Friday, March 26, 2010

The Creature From the Barack Lagoon & the Tyranny of the Disordered

The problem with the left in general and Obama in particular is that they violate the fundamental purpose of politics, which is to nurture order for the purpose of liberal (in the true sense of the word) goods that can never be found in politics.

But for a liberal flatlander with no awareness of, or grounding in, the Transcendent, politics itself becomes the highest good. And again, this is why it is so difficult to do battle with these people, because for them, politics is everything. It is their religion, so all of their religious energy is channelled into it, not unlike a sexual pervert who focuses his libido on shoes, or on a cosmic cult leader with light emanating from his butt.

But for the normal person who just wants to enjoy the higher goods that political order makes possible, it's a little like having to learn how to survive long periods in the dark or under water, where these people dwell all the time. Folks who live in the Light don't want to have to go down there into that fetid swamp and do battle with deformed entities that have adapted to those conditions and are able to comfortably live there without light or oxygen. We can't stay down there that long -- which explains the doggedness of Obama-Pelosi-Reid. They actually like it down there. They have evolved "backward," so to speak, from walking on dry land to crawling beneath the dark waters.

Some people can stay down there and fight with liberals under their home rock, and God bless 'em. Conservatives need aggressive political warriors like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and all the rest -- people who seem to relish taking it to the left on their own terms. I don't think that they should be the intellectual source of conservatism, any more than the military should be the intellectual center of the nation. But without the military to keep the order, there would be no intellect, for the same reason that you can't study Torah on an empty stomach.

The aggressive healthcare takeover by the left represents a triumph of the forces of disorder over order. Thus, when Obama immaturely taunts us about the prospects for repeal and says "nah nah nah, I dare you!," he's really acting as the swamp creature that he is, daring us to descend down where he and his fellow thugs dart around in the shadows. In its own way, it's like Osama in his hellish mountain hideout telling us, "you want me? Come and get me!" The last thing he's going to do is come out into the light and fight like a man.

Now, just as a central purpose of religion is to order the soul, the central purpose of politics is to order the collective. But again, not for its own sake, but for the possibility of higher things (which ultimately revert back to the order of the soul). Thus, a government of disordered souls who only increase political disorder is actually a real evil, and should be recognized as such.

After all, this is why Obama's fellow traveler, the nakedly evil Castro, is so proud of him at this moment -- although he will reserve full approval until Obama can ram through some equally disordered authoritarian legislation under the pretext of "climate change"; and surely, yesterday's humiliation of our most important ally in the Middle East goes toward appeasing the enemies of global order and cementing the Obama administraton's reputation as a surrender cult.

Speaking of disordered souls governing the ordered, wouldn't it be nice if Obama could begin ordering his own soul by, for example, quitting smoking, before trying to micromanage ours? My life is already ordered, thank you. I don't need the extra "order" imposed by the state. In fact, if you know your chaos theory, you know that imposing top down control over a spontaneous, non-linear system is guaranteed to generate disorder. The left just has no understanding whatsoever of the infinitely complex dynamics of non-linear systems.

Democrats truly are the anti-science party, in that they ignore any advances in scientific metaphysics beyond the mechanistic rationalism of the late 19th century. Thus their idiotic treatment of everything from genetics to public policy to economics as a static or linear system. To put it another way, they are never surprised by the inevitable unintended consequences of their misbegotten policies, because they never, ever recognize them to begin with, for the day you can do that, you are cured of your liberalism.

But liberals just aren't intellectually curious enough to wonder why the things most heavily subsidized by government are the most expensive. Not once in this entire "healthcare debate" did I hear one of them explaining why medical care is "too expensive." But if price is not reflecting economic reality, there are reasons. You don't remedy a market distortion by institutionalizing it. After leaving here, I urge you to read Doctor Zero's Parable of the Satellite Dish. As I've said before, that guy is brilliant.

The above preliminary reflections were provoked by reading James Schall's The Order of Things. The book includes chapters on the order of the Godhead, the cosmos, the soul, the mind, and other dimensions, but given the world-historical events of the past week, I jumped ahead to chapter five, The Order of the Polity.

