People often ask why so many intellectuals and elites become so enamored with socialism and are opposed to capitalism.
One of the most compelling hypotheses I’ve seen put forward is from Robert Nozick in his essay “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?” Summarizing or giving excerpts from this great piece wouldn’t do it justice, so I instead decided to just link to it directly.
I’m looking to expand my views by trying some books with more of a leftist slant. In this post, I discussed my favorite conservative books. I want to try something different and read some good liberal books, but most of the liberal books I find seem to not really confront conservative viewpoints with good logic but instead tend to just sidestep the conservative arguments altogether by just responding with invective and/or smug sarcasm. It’s a frustration I find with a lot of modern progressive spokespeople, they seem to think smug condescension and sarcasm is an argument in and of itself:
The problem with sarcasm is that it pokes fun at the other side without actually making an argument. If you happen to agree with the speaker’s view already, this can be pretty entertaining: you don’t need an argument, so you enjoy the affirmation of how smart you are and how dumb the other guy is. But what if you don’t already agree? Well, in that case sarcasm doesn’t tell you very much except about the nastiness of the speaker. The sarcastic comment rather suspiciously avoids addressing the merits, and is more likely to turn off the undecided than persuade them.
It’s part of the problem I have with the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, where people are inexplicably hailed as “geniuses” (truly an overused and increasingly meaningless word in this day and age) by the media and the progressive man-on-the-street for getting up every night and being sarcastic in front of a sympathetic audience that is dedicated to hearing their own views parroted back at them on a nightly basis. Sarcasm is simply making fun of someone by saying the opposite of what you mean. If that’s now the gold standard for “genius” than every teenage girl in America is currently a genius. And if that’s the current standard for genius, who do we use for examples of “mildly clever.” And what new word do we use to describe people like Da Vinci, Newton and Einstein?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind sarcasm and smug condescension beng used in putting forth an argument, I just hate when that is where the argument begins and ends, when it is basically the whole argument.
So anyway, back to my original question: can anyone recommend me some well-researched lefty books with convincing arguments that aim to change your views rather than just preach to the choir? So far I’ve been recommended Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas and the books of Eric Hobshawm. I don’t care if the author is trying to advance an agenda (honestly, who isn’t?) as long as aid agenda doesn’t lead to rampant intellectual dishonesty in the writing.
Listen to some of these clips from Bill Clinton during Hillary’s run, as it became clear she was going to lose.
Bill Clinton claims that the race card was used against him:
Now look at how testy Bill Clinton is getting with the media here last week:
Also check out this quote from Bill last week regarding the media:
“It’s all politics,” Bill Clinton told Huffington Post. “It’s all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don’t think anything about it. But I’m telling ya’, all it’s doing is driving her supporters further and further away — because they know exactly what it is — this has been the most rigged coverage in modern history — and [Purdum] ought to be ashamed of himself. But he has no shame. It isn’t the first dishonest piece he’s written about me or her.”
He also was quoted as saying “It’s part of the national media’s attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It’s just the most biased press coverage in history. It’s another way of helping Obama.” So what exactly is Bill talking about? What’s happening here?
Basically, Bill Clinton is right. The mainstream media, which in the past has been ridiculously pro-Clinton, changed gears this election and went in for Obama in a big way and did its best to derail Hillary’s campaign. Even when Hillary would win a primary, they’d mostly focus on Obama. It was mind-boggling, really. Obama would win, he’d be the focus of coverage. When he’d lose, he’d still be the focus of coverage. There were puff pieces galore about Obama, meanwhile the media would downplay any questionable ties he had or not report any of his public speaking gaffes, like this one on Memorial Day where he apparently saw ghosts:
On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today, our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.
Meanwhile every misstep Hillary did in this race was blown out of proportion. (And let’s be real, if Bush did that speaking gaffe about the ghosts it would have made the rounds over and over on the Daily Show, Colbert and the rest of the late night circuit, and even carried over onto the morning shows). I’m not too sorry for the Clintons though. They’ve been the beneficiaries of media bias so long, it’s somehow a fitting irony that Hillary ends up becoming a victim of media bias for once.
Old friends and longtime aides are wringing their hands over Bill Clinton’s post-White House escapades, from the dubious (and secretive) business associations to the media blowups that have bruised his wife’s campaign, to the private-jetting around with a skirt-chasing, scandal-tinged posse. Some point to Clinton’s medical traumas; others blame sheer selfishness, and the absence of anyone who can say “no.” Exploring Clintonworld, the author asks if the former president will be consumed by his own worst self.
And it only goes downhill from there. But why exactly did a scandalous article about Bill Clinton need to be released at this critical juncture? Were people really clamoring to know more about Bill’s shenanigans after all these years, and particularly now when there are so many more pressing issues on the public’s mind like the elections, the economy and gas prices? It served no purpose except to drive the final nail in the coffin of Hillary’s campaign. It was a hit piece, pure and simple, except the real target was Hillary, not Bill. The media wants Obama to win, and wanted to do everything they could to ensure that Hillary would either drop out or lose decisively.
