist, his middle name is Bromide. Only slogan-spouters embrace the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.

The natural law of classical liberalism is predicated on the realities of the human condition. It comprehensively accounts for both the exigencies and the foibles of human nature.

Your claim that "[n]o one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature" is patently false. Talk about a hasty generalization or a thought-terminating cliché.

When you're ready to objectively examine the ontological justifications for the natural law of classical liberalism, which is bottomed on the historical experience and thought of centuries, as opposed to the purely theoretical meanderings of the Hegelian dialectic, let me know.

In the meantime. . .

For example, you said that "The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature."

Just so. Though in practice what leftists actually do is arbitrarily suppress the expressions of human nature that are good as if they were evil, as they simultaneously promote behavior that is evil as if it were good. In other words, lefty vies to inordinately regulate or even criminalize the free expression of inalienable human rights, particularly the prerogatives of free-association and private property, as he compels the body politic to subsidize his morality, such as it is.

Leftists would argue that their ideology is based on adapting to human nature.

Whatever that means. Adapting to? Responding to? Accommodating? Ameliorating?

The classical liberal knows that human nature is corrupt and must be predominately checked by the regulatory rewards and sanctions of unfettered liberty, not by the machinations of the state adapted to human nature, as the latter are in fact nothing more than the corruption of human nature run amok. Only damn fools undermine the constraints of limited government.

One of the greatest human needs is safety and security.

To be sure.

Leftists would argue that a social safety net meets this very basic need. And, in this case, they would be correct. A social safety net means that at the very least, people would have some income that they can use for food, shelter and clothing, which meets the very basic human need for safety and security.

Of course, the clever conservative would now respond by saying that a social safety net makes people lazy. And, at some level, they are correct. When the social safety net is too generous, it does make people lazy, something Leftists tend to dismiss.

No. Actually. What the classical liberal would argue is that human nature tends toward sloth from the jump, but for the uninhibited sanctions of natural law in free societies, and that the social safety nets of private, charitable enterprises and those of government are two different animals. Collectively, the former is a fishing pole; the latter only serve to ameliorate the deprivations of sloth and, consequently, promote the humiliations of dependency.

The classical liberal is well aware of the human need for safety and security; after all, that is the essence of the principle of the preservation of private property! The classical liberal doesn't deny the necessity of social safety nets and knows the difference between those that promote the general welfare of the body politic and those that don't. Lefty's welfare and wealth redistribution schemes are theft. So in fact the conservative is right on all counts, and lefty is the only one in error. Right?

But that's the point I was trying to make. When one looks through an ideological lens, one will emphasize whatever reinforces one's own biases. That's human nature. The OP is no different.

One's ideological lens either affords 20/20 vision or it doesn't; more accurately, one's ideology is either derived from the realities of existence and human nature or it's not.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Are you saying that conservatives aren't human and subject to human nature?

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

 

[Toro]

Of course I'm biased. I'm human. But I'm not denying that I'm not. You, on the other hand, claimed I was incorrect when I wrote that ideologues are subject to human nature, implying that you are not.

In two sentences, you made a broad sweeping generalization about human nature that cast your ideological beliefs in a favourable light while discrediting those beliefs with which you disagree. I would expect you to do that. Leftists do the same thing. Leftists would argue that conservatives also don't understand human behavior, and would be just as wrong. The world is more nuanced than such simplistic bromides. No one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature.

". . . a broad sweeping generalization about human nature"?!

The centuries-old observations of historical experience regarding the realities of human nature and/or the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism are mere bromides? Slogans? Clichés? Since when? Moses, Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Paul, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Montesquieu, Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Carlisle, Burke, the Founders . . . were just making baby talk?

All you're really saying, unwittingly, is that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness and the actualities of the human condition are subjective, as if there were no objective means by which humans distinguish the difference between the variously discrete properties of existence, as if there were no objectively reliable standards by which humans elucidate the rational and empirical actualities of existence. So much for the laws of logic and the processes of the scientific method, eh?

Understanding that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, that the realities of existence beyond, are absolute is the beginning of appreciating just how staggeringly complex and nuanced reality is. Relativists are the simpletons, the boobs of black-and-white think.

As lefty is the consummate relativist, his middle name is Bromide. Only slogan-spouters embrace the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.

The natural law of classical liberalism is predicated on the realities of the human condition. It comprehensively accounts for both the exigencies and the foibles of human nature.