First of all, let me say that Father Schall is a beacon of Light. As I mentioned in a comment, this is about as concise a treatment of the intersection of Catholicism and Raccoonism as one could imagine. It's still somewhat on the exoteric side, which is fine. In that regard, it serves as a fine complement to MOTT which exhaustively deals with the esoteric side. Together they are like night and day, or symmetrical and asymmetrical logic, or conscious and supra-conscious, flesh and spirit, etc. (Not that there is no spirit in the exoteric -- hardly! -- only that it has a different inflection and speaks to different personalities with distinct needs.)

One of the problems I've noticed with liberals is that they are literally unable to recognize (capital T) Truth -- by which I mean higher truths that are "seen" by the intellect, not merely arrived at through the mechanics of logic. For example, in his chapter on the order of the polity, Schall shows us a great many intrinsic truths to which the purified mind can only assent, in the same way the body assents to gravity or any other law of physics.

But this is the whole point about the infallible truth of metaphysics: to understand it is to believe it, because it's a matter of recollection of things that cannot not be. Looked at this way, "political science" -- which has become one more academic joke -- actually is a kind of very exact science, for its principles are universal. (One is reminded of Blake's comment to the effect that truth cannot be told so as to be understood and not believed.)

To cite an obvious example, when the Founders said that all men are created equal, this is a metaphysical truth that can be discovered by natural reason; being true, it is therefore universal. For by definition there is no truth that isn't universal -- one more reason why the left is so confused, since they elevate the absurdity (for it is an empty set) of "non-universal truth," e.g., multiculturalism, moral relativism, and historicism, to the highest intellectual attainment. It is difficult to think of a more direct method to poison and destroy an intellect at the roots. No wonder they're so addicted to this intellectual crack.

Similarly, another fundamental lie of the left is that man is not ordered to a transcendent plane that is both his source and destiny. Again, either you see this or you don't, but you will rarely see a human being who isn't ordered to something that transcends (or subtends) himself, even though he lies to himself about it. A man who is only a man isn't a man at all.

The good polity is ordered around the common good; but if one eliminates the highest good up front, then ipso facto one cannot have a good political order. Take, for example, the Soviet Union. Even leaving aside the more obvious pathologies, the whole monstrosity was ordered around the idea that matter is all, and that man has no transcendent destiny.

Therefore, the first step of any kind of socialism is to quite literally kill man in order to justify everything that is done to him subsequently. For remember, man spans all the degrees of being: matter, life, mind and spirit, with the first three converging upon the fourth. Eliminate the fourth and you have destroyed man's very purpose -- no different, say, than trying to grow palm trees in alaska or pine trees at the equator. Destroy man's soul-habitat, and you are well on the way to controlling him through his petty desires and animal appetites, since those are the only things left.

A key point is that political force is only legitimate when there is a lack of proper order: "it is to be legitimately used only in the name of ordered reason." And what is ordered reason?

Well, let's take the example of the government takeover of our healthcare. The violence it authorizes to force us to comply with its dictates is fundamentally illegitimate, for at no time were its proponents able to sucessfully make an appeal to our reason through persuasion. To the contrary, no one denies that Obama, Reid and Pelosi straight-up lost that argument by a wide margin (and on a bipartisan basis, I might add). Thus, they had to rely upon raw force -- including bribes and threats to the unpersuaded -- to impose their will on a recalcitrant public. This is the very definition of bad governance.

And as mentioned above, the imposition of top-down control on a spontaneous order will inevitably generate chaos. Thus we see so much anger breaking out among the unwilling victims of Obama's audacious power grab. But since liberals control the media, they are trying to spin this as a case of the victims being the aggressors! It's like in hockey, where the ref only sees the retaliation, not the instigator.

But James Taranto eviscerates this disgustingly self-serving narrative, since the anger is hardly an example of "fascism" but a reaction to it: "Kristallnacht was a nationwide pogrom carried out under the direction of a totalitarian state. It is in no way 'parallel' to small-scale acts of vandalism spurred by impotent rage against the party in power" (emphasis mine).

But projection of aggression is what the left does. Take away their hate, and there's not much left of the left.

Yes, all I ask is that the left give us the same understanding and respect they extend to Islamic terrorists. For any hope of peace, they must understand the root causes of our anger! I don't know about you, but for me it's the left occupying my sacred land.

To be continued.....

37 comments:

Open Trench said...

Bob:

Another good reaming of the left, building upon the basics you've established over many years of blogging. I am a believer.