Now that Hillary’s campaign is basically over, note how positively the media is covering her again. They now gush over her and want to rehabilitate her image and build her back up for two reasons. The first reason is in case she becomes Obama’s running mate. Her reputation needs to be stellar again by then so that her addition to the ticket doesn’t hurt Obama’s chances. The second reason for the media to fix her image is so that her supporters will calm down, be placated and not get so bitter that they decide to vote for McCain over Obama. Unfortunately for the media, this second goal may be harder to achieve than they expected.
At this point the media’s strategy of lionizing Obama and demonizing Hillary is beginning to backfire as Hillary’s embittered followers are talking either of abstaining altogether from voting, or worse, voting for John McCain. There is major bitterness and rage on the part of many Hillary followers over what they perceive to be unfair treatment of Hillary by the media and Obama. Over at Hillary’s official blog, even as they’re reciting the official party line and urging Democrats to “come together ,” you can see 700+ comments on the thread by irate Hillary supporters who are angry with Obama and the media and are declaring their intent to vote for McCain as a result of the bitter campaign. (The comments really do make for a fascinating read; the shrillness is bad even by the standards of extremely radical feminists)
Also, check out Hillary’s concession speech, which you can see here. She mentions Obama favorably over a dozen times, but each time she uses the phrase “We must elect Barack Obama,” the crowd’s reaction is less and less enthusiastic, and you can hear a lot of people actually booing. The last time she says it there’s almost no applause save for some weak, polite clapping from the people behind her.
Polls show around 30 percent of Hillary Clinton’s voters saying they’ll vote for John McCain. Most will come around – but if only 5 percent of her 18 million voters stray to the GOP side, that could be enough to swing the election.
The McCain camp is on it. It believes it can siphon off older female voters, who are skeptical over Obama’s lack of experience. McCain clearly heard Clinton’s battle cry after the final primary, when she said she wanted her voters to be respected. His surrogate, Carly Fiorina, even told reporters she believed Clinton suffered sexist treatment during the campaign – music to these Clinton supporters’ ears.
McCain started courting Clinton’s voters in the days between that last primary and her concession speech. He said the media had mistreated Clinton and talked of how much he respects her, noting she was often underappreciated.
Now he’s planning a campaign tour to reach out to her voters, as well as to independent female voters. His campaign has dedicated part of its Web site to them, and is mobilizing high-profile female surrogates to flood states where Clinton won.
Think about that…only 5% of Clinton’s female base will be enough to swing the vote McCain’s way. It will take that little. So of course the mainstream media, which desperately wants Obama to win, is running scared.
[T]here is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator?s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain?s three eldest children.
And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain?s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.
She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam?s infamous ?Hanoi Hilton? prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.
For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.
Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ?I have no bitterness,? she says. ?My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn?t the reason for my divorce.
?My marriage ended because John McCain didn?t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.?
Some of McCain?s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ?play the field?. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.
Now just like with the Bill Clinton Vanity Fair story, why this particular story and why now? Could it have something to do with the media viewing woman as reactionary, emotional decisionmakers and hoping that this article will make Hillary’s female base hate McCain for being a cad more than they currently hate Obama, thereby ensuring they won’t cross over to the GOP come November? I’m sure you can put it together for yourselves.
As a conservative, I must admit that I am truly enjoying the current freakshow that is the Democratic nomination process. Between Hillary’s shrill rallying cries and Obama’s vague talk of change, it’s great to see the two candidates tear each other apart to the overall detriment of the party.
I think there is a recurring problem with the Democratic party, and this race has really brought it to the forefront. Many Obama and Hillary supporters that I meet don’t really know much about either party’s stances on various issues outside of extremely broad strokes.
