CougarDaddy,
Perhaps you should rename your thread, "The hypocritical authoritarianism of the Left" rather than "The Left's need to Manipulate", since it can still be argued that any party of any ideology resorts to any or all forms of manipulation to gain "voter llegitimacy".
- Perhaps. Although I don't accept that the fact that the Right (defined as you will) is equally culpable. The Authoritarian Right against which the Left acted 200 years ago explicitly did not seek to gain voter legitimacy through manipulation. Perhaps if they had the world would be in a different place just now. The Authoritarians of the 1700s expected their subjects to obey, were willing to coerce the disobedient and ultimately disagreed entirely with the concept of being legitimated from below. The Left came to power "promising to do things differently". Well, I suppose in one sense they did. They rejected the pulpit and absconded with the school board. However, in the end, they chose to become as meddlesome and interventionist as the Authoritarians they decried.
Currently I do not accept that the Right is synonymous with those old Aristocrats. The liberal Right is the antithesis of those old Aristocrats and frankly that is one of the reasons for the ascendancy of the Left. The liberally inclined, currently defined as conservatives because their values are reflective of the Reformed Britain of the 1830s or so, do not seek solace in organization. They wish to retain the ability to think, speak and ACT independently. Conservative liberals, or libertarians often seem to have more in common with Leftist anarchists than they do with Aristocrats of the Ancien Regime.
By contrast the old Soviet Nomenklatura of the Communist Party, or the followers of Chirac and Schroeder, and dare I say our own Liberal Party, had all the sense of "Entitlement" that any Aristocrat ever had.
I can see where you are coming from though when it comes to your grievances about the Left.
- Thank you. I appreciate that.
However, it can be inferred that they feel the need to be authoritarian- even if they unconsciously do it or unaware they are being "hypocritically authoritarian"- since they need they feel the need "to draw the line" when it comes to things they can or will tolerate.
- I somehow felt that there would be a but.... Is it your contention that "to defeat them it is necessary to become them"?
Thus results "their need" to tell you "what is right, fair and just" or "when to feel guilty" because in their eyes, they represent "a universal standard" of "morality and objectivity" and thus ensues their current propensity to tell you when to be politically correct and so forth.
- I am sure that you are right.
But "revealed truth" was, and is the purview of the priests and mullahs. That ultimately is the problem. Some people, perhaps many people, believe that there is a universal standard. Many people certainly want the comfort of an answer that can be found at the back of the book. Some people believe that they have that anwer. The only trouble is nobody can agree on what that standard is. What you are describing is one party to a two party squabble, each of which is adamant in their belief that they have the right, the correct, the only solution.
IMHO the magic of the British Parliamentary system, reinforced by the code learned on the playing fields of Eton, is pragmatic accomodation. Britain is constitutionless because nobody could agree on the words. The short solution was to go issue by issue and deal with them as they came. 300 years later they are still at it. Eton? It and Rugby and Harrow etc taught you to fight hard and bloodily, on the field, within the lines, according to the rules and then accept the result with grace: loser congratulating the winner, the winner suppressing exultation and both sides having a drink together after the contest. There is no room for an emotional attachment to being right in that system.
British law is based on the same principle: a fair, pragmatic, accepted compromise. We send people to court to have their cases arbitrated precisely because their is no clear cut answer to the point of debate. We send the case to a Judge to make a judgement on who's right and who's wrong. A Judge is required to make an arbitrary decision. An arbitrary decision, will only be accepted if the arbitrator is accepted as being fair. To take the personal out of it the case is forwarded to a jury of the accused's peers, a group of people whose judgement, whose arbitrary decisions the accused trusts and will accept. There is no requirement for the case to be correctly resolved. The sole requirement is that it be fairly resolved. Everyone is required to accept the same hazard of being found guilty when innocent because it is better for society that a dispute be resolved wrongly than that it be allowed to remain unresolved. Keep in mind that the alternative was to leave the matter up to God's Will through trial by combat, or fire, or water.......or a toss of the coin or a turn of the card.
By contrast, the continental system seeks the purity of revealed truth through expert tribunals and constitutions written in stone. Unfortunately, as noted, what is to go on the stone and who the experts are is hotly contested requiring regular breaking of stones and hiring new experts.
The Left and its bureaucrats truly are the inheritors of the Inquisition and the Star Chambers. They have just substituted their revealed truth for that of popes and kings.
However, if ones tries looking at things from their eyes, you will notice that they exercise this unconscious "authoritarianism" partially as a show of strength in order to get their preferred policies passed as law, and not to give in to the calls of hypocrisy and the usual character attacks showered on them by the Right.
- Again, I am sure that you are right. The end and the means.
They see the Right as self-interested, opportunistic misers who only respect strength- as explained by the Right's unwillingness to pay taxes for govt. social or welfare programs for the less fortunate of society- while rewarding the so-called "winners of society" with so-called tax cuts, which is not always true.
- I don't doubt in the slightest that that is how the Left is taught to see the Right.
Thus ensues a conflict of opposing groups with these perceptions;
- Agreed
you might infer that these observations may apply more to American politics, though you are aware of the parallels between their and our society.
- I think that these observations are universal. I think that the things that make America exceptional, is the relative proportions of those that seek to impose Authority, those that wish to follow Authority and those that reject Authority. I believe that for the reasons I mentioned in the previous post that America has a higher proportion of the latter than is found elsewhere, certainly in Mediterranean and Southern European cultures.
Strangely enough I think one major difference between America and the Northern European states, versus the Mediterranean states, is that in America, and the North and Britain's settler offspring, is that even those that dislike Authority implicitly accept authority. They may not like the laws that the Authoritarians prescribe or the judgements they make but they accept them.
By contrast southern europeans, and perhaps other nationalities, seem to have a much higher proportion of those accepting of allowing Authoritarians to make whatever laws they like. Perhaps that is due to the fact that they so blissfully ignore the laws that already exist. They have learned to accomodate the egos of the Authoritarians.