Your claim that "[n]o one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature" is patently false. Talk about a hasty generalization or a thought-terminating cliché.

When you're ready to objectively examine the ontological justifications for the natural law of classical liberalism, which is bottomed on the historical experience and thought of centuries, as opposed to the purely theoretical meanderings of the Hegelian dialectic, let me know.

In the meantime. . .

For example, you said that "The political ideologies of the Left are based on the belief that government can change human nature."

Just so. Though in practice what leftists actually do is arbitrarily suppress the expressions of human nature that are good as if they were evil, as they simultaneously promote behavior that is evil as if it were good. In other words, lefty vies to inordinately regulate or even criminalize the free expression of inalienable human rights, particularly the prerogatives of free-association and private property, as he compels the body politic to subsidize his morality, such as it is.



Whatever that means. Adapting to? Responding to? Accommodating? Ameliorating?

The classical liberal knows that human nature is corrupt and must be predominately checked by the regulatory rewards and sanctions of unfettered liberty, not by the machinations of the state adapted to human nature, as the latter are in fact nothing more than the corruption of human nature run amok. Only damn fools undermine the constraints of limited government.



To be sure.

Leftists would argue that a social safety net meets this very basic need. And, in this case, they would be correct. A social safety net means that at the very least, people would have some income that they can use for food, shelter and clothing, which meets the very basic human need for safety and security.

Of course, the clever conservative would now respond by saying that a social safety net makes people lazy. And, at some level, they are correct. When the social safety net is too generous, it does make people lazy, something Leftists tend to dismiss.

No. Actually. What the classical liberal would argue is that human nature tends toward sloth from the jump, but for the uninhibited sanctions of natural law in free societies, and that the social safety nets of private, charitable enterprises and those of government are two different animals. Collectively, the former is a fishing pole; the latter only serve to ameliorate the deprivations of sloth and, consequently, promote the humiliations of dependency.

The classical liberal is well aware of the human need for safety and security; after all, that is the essence of the principle of the preservation of private property! The classical liberal doesn't deny the necessity of social safety nets and knows the difference between those that promote the general welfare of the body politic and those that don't. Lefty's welfare and wealth redistribution schemes are theft. So in fact the conservative is right on all counts, and lefty is the only one in error. Right?

But that's the point I was trying to make. When one looks through an ideological lens, one will emphasize whatever reinforces one's own biases. That's human nature. The OP is no different.

One's ideological lens either affords 20/20 vision or it doesn't; more accurately, one's ideology is either derived from the realities of existence and human nature or it's not.

I'm only going to address your last point. It is false. Thus, the premise of your defense of your own ideology is also false. There is no tautology that any ideology must be completely true.

That doesn't make it false, of course. However, if you look at the world through an ideological lens, you are less likely to come to the correct conclusion than an empiricist.

Most ideologues think they're empirical but most ideologues will also brush aside empirical evidence that contradicts their ideology.

Edit - And to clarify, this is not a relative argument. Empiricism is not relativism.

 

[bripat9643]

I think I was pretty clear in what I am saying.

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

 

[MaxGrit]

Of course I'm biased. I'm human. But I'm not denying that I'm not. You, on the other hand, claimed I was incorrect when I wrote that ideologues are subject to human nature, implying that you are not.

In two sentences, you made a broad sweeping generalization about human nature that cast your ideological beliefs in a favourable light while discrediting those beliefs with which you disagree. I would expect you to do that. Leftists do the same thing. Leftists would argue that conservatives also don't understand human behavior, and would be just as wrong. The world is more nuanced than such simplistic bromides. No one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature.

". . . a broad sweeping generalization about human nature"?!

The centuries-old observations of historical experience regarding the realities of human nature and/or the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism are mere bromides? Slogans? Clichés? Since when? Moses, Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Paul, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Montesquieu, Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Carlisle, Burke, the Founders . . . were just making baby talk?

All you're really saying, unwittingly, is that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness and the actualities of the human condition are subjective, as if there were no objective means by which humans distinguish the difference between the variously discrete properties of existence, as if there were no objectively reliable standards by which humans elucidate the rational and empirical actualities of existence. So much for the laws of logic and the processes of the scientific method, eh?

Understanding that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, that the realities of existence beyond, are absolute is the beginning of appreciating just how staggeringly complex and nuanced reality is. Relativists are the simpletons, the boobs of black-and-white think.

