Liberal Logic, Part 2

Liberal Logic Exposed

Evan Sayet

The following video of a 2009 talk by Evan Sayet is truly insightful about how modern liberals think, and still fresh:

Liberals' Foreign Policies Explained

How Liberal Journalists Explained

Breitbart Exposes Astroturf Sham Protest

What is the difference between a tea party grass roots rally and an astroturf rally? The people holding the signs know what there signs mean.



There is plenty of humor here as well as Orwellian anti-hate rhetoric.

One of the funniest thing is an astroturfer calling Andrew Breitbart gay. Hmm. liberals calling someone gay is intended as an insult (and ultimately apologized for). If it is an insult to be called gay, if liberals think it is an insult to call someone gay, what does that say about liberals?

If everyone understands that calling someone gay is an insult, what does that say about the efforts to mainstream homosexuality?

More on the astroturf effort here.

Liberal Lunacy: More Mandates Mean More Liberty.

I was listening to a presentation to constitutional law professors by lawyers on both sides of the individual mandate health care litigation. On of the lawyers made a statement I thought astounding, but realized that it was the typical twisted thinking of liberals/progressives. She said that the individual mandate enhances liberty, because no one would have to worry about having health care.

What!!?? How do I have more liberty if the government is forwarding me to buy insurance on threat of a huge fine if I don't?

That is nuts. That is progressivism. Welcome to tomorrow's America.

"Epistemic Closure'" Update: Sanchez Responds

When it comes to the Cato Institute, I agree with far more than I disagree. when I heard Julian Sanchez on the Cato podcast discussing his theory of "Epistemic Closure," I was shocked by some of the things that he said and I need to set him straight.

Mr. Sanchez coined the words epistemic closure to describe the effect of a closed circle of information. When one gets one's information about the world from all the same sources, who all agree with each other, and who cite each other as sources, one necessarily ends up with false beliefs endemic to that circle of information. For example, a conservative may get information from Hannity, Malkin, the Washington Times, and National Review. This closed circle of media cites each other and even if a story is false, it gains traction from each source citing the other.

This is an interesting idea and I think it has some merit. Mr. Sanchez cites some of the alleged false beliefs as Obama not being born in the United States. OK, I agree that is false and I have blogged about that here and here.

He cites the "death panels" in the health care bills. Here Mr. Sanchez is wrong. The label "death panels" was a dramatization, perhaps, and maybe even melodramatic. Of course, no panel was created by that name. However, the label made the forceful point that under a government run system with limited resources, government bureaucrats would inevitably decide what conditions got treated and which did not (i.e., act as a, you guessed it, "death panel"). In a completely free market system, cost wold act as an invisible death panel. With our insurance based system, insurance companies act as death panels.

In the legislation as passed, the Independent Payment Advisory Board will be tasked with rationing health care. Death panel.

Mr. Sanchez is also wrong, in my observation, when he accuses conservatives of being more affected with epistemic closure (I hate that name). In my observation, the liberals with there more widespread liberal media are just as affected, if not more so. They pass around just as many false beliefs, such as the free market does not work; government will get it right this time (applicable to every new government program) even through it has no history of getting it right, and so on. To be persuaded that conservatives pass around more false beliefs than liberals, I would have to see studies, studies by people who recognize that "death panels" are a dramatization of reality, not a false belief.

The base notion of epistemic closure -- that people who get their information from a limited circle of media that agree with the person's worldview will tend to have false beliefs consistent with the worldview -- is probably essentially correct. It is important to expand one's sources of information.

Update: Julian Sanchez responds to my criticism of the death panels issue:

It’s worth remembering what the original “death panel” claim from Palin was:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.


That is not a dramatization or an exaggeration; it’s an insane fabrication. Asked to defend her claim, Palin herself didn’t refer to the IAPB, but to a pretty unobjectionable provision dealing with wholly voluntary end-of-life counseling. But even if she had been talking about the IAPB, as you yourself note, any healthcare system involving third-party payments will necessarily involve some entity (or “panel” if you prefer) making very general decisions about which treatments are covered under which circumstances. I suppose you can choose to call these “death panels” if you’re so inclined, but they bear no resemblance to the ghoulish star chamber described above, evaluating each individual’s social productivity before deciding whether they’re worthy of care.

None of which is to defend ObamaCare, of course, but these bizarre claims make it harder to have a conversation about the serious objections to the bill.

-js

**************
Julian Sanchez
Research Fellow
Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001

Why Are Liberals so Condescending

For a real lesson in how liberals justify their bizarre pretensions to superiority over conservatives, read the article Why are Liberals So Condescending, then read the comments.

I came away with the suspicion that liberalism (a.k.a. progressivism) in the United States really should be a recognized form of mental illness.

Anita Moncrief: A Beautiful Story

Although not stated in the post to which I am linking, Anita Moncrief is an African American woman. Please read: How This Ex-Liberal Found Fortitude and Her Way Home.

Every Liberal should read this.

Unity? The Post-Partisan Presidency Myth (Updated)

From Jonathan Weisman at the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama campaigned last year on a pledge to end the angry partisanship in Washington. He wasn't the first to promise a post-partisan presidency: Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton offered a similar change, only to see the mutual hostility between Republicans and Democrats increase while they were in the White House.

Now, just as his predecessors did, Mr. Obama is seeing that promise turn to ashes. Angry town-hall meetings, slumping presidential approval poll numbers and rising opposition to his signature health-care proposals suggest an early resumption of politics as usual.

Obama critics say that is an inevitable result of his push for far-reaching liberal polices even as he made undefined offers to win over moderates and conservatives. The White House blames Republicans and conservative media commentators, saying they sought to sow dissent from the start.

One thing both sides agree on: Six months in to Mr. Obama's presidency, a growing core of Americans is turning against the president, including some voters he won over during the campaign.

"I thought he was going to unite us as a country. When I heard, 'There's not a white America, there's not a black America, there are the United States of America,' that resonated with me," said Leah Wolczko, a 42-year-old teacher from Manchester, N.H., who described herself as a political independent who had supported Mr. Obama but failed to vote in November. "But when they start talking specifics, well, now we've got some problems." She objects to what she calls Mr. Obama's big-government, big-spending policies.

Update. Looking for a scapegoat, Obama blames the GOP for his problems with the health care reform proposals. Earth to Obama: The majority of people are incensed over your hell care proposals. The GOP was just as surprised as you are and is following, not leading, the trend.

20 Years to Conservative

Kevin Roose, a liberal Ivy-Leaguer, transferred to Liberty University to write a book about how Christian school kids are different. From this account, it appears that Mr. Roose (who did write his book) is the one who will be transformed. But it takes time to lose an inbred ideology. I give him 20 years. Or another 9/11 (which converted many liberals to conservatism). Read about it here.