The Limits of Leftism: Death, Tyranny, and Grown-ups
Just a brief thoughtlet, more worthy of a tweet, whatever that is.
The Supremes obviously want to know what the "limiting principle" is behind Obamacare, but they're about 75 years too late, since they will search in vain for any such principle in leftism.
To put it another way, leftism is the principle of unlimited government, so it has no intrinsic limitation. It is omnipotent, omniscient, and utopian, hence "offended" by your petty -- and probably evil -- objections. You can't get too much of Never Enough. And there are no moral or rational limits to a Limitless Science.
The Party of NO! just spoils the Party of Hearty. But the latter can never be independent, dammit, because they require all that cash from productive adults in order to keep the party rolling.
Get Out of My Life, Rethuglicans! But First Could I Borrow About Ten Trillon?
The left does, however, have an extrinsic limiting principle. It's called "conservatism." Conservatism is the only limit on unlimited government, the adult "no" to the infantile "more!"
Which goes back to the bobservation cited by the hysterical Kosbag in yesterday's post, because the situation is indeed very much analogous to the parent/child dialectic, in which children need parents to set limits and boundaries. A child without boundaries soon enough becomes a monster in some form or fascism.
If one fails to internalize these boundaries, then a whole range of pathology results, both personal and, more problematically, sociological. It wouldn't bother me so much if boundaryless people only destroyed themselves. Sad, maybe, but Darwin is a cruel master, and the least fit among us are often permitted just one big mistake.
If one cannot behave like a civilized human being, one is much more likely to encounter a limit in the form of a jail cell, a dreadful disease, a bullet to the chest, etc. ***cough***trayvon***cough cough AKA "No Limit Nigga." What a dramatic way to discover one's limit. D'oh!
Fatherless children often find a rigid and punitive father later in life, in the form of cold iron bars or hot lead projectiles.
What is the limit of homosexual acting out, of having thousands of anonymous sexual encounters, like Patient Zero? In his case, the limit was the free-swinging scythe of AIDS. Once that condition is controlled, you'll see a recrudescence of the same sort of behavior that caused the virus to flourish.
Indeed, what is the limit of male heterosexual acting out? It used to be something called "female discrimination," also known as "taste," "standards," or "a future." Eliminate these, and manhood soon enough devolves to Andy Warhol's definition of art: what you can get away with.
Actually, there is another limiting principle of leftism: reality. But if reality isn't respected, it exacts a terrible vengeance, so it is more than just a limit.
It's very much like science, in that we obey nature in order to control nature. Disobey nature -- including human nature -- and the account will be balanced, one way or another, sooner or later, by God or by Darwin -- and sometimes by God through Darwin.
The Supremes obviously want to know what the "limiting principle" is behind Obamacare, but they're about 75 years too late, since they will search in vain for any such principle in leftism.
To put it another way, leftism is the principle of unlimited government, so it has no intrinsic limitation. It is omnipotent, omniscient, and utopian, hence "offended" by your petty -- and probably evil -- objections. You can't get too much of Never Enough. And there are no moral or rational limits to a Limitless Science.
The Party of NO! just spoils the Party of Hearty. But the latter can never be independent, dammit, because they require all that cash from productive adults in order to keep the party rolling.
Get Out of My Life, Rethuglicans! But First Could I Borrow About Ten Trillon?
The left does, however, have an extrinsic limiting principle. It's called "conservatism." Conservatism is the only limit on unlimited government, the adult "no" to the infantile "more!"
Which goes back to the bobservation cited by the hysterical Kosbag in yesterday's post, because the situation is indeed very much analogous to the parent/child dialectic, in which children need parents to set limits and boundaries. A child without boundaries soon enough becomes a monster in some form or fascism.
If one fails to internalize these boundaries, then a whole range of pathology results, both personal and, more problematically, sociological. It wouldn't bother me so much if boundaryless people only destroyed themselves. Sad, maybe, but Darwin is a cruel master, and the least fit among us are often permitted just one big mistake.
If one cannot behave like a civilized human being, one is much more likely to encounter a limit in the form of a jail cell, a dreadful disease, a bullet to the chest, etc. ***cough***trayvon***cough cough AKA "No Limit Nigga." What a dramatic way to discover one's limit. D'oh!
Fatherless children often find a rigid and punitive father later in life, in the form of cold iron bars or hot lead projectiles.
What is the limit of homosexual acting out, of having thousands of anonymous sexual encounters, like Patient Zero? In his case, the limit was the free-swinging scythe of AIDS. Once that condition is controlled, you'll see a recrudescence of the same sort of behavior that caused the virus to flourish.
Indeed, what is the limit of male heterosexual acting out? It used to be something called "female discrimination," also known as "taste," "standards," or "a future." Eliminate these, and manhood soon enough devolves to Andy Warhol's definition of art: what you can get away with.
Actually, there is another limiting principle of leftism: reality. But if reality isn't respected, it exacts a terrible vengeance, so it is more than just a limit.
It's very much like science, in that we obey nature in order to control nature. Disobey nature -- including human nature -- and the account will be balanced, one way or another, sooner or later, by God or by Darwin -- and sometimes by God through Darwin.
posted by Gagdad Bob at
3/30/2012 07:03:00 AM
16 Comments
Links to this post