As lefty is the consummate relativist, his middle name is Bromide. Only slogan-spouters embrace the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.

The natural law of classical liberalism is predicated on the realities of the human condition. It comprehensively accounts for both the exigencies and the foibles of human nature.

Your claim that "[n]o one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature" is patently false. Talk about a hasty generalization or a thought-terminating cliché.

When you're ready to objectively examine the ontological justifications for the natural law of classical liberalism, which is bottomed on the historical experience and thought of centuries, as opposed to the purely theoretical meanderings of the Hegelian dialectic, let me know.

In the meantime. . .



Just so. Though in practice what leftists actually do is arbitrarily suppress the expressions of human nature that are good as if they were evil, as they simultaneously promote behavior that is evil as if it were good. In other words, lefty vies to inordinately regulate or even criminalize the free expression of inalienable human rights, particularly the prerogatives of free-association and private property, as he compels the body politic to subsidize his morality, such as it is.



Whatever that means. Adapting to? Responding to? Accommodating? Ameliorating?

The classical liberal knows that human nature is corrupt and must be predominately checked by the regulatory rewards and sanctions of unfettered liberty, not by the machinations of the state adapted to human nature, as the latter are in fact nothing more than the corruption of human nature run amok. Only damn fools undermine the constraints of limited government.



To be sure.



No. Actually. What the classical liberal would argue is that human nature tends toward sloth from the jump, but for the uninhibited sanctions of natural law in free societies, and that the social safety nets of private, charitable enterprises and those of government are two different animals. Collectively, the former is a fishing pole; the latter only serve to ameliorate the deprivations of sloth and, consequently, promote the humiliations of dependency.

The classical liberal is well aware of the human need for safety and security; after all, that is the essence of the principle of the preservation of private property! The classical liberal doesn't deny the necessity of social safety nets and knows the difference between those that promote the general welfare of the body politic and those that don't. Lefty's welfare and wealth redistribution schemes are theft. So in fact the conservative is right on all counts, and lefty is the only one in error. Right?

But that's the point I was trying to make. When one looks through an ideological lens, one will emphasize whatever reinforces one's own biases. That's human nature. The OP is no different.

One's ideological lens either affords 20/20 vision or it doesn't; more accurately, one's ideology is either derived from the realities of existence and human nature or it's not.

I'm only going to address your last point. It is false. Thus, the premise of your defense of your own ideology is also false. There is no tautology that any ideology must be completely true.

That doesn't make it false, of course. However, if you look at the world through an ideological lens, you are less likely to come to the correct conclusion than an empiricist.

Most ideologues think they're empirical but most ideologues will also brush aside empirical evidence that contradicts their ideology.

Edit - And to clarify, this is not a relative argument. Empiricism is not relativism.

Wrong.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

1. And that postmodernist viewpoint is what allows some to find an equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

2. The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

3. The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties. ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

 

[MaxGrit]

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

1. And that postmodernist viewpoint is what allows some to find an equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

2. The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

3. The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties. ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

postmodernism is a cancer

 

[PoliticalChic]

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

1. And that postmodernist viewpoint is what allows some to find an equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

2. The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

3. The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties. ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"

postmodernism is a cancer

So, there's no question about how you feel about the wind bag in the White House....


"Barack Obama: The Postmodern President

President Obama spent his formative years in academia, so he's no doubt familiar with postmodernism, the literary theory that rejects objective reality and insists instead that everything is a matter of interpretation and relative "truth." At any rate he's running the first postmodern Presidential campaign, now organized almost exclusively around allegations about his opponent that bear no relation to the observable universe."
Barack Obama: The Postmodern President



The real question is how the public fell for this baloney.

 

[Toro]

Yes. It came in loud and clear and confirmed what I said. People are biased and ideologues with strong opinions even more so. Your premise is evidence of this. That's human nature.

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

Wrong.

I'm saying the opposite. There is truth. But ideology is not truth per se.

 

[Toro]

". . . a broad sweeping generalization about human nature"?!

The centuries-old observations of historical experience regarding the realities of human nature and/or the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism are mere bromides? Slogans? Clichés? Since when? Moses, Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Paul, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Montesquieu, Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Carlisle, Burke, the Founders . . . were just making baby talk?

