Twenty-six more weird left-liberal beliefs

During the two years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the mental state of left-liberals. Their cognitive structure seems to consist of a set of beliefs which are either internally contradictory, morally insane, demonstrably untrue in the light of evidence, or which display a wilful disregard for what makes human beings tick.

 In a recent post, I listed twenty-one distinctly odd beliefs generally held by left-wingers . Commenters added three more, all of which seem valid:

22. Most people live in a new world. They were born yesterday and know nothing. Luckily, there is a select class of Guardians – as Plato called them, the name is still in use – who know everything. Their knowledge derives from the fact that they live entirely in the future.

23. Nothing is funny. Obviously, conservatives are laughable. But that's funny-peculiar, not funny-ha ha.

24. We don't have to come up with evidence-based, sensible and practical policies because there isn't the remotest chance that we'll ever have to answer for them. Err...oh shit. We're in a coalition now. Let's hope no one asks difficult questions that might point out that we are no more than an agitprop student protest movement.

I realised when I was compiling the original list that the number of weird things left-liberals believe is almost infinite. (By “weird” I mean beliefs for which there appears to be absolutely no justification whatsoever.) In order to bring the number up to a round fifty, here are another 26 left-liberal beliefs which strike someone possessing a distinctly right-wing temperament as ranging from puzzling to deranged:

25. Levying higher taxes on the rich is morally justified, whether or not this increases revenue or harms a flat-lining economy.

26. The most important thing about any policy is whether it makes you feel good, rather than whether it produces the desired outcome.

27. Benefitting from hard work or innate talent is morally wrong, but achieving success by cleaving to the prevailing left-liberal weltanschauung is perfectly acceptable.

28. Expressions of patriotism represent an attack on other countries and their cultures.

29. It is natural for us to feel as concerned with the welfare of foreigners – who might not look, act or speak like us, and who live thousands of miles away – as we do about our own families or neighbours.

30. The best people to ask for advice on any “problem” are single-issue obsessives who’ve made a living out of perpetuating that problem.

31. Being glibly articulate about any issue means that your views must be correct – physical evidence or logic don’t matter.

32. A political talk show panel containing four left-wingers, one right-winger, and being hosted by a left-wing presenter, is “balanced”.

33. If we were materially equal, we’d all be happy.

34. Money doesn’t matter  - yet the answer to any problem is to throw other people’s money at it.

35. The wealth of the world is finite – someone becoming richer means someone is getting poorer.

36. Human life is “sacred”, which means the death penalty is immoral – but flushing away foetuses and doing away with yourself is perfectly acceptable.

37. It is our job to leave the Earth exactly as we found it, because using available resources is wicked.

38. If you prevent respectable, law-abiding citizens from owning guns, bad people won’t use them either.

39. Health care - which has been paid for by the British people - should be free at the point of delivery to non-residents who haven’t paid for it.

40. Recently arrived economic migrants should take precedence over poor people whose families have lived here for generations.

41. Asking our security services to concentrate on members of those groups who have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks, or those who have responsible for the vast majority of street crime in our major cities, is racist.

42. Rewarding people for not working will not make them less inclined to work.

43. Your own beliefs and obsessions are so overwhelmingly important that you are justified in inconveniencing the vast majority of people who don’t share them.

44. By questioning whether every person in receipt of benefits deserves them you are automatically implying that all benefits recipients are defrauding the taxpayer.

45. The United Nations – packed with tyrants, anti-semites, kleptocrats, terrorists  and economic basket-cases – is the best organisation to sort out global conflicts in an efficient, even-handed manner.

46. Terrorism is always the fault of the country at which it is directed.

47. Fairness means punishing those who have run their affairs sensibly for the benefit of those who haven’t.

48. Better exam grades resulting from making exams easier represent a triumph for the state education system.

49. It’s always better to do what sounds good rather than what we know actually works.

50. When a left-liberal policy fails, it is the fault of those critics who said it wouldn’t work.

51. The country which abolished the slave trade in 1833 is morally obliged to go on paying the price for its wickedness  - while the country which caused the Second World War has (rightly) been entirely forgiven.

Okay, I got carried away and popped in an extra one.

If any more occur to you, please share them.