0 comment Friday, June 20, 2014 | admin
In my travels around the internet, I came across a blog, apparently run by a British blogger, who simply collects and posts links to sites and blogs dealing with an eclectic array of subjects.
But this particular blog wears its politics on its sleeve -- which is fine up to a point, but if the purpose of the blog is simply to share links of interest on various subjects, is it not possible to put politics aside and simply offer those links without making a political point? I would hope that I could do so; I have thought of starting another blog strictly for the non-political items, things which are of interest, sometimes trivial or frivolous, sometimes just fun, diverting, or bizarre. But it seems that leftists and liberals see political lessons in anything and everything; they eat, live, breathe, and dream their politics and ideology. This is something I touched on in a blog entry I wrote recently, which I called 'No escaping politics.' I was lamenting the fact that even trivial and seemingly innocuous areas of life, such as popular entertainment, was politicized by liberals and leftists and their constant carping and moralizing. That tendency is evident on the blog I mentioned.
Just to illustrate what I mean, I would guess that about 75% of the links are in some way leftist/liberal, dealing with revisionist history from the point of view of some victim group or other, or otherwise politically correct to the max. For example, a web page for 'deaf queers.' (Their terminology, not mine.) And there are the obligatory links to pages about Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela -- the whole pantheon of the left. Then there are links to sites about Liberian refugees, the Zoot Suit Riots, Afro-Cuba, the history of colonial oppression in the Congo, a site about the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu, which we are told is 'threatened by global warming.'
We find a link to a site about 'Self-harm' and an information clearing-house for self-harmers. I assume that 'self-harmers' are those who are into the morbid fad of cutting themselves and other such things.
There is a site by or for Nigerian artists, and one about the 'survivors of the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921.'
There are links to sites like 'Rabble' which is 'left-talk.' And there is a site called 'Knitters Against George Bush.'
There are many links to 'outsider artists' which seems to mean 'naive' or untrained artists who work in a very primitive or childish style; this is apparently hip, given the left's disassociation of art from beauty and grace.
There are links aplenty to sites having to do with 'sexual minorities' as well as obscure racial and ethnic minorites like Romany Gypsies and Melungeons. There are sites about homelessness, and sites which will give money for starving Argentine children for each click.
Reading through the many, many links at this blog is interesting but it begins to be very depressing after a couple of pages of such topics. I begin to consider what the world looks like to the leftists and liberals, and having been one (although I had some atavistic conservative beliefs which I never lost in those days) I can remember perceiving the world as this big mass of misery, full of victims -- who were righteous and saintly -- and victimizers, who were the successful people, the normal people whose success and normalcy were obviously gained at the expense of the poor victim groups.
The blog in question is an example of how leftists truly live in an 'alternative' universe, where only the bizarre, the outre, the exotic, the rebellious, the odd, and the Other are central to their universe. This alternate universe has its own history, in which the 'wretched of the earth' are front and center.
The leftist worldview focuses always on suffering and victimhood and 'outsider-hood'; there is righteous indignation and anger about all the suffering and injustice and poverty and inequality and low self-esteem. But there seems to be a cherishing of all these bad things; a tendency to prize these things as being somehow exalting in themselves. If you are a member of some oppressed victim group, based on race, ethnicity, sexual habits, criminal history (including immigration status) , or other outsider status, then you are automatically put on a pedestal of sorts; it's apparently an inversion of society's values, wherein we traditionally honored people who excelled or distinguished themselves, or people of character and ability.
Far from wanting to defeat poverty, injustice, war, oppression, or suffering, the left clings to those things, and cherishes them. It gives meaning and purpose to their lives. It enables them to have a self-righteous cause and an excuse to rail endlessly against the system, to strike a pose as the rebel, the seer, and the would-be avenger.
Now, we live in an age in which there is plenty wrong with the system, and the powers that be are seemingly detached from the people they claim to represent and serve, but all the same, the left is over the top in their opposition to the established order. It's all too evident that they would prefer to bring down the existing order of things, and destroy traditional society and its 'oppressive' rules and morality.
We all know from the evidence of history that leftism has never solved the problems it purports to have the answers to. Instead, leftist regimes, whether of the mild 'socialist' variety or of the harsher sort, exacerbate the problems they claim to fix. Injustice and inequality have never disappeared under a leftist system, and though they usually make claims to be for 'peace' they often result in bloodshed on a vast scale, as with Stalin and Pol Pot.
No, the left, despite their constant obsessing on the sufferings and injustices of this present world, does not want to solve these intractable problems; they identify with them too much. The things which enrage the left, the things they rail against so much, are part and parcel of the human condition since Adam and Eve were evicted from Eden.
Leftists are always in rebellion against authority, and they seem perpetually infuriated at the fact that we human beings have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. I think they would prefer to be able to return to the idyllic pre-Fall world, in which man and woman had things easy. But Adam and Eve lost that privilege when they rebelled against God's authority. The left is still rebelling against God's authority, still raging over the loss of Eden, and refusing to recognize that we human beings brought our troubles on ourselves.
In the meantime, since we are stuck with this imperfect world, it would seem that we should be able to enjoy what good and pleasant things there are -- and there are many -- without having to turn everything into an occasion for sob stories, condemnations, and bitterness. Not everything in the world need be turned into a political morality play.