All you're really saying, unwittingly, is that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness and the actualities of the human condition are subjective, as if there were no objective means by which humans distinguish the difference between the variously discrete properties of existence, as if there were no objectively reliable standards by which humans elucidate the rational and empirical actualities of existence. So much for the laws of logic and the processes of the scientific method, eh?

Understanding that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, that the realities of existence beyond, are absolute is the beginning of appreciating just how staggeringly complex and nuanced reality is. Relativists are the simpletons, the boobs of black-and-white think.

As lefty is the consummate relativist, his middle name is Bromide. Only slogan-spouters embrace the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.

The natural law of classical liberalism is predicated on the realities of the human condition. It comprehensively accounts for both the exigencies and the foibles of human nature.

Your claim that "[n]o one political ideology has a monopoly on the truth about human nature" is patently false. Talk about a hasty generalization or a thought-terminating cliché.

When you're ready to objectively examine the ontological justifications for the natural law of classical liberalism, which is bottomed on the historical experience and thought of centuries, as opposed to the purely theoretical meanderings of the Hegelian dialectic, let me know.

In the meantime. . .



Just so. Though in practice what leftists actually do is arbitrarily suppress the expressions of human nature that are good as if they were evil, as they simultaneously promote behavior that is evil as if it were good. In other words, lefty vies to inordinately regulate or even criminalize the free expression of inalienable human rights, particularly the prerogatives of free-association and private property, as he compels the body politic to subsidize his morality, such as it is.



Whatever that means. Adapting to? Responding to? Accommodating? Ameliorating?

The classical liberal knows that human nature is corrupt and must be predominately checked by the regulatory rewards and sanctions of unfettered liberty, not by the machinations of the state adapted to human nature, as the latter are in fact nothing more than the corruption of human nature run amok. Only damn fools undermine the constraints of limited government.



To be sure.



No. Actually. What the classical liberal would argue is that human nature tends toward sloth from the jump, but for the uninhibited sanctions of natural law in free societies, and that the social safety nets of private, charitable enterprises and those of government are two different animals. Collectively, the former is a fishing pole; the latter only serve to ameliorate the deprivations of sloth and, consequently, promote the humiliations of dependency.

The classical liberal is well aware of the human need for safety and security; after all, that is the essence of the principle of the preservation of private property! The classical liberal doesn't deny the necessity of social safety nets and knows the difference between those that promote the general welfare of the body politic and those that don't. Lefty's welfare and wealth redistribution schemes are theft. So in fact the conservative is right on all counts, and lefty is the only one in error. Right?



One's ideological lens either affords 20/20 vision or it doesn't; more accurately, one's ideology is either derived from the realities of existence and human nature or it's not.

I'm only going to address your last point. It is false. Thus, the premise of your defense of your own ideology is also false. There is no tautology that any ideology must be completely true.

That doesn't make it false, of course. However, if you look at the world through an ideological lens, you are less likely to come to the correct conclusion than an empiricist.

Most ideologues think they're empirical but most ideologues will also brush aside empirical evidence that contradicts their ideology.

Edit - And to clarify, this is not a relative argument. Empiricism is not relativism.

Wrong.

No.

Right!

The empiricist changes his beliefs in light of contrary evidence. The ideologue retains his beliefs in spite of contrary evidence.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes. Your point "came in loud and clear" And so what? LOL! Your point is trite. Banal. Trivial. Ho-hum. A mere truism—a platitude!—readily evident at a glance to any one with an IQ above that of a gnat. Like the typical relativist, you keep pontificating on the mundane as if it were profundity. You're not telling us anything we don't already know about human nature, let alone overthrowing the centuries-old observations regarding the realities of human nature and the dangers of unchecked majoritarianism or, for that matter, overthrowing the critique of the silliness that is the Hegelian dialectic.

Humans are biased and ideologues are even more biased, eh? Newsflash! Stop the presses!

Therefore, all systems of thought or ideological biases are necessarily incomplete or false? Non sequitur.

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

Wrong.

I'm saying the opposite. There is truth. But ideology is not truth per se.

Post #100

 

[Toro]

He could have said the same thing in four words: "there is no truth."

Wrong.

I'm saying the opposite. There is truth. But ideology is not truth per se.

Post #100

Confirms my original point.

You attempt to set the premise and define your political opponents based on your ideology.

That doesn't mean your conclusion is necessarily wrong. Communism IS bad. I agree with you. But you have demonstrated ideological bias throughout this thread by creating normative frameworks based on your philosophy.

You're human. Humans do that. Not just liberals.