Thursday 17 November 2011

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. 

10 comments:

  1. OK, I will. British peoples' rights and freedoms are much safer in the hands of a European Court populated by recently qualified Polytechnic law lecturers from Latvia than the High Court and Parliament.

    We must regard Luxembourg, with its population the size of Croydon and its long history of...errr its long history, as an equal partner in our EU monetary and economic policy

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  2. Probably best to start reading this comment in the recovery position. It'll save time.

    In the matter of Article no.41:-

    I went to a concert last night, one of a series in the Wimbledon Music Festival. Our host started by apologising for a change to next Wednesday's programme, when the South Korean pianist Sunwook Kim was due to play Beethoven's last three piano sonatas.

    Mr had been booked 18 months ago. In the event, he will be replaced by John Lill.

    Why?

    Mr Kim is studying conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. He is in the country on a student's visa.

    Enter the UK Border Agency.

    Mr Kim can study. He can even appear in concerts where there is a conductor – that amounts to studying conducting. But he can't appear in solo recitals with no conductor.

    Rules is rules. Sometimes. And the sanction?

    Our host had rung the Academy and been told that, at the outside, if Mr Kim appeared, they, the Academy, could be closed down.

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  3. David Moss. The Sunwook Kim debacle. I have to go with the Border Agency on this one. There are currently 1m+ unemployed in the 16-24 age group in the UK. Why should a S. Korean pianist be allowed to deprive a young British musician of a job? Did your Academy check with the Job Centre in Wimbledon wether they had any pianists up to concert pitch who could handle the Late Sonatas? Anyway, Beethoven was not a very nice person - he said horrible things about my hero Napoleon.

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  4. Enraged Luxembourger18 November 2011 at 19:55

    We have the highest per capita GDP in the world, English Pig! You, with your debt mountain and your riots and your evil British so-called Empire and your under-performing Rugby team - who are you to sneer at us? We may be small, but we're rich, and "handy" - we probably have a bigger army than you do these days. Be warned, rosbif Englischer (we are trilingual, by the way - unlike your bloated, overpopulated hell-hole of a country, where most people can't even speak English properly) - any more of your snooty high-handedness and we will attack you with all the ferocity of a pit-bull with a banger up its bottom!

    Forget the EU - we demand a place on the UN Security Council!

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  5. I've never met an enraged Luxembourger, For the most part, they're a dull and placid bunch which no doubt stems from their happy experience of neutrality during the war and the subsequent history of coming up with ingenious new ways of stoking the Euro Federast gravy train, such as the luxuriously appointed European Court of Justice which lends such distinction to the world of Eurpean jurisprudence. So well done for getting excited, EL.

    Some cruel commentators might point out that a significant proportion of your GDP stems from a financial sector which is so under- regulated as to attract the sort of investor who would be subject to obligatory suspicious financial transaction reporting in other EU capitals. Still, as well as being the money-laundering capital of Europe you can claim the honour of hosting the Schengen Convention, which has removed all border controls within Europe, allowing us all to get to know so many interesting foreigners who,sadly for you, tend to rush through your country to get somewhere interesting.

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  6. Alfred, when you play Schubert's Impromptus, that is the whole world, there is nothing else.

    I will not argue with you about the UK Border Agency.

    Your friend Norman might, though. He has discovered that Mr Kim offered to play for free and UKBA still said non.

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  7. I read your comment in the recovery position, as you suggested, Mr Moss. Good advice. If we could only find a way of hunting down these ridiculous pipsqueak Nazi officials and subject them to ridicule before stripping them of their job titles, income, public sector pensions and trousers, what a much nicer country this would be.

    I suspect that the mean-minded inadequate responsible for this decision - and for issuing a series of vile threats to a venerable and much-valued British institution - was enraged by the evidence of High Culture being celebrated, and that if Sunwook Kim had been the lead singer in a band called The Snot Biscuits (or similar) and had been studying InternatIonal Terror Creation Studies at UCL, the concert would have been allowed to go ahead, probably with a Lib-Dem cabinet minister attending (especially if Sunwook was a "looker").

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  8. Enraged Luxembourger20 November 2011 at 18:49

    Now, now, ex-KCS, don't get huffy just because your government is too incompetent to "stoke the Euro Federast gravy train". When we see how your George Osborne keeps agreeing to pay out money to keep the Euro alive when you aren't even members of the Eurozone we open another bottle of Krug champagne (paid for by Brussells, of course) and laugh and laugh and laugh...

    If you should ever travel again through the small but beautiful paradise that is Luxemburg, our police will instantly arrest you. If it isn't her day off.

    But enough of this - I must go out and spend some more of your money. Hahahahaha!

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  9. I agreed with a few of these, they were spot-on.
    Although there a few I couldn't help but find in bad taste.
    Still though, fantastic post and position.

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  10. Thanks, Alexksandr - glad you enjoyed it. By the way, I did another list of strange left-liberal beliefs in December:
    http://scottgronmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-30-inexplicable-left-liberal.html

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