But this particular blog wears its politics on its sleeve -- which is fine up to a point, but if the purpose of the blog is simply to share links of interest on various subjects, is it not possible to put politics aside and simply offer those links without making a political point? I would hope that I could do so; I have thought of starting another blog strictly for the non-political items, things which are of interest, sometimes trivial or frivolous, sometimes just fun, diverting, or bizarre. But it seems that leftists and liberals see political lessons in anything and everything; they eat, live, breathe, and dream their politics and ideology. This is something I touched on in a blog entry I wrote recently, which I called 'No escaping politics.' I was lamenting the fact that even trivial and seemingly innocuous areas of life, such as popular entertainment, was politicized by liberals and leftists and their constant carping and moralizing. That tendency is evident on the blog I mentioned.
Just to illustrate what I mean, I would guess that about 75% of the links are in some way leftist/liberal, dealing with revisionist history from the point of view of some victim group or other, or otherwise politically correct to the max. For example, a web page for 'deaf queers.' (Their terminology, not mine.) And there are the obligatory links to pages about Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela -- the whole pantheon of the left. Then there are links to sites about Liberian refugees, the Zoot Suit Riots, Afro-Cuba, the history of colonial oppression in the Congo, a site about the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu, which we are told is 'threatened by global warming.'
We find a link to a site about 'Self-harm' and an information clearing-house for self-harmers. I assume that 'self-harmers' are those who are into the morbid fad of cutting themselves and other such things.
There is a site by or for Nigerian artists, and one about the 'survivors of the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921.'
There are links to sites like 'Rabble' which is 'left-talk.' And there is a site called 'Knitters Against George Bush.'
There are many links to 'outsider artists' which seems to mean 'naive' or untrained artists who work in a very primitive or childish style; this is apparently hip, given the left's disassociation of art from beauty and grace.
There are links aplenty to sites having to do with 'sexual minorities' as well as obscure racial and ethnic minorites like Romany Gypsies and Melungeons. There are sites about homelessness, and sites which will give money for starving Argentine children for each click.
Reading through the many, many links at this blog is interesting but it begins to be very depressing after a couple of pages of such topics. I begin to consider what the world looks like to the leftists and liberals, and having been one (although I had some atavistic conservative beliefs which I never lost in those days) I can remember perceiving the world as this big mass of misery, full of victims -- who were righteous and saintly -- and victimizers, who were the successful people, the normal people whose success and normalcy were obviously gained at the expense of the poor victim groups.
The blog in question is an example of how leftists truly live in an 'alternative' universe, where only the bizarre, the outre, the exotic, the rebellious, the odd, and the Other are central to their universe. This alternate universe has its own history, in which the 'wretched of the earth' are front and center.
The leftist worldview focuses always on suffering and victimhood and 'outsider-hood'; there is righteous indignation and anger about all the suffering and injustice and poverty and inequality and low self-esteem. But there seems to be a cherishing of all these bad things; a tendency to prize these things as being somehow exalting in themselves. If you are a member of some oppressed victim group, based on race, ethnicity, sexual habits, criminal history (including immigration status) , or other outsider status, then you are automatically put on a pedestal of sorts; it's apparently an inversion of society's values, wherein we traditionally honored people who excelled or distinguished themselves, or people of character and ability.
Far from wanting to defeat poverty, injustice, war, oppression, or suffering, the left clings to those things, and cherishes them. It gives meaning and purpose to their lives. It enables them to have a self-righteous cause and an excuse to rail endlessly against the system, to strike a pose as the rebel, the seer, and the would-be avenger.
Now, we live in an age in which there is plenty wrong with the system, and the powers that be are seemingly detached from the people they claim to represent and serve, but all the same, the left is over the top in their opposition to the established order. It's all too evident that they would prefer to bring down the existing order of things, and destroy traditional society and its 'oppressive' rules and morality.
We all know from the evidence of history that leftism has never solved the problems it purports to have the answers to. Instead, leftist regimes, whether of the mild 'socialist' variety or of the harsher sort, exacerbate the problems they claim to fix. Injustice and inequality have never disappeared under a leftist system, and though they usually make claims to be for 'peace' they often result in bloodshed on a vast scale, as with Stalin and Pol Pot.
No, the left, despite their constant obsessing on the sufferings and injustices of this present world, does not want to solve these intractable problems; they identify with them too much. The things which enrage the left, the things they rail against so much, are part and parcel of the human condition since Adam and Eve were evicted from Eden.
Leftists are always in rebellion against authority, and they seem perpetually infuriated at the fact that we human beings have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. I think they would prefer to be able to return to the idyllic pre-Fall world, in which man and woman had things easy. But Adam and Eve lost that privilege when they rebelled against God's authority. The left is still rebelling against God's authority, still raging over the loss of Eden, and refusing to recognize that we human beings brought our troubles on ourselves.
In the meantime, since we are stuck with this imperfect world, it would seem that we should be able to enjoy what good and pleasant things there are -- and there are many -- without having to turn everything into an occasion for sob stories, condemnations, and bitterness. Not everything in the world need be turned into a political morality play.
Labels: Bloggers, Blogosphere, Leftism, Liberalism, Politics