The biggest problem the average Democrat has is that they tend to make all their major decisions using a thought process based on emotion. They focus first and foremost on what sounds and feels good rather than what may or may not be factually true. A beautiful, reassuring fiction always trumps a harsh and unpleasant truth in their minds. I like to call this thought process the Progressive Liberal Moral Continuum, and it is as follows:
Poverty is inherently more noble and morally superior to wealth
New money is inherently more noble and morally superior to old money
Darker skin victimology is inherently more noble and morally superior to lighter skin
Modern feminist values and matriarchy are is inherently more noble and morally superior to masculine values and patriarchy
Internationalism is inherently more noble and morally superior to patriotism
Working class is inherently more noble and morally superior to the moneyed classes
Quasi-socialism is inherently more noble and morally superior to free-market capitalism
Secularism and athiesm are inherently more noble and morally superior to religious devotion
Anti-military is inherently more noble and morally superior to pro-military
Baby Boomer hippie cred trumps any preceding or succeeding generation’s credentials
Anything European is inherently more enlightened than anything American (this is why many of them , even those who usually have no interest in sports, work hard to pretend to like soccer, because the simple fact that most of America doesn’t get it automatically makes it more attractive to them)
Eastern values are inherently morally superior to Judeo-Christian western values
Gay men are automatically more noble and enlightened than straight men
This checklist is the way they analyze everything. When you see progressive liberal columnists discuss the candidates, they spend most of the time analyzing them on how authentic their blackness, populism or feminism are. How is their charisma? How “authentic” and “likable” are the candidates? How well do they pay lip service to the poor? Even on the rare occasions where issues are explored, they are explored according to this checklist. A conservative will talk about the tax cuts by trying to discuss the economic principles behind them. Whether you agree with the economic rationales, the point is that there is at least an attempt to discuss the matter economically. When Democrats go into the issue of tax cuts, they oppose them mostly using an emotional appeal to anti-rich sentiments: tax cuts must go because they may help rich people. Don’t let the rich people get one over on you.
Note that I didn’t just say darker skin is better than lighter skin, but specifically said darker skin victimology is better than lighter skin. Having darker skin is not enough, or else liberals would be able to admire the accomplishments of black conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele and Larry Elder. But they don’t like these blacks because they preach personal accountability and don’t encourage a victim mindset. Being black is not enough, you must also claim to be a constant victim of racist discrimination.
Also note that I said modern feminism is morally superior in the Continuum rather than using the word “woman.” Being a woman alone is not enough, otherwise progressive liberals would be able to muster up more support for the likes of successful women like Elizabeth Dole, Condi Rice and Laura Bush. But these women do not give off emasculating vibes, are demure and not shrill and are openly content with taking a backseat to men. A woman has to subscribe to modern feminism to claim moral superiority on the Continuum, meaning she has to embrace competing with men by acting more like a man, all the while paying lip service to tearing down patriarchy.
This is the reason why Obama vs. Hillary is causing such turmoil for the party faithful. Because nothing in the Progressive Liberal Moral Continuum has given them a clear cut victor in a battle between candidates like Obama and Hillary. Obama is a black person that subscribes to victimology, which is better than white according to the Continuum. But Hillary is a feminist woman, which means she is better than Obama, who is a man. Yet Hillary is not a good feminist in some eyes because she stood by her man through his infidelity, while Obama in some ways has more feminist cred because he lets his wife openly disrespect him and put his down in public, giving him a henpecked beta male husband image that many modern feminist admire in today’s men. Yet Hillary is a true baby-boomer hippie, which wins her a lot of points since modern liberals tend to deify hippies as the greatest generation ever. But Obama thanks to his heritage has a lot more cred in the areas of internationalism and eastern values thanks to his Muslim and Ghanan background. And so on and so on.
You can see how this confuses many progressive liberals, as nothing in their playbook discusses how to compare these things to each other. Who has inherent moral superiority when comparing a black victimologist to a white female feminist (not a redundancy as there are male feminists too)? Who has inherent moral superiority when comparing an authentic baby boomer hippie to an internationalist with Eastern roots? And given the binary nature of their thinking, the fear is that if they declare one person the winner, they are making a moral judgment on the other person’s traits, thereby alienating a significant part of the Democrat constituency in the future. Does choosing Obama as a nominee make white feminist women inferior to black victimologists, thereby making feminists not want to vote Democrat this election? Does choosing Hillary make black victimologists inferior to white feminist women inferior to black victimologists, thereby making many minorities and Muslims abstain from voting Democrat this election?
You can see why the powers-that-be in the Democratic party are dragging their feet on this one, as a lot is at stake. There’s no clear cut winner under their usual criteria of the Progressive Liberal Moral Continuum. By creating an environment where not voting for a black man must mean you are a racist and can’t possibly be disagreeing with him based on his stances on issues and creating an environment where not voting for a woman means you are a misogynist and can’t possibly be disagreeing with her based on her stances on issues, they’ve eventually paralyzed themselves in a race where a black man runs against a white feminist, because they’ve reduced their choices to “What is the lesser of two evils, outing myself as a racist or as a misogynist.” The crude simplicity of their thought process that previously made all their life decisions ridiculously simple is the exact mechanism that is making their current dilemma such an excruciating choice.
Which leads us to Obama’s secret weapon: Michelle Obama. By being more shrill than Hillary and emasculating Obama on several occasions and refusing to look like a doting, Republican Stepford wife stereotype, she eliminates Hillary’s feminist advantage, which was already damaged thanks to her tolerance of her husband’s philandering. They can get both black victimology and modern feminism with Obama thanks to his wife’s persona, thereby eliminating one of Hillary’s major advantages.
Until the Democratic Party can evolve past this crude thought process of race, gender and class checklists, they will continue to face these problems in future elections.