So, how to counter the aggressors? Any ideas? I open the floor to Bob and the raccoons.

We know there are conservatives down in the mudhole grappling with the foe, but how about those of us perched on the edges of the chasm looking downwards?

I'll toss one idea into the fray: Focused prayer.

Cousin Dupree said...

Despise, organize, and pulverize.

Jamie Irons said...

Bob,

You wrote:

Democrats truly are the anti-science party, in that they ignore any advances in scientific metaphysics beyond the mechanistic rationalism of the late 19th century...

That is so true, and as you know, it was at precisely this point (1900) that Max Planck opened a metaphysical can of worms by positing (at first as a mere mathematical device to make the equation for the energy distribution of black body radiation avoid the "ultraviolet catastrophe") the quantum.

And the development of quantum mechanics over the next three decades showed that science had no hope of reducing the mystery inherent in human life -- in fact, science would show that mystery to be irreducible, inherent, and eternal.

Einstein didn't like it, and spent the rest of his life hoping that some "hidden variables" would make the mystery go away. The Irish physicist John Bell in the early sixties proved that the mystery wasn't going anywhere.

As the wonderful Iris Dement (herself probably a liberal, alas) sings,

Let the mystery be!

Jamie Irons

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, the misunderstanding of science fuels their dreams of control....

mushroom said...

This is powerful stuff. Thank you.

Gagdad Bob said...

Cooncur. I just wish Father Schall would stop stealing my ideas before I even think of them.

will said...

Grant -

Deplore, pull your oar, go to war.

black hole said...

Here are some specific things you can do to counter the leftist bloc:

Vote.

Try to influence at least one person a day. The idea being to get them to vote conservative in a future election.

Infiltrate leftist cliques and hotbeds wherever possible, on college campuses and in professional organizations, and seek to understand the political goals, motives and mind-set of the group. Then target key individuals to influence in subtle ways, so as not to spook them. This is a tricky process and may require an investment of months or years of tedious undercover effort for no pay or thanks.

Report back to this blog on any progress made. Compare notes and strategies.

Refuse to pay taxes and be jailed for same, ala H.D Thoreau.

Exit from the economy and scavenge all necessary goods and services.

These last two suggestions are only for hard-core single people without family responsibilities.

will said...

I saw John Ford's Dust Bowl epic The Grapes of Wrath the other day for the zillionth time. Great film on many levels, but that concluding soliloquy delivered by Henry Fonda, you know, "There are no little souls, just one great mass soul of the People," etc., never fails to grate. That's leftist "mysticism" in a nutshell, the core of liberation theology.

This amounts to: hey, we're going to tidy up the People's Soul with a little trimming here and there, a bit on the sides, a little off the top . . . individuals be damned. All in the name of "compassion" of course.

Anyway, Fonda melts into the Great Soul in search of answers - the answer being some kind of progressive politiking to alleviate the Okies' suffering, But what really happened was that the descendents of the California-transplanted Okies achieved the American Dream, and not by way of FDR's Big Government either. This was back when the American Dream had some juice and California really was the Promise Land. Now it's all being Barack-to-the-future'd.

>> . . .yesterday's humiliation of our most important ally in the Middle East . . <<

Naturally. Evil always tips its hand this way - it always gets around to Jew-hating.

Gagdad Bob said...

I will bless those who bless Israel.

You can take that quite literally. It's no coincidence that the most philo-Semitic nation is also the greatest and most prosperous. If we continue to curse Israel, all bets are off for our future.

Jim said...

You wrote "Thus, when Obama immaturely taunts us about the prospects for repeal and says "bring it on," he's really acting as the swamp creature that he is, "

Obama has written that he used marijuana as a young man, I suspect he used it as a teen about 16. It is my understanding that when immature minds get polluted with the weed, they remain frozen at that age emotionally pretty much for the rest of their lives.

What we are dealing with here is not a man but a 16 year old boy(no racial slur intended)That is why he insults people he disagrees with, has no understanding of the adults at the "Tea Parties" and why he can't quit smoking, many problems displayed by Barack can be understood better when looked at this way.

This is also why I fear the inevitable (in my opinion) legalization of marijuana.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Obama's "brain" is an Iranian woman, btw. There may be something in Valerie Jarrett that doesn't love the Jewish State, but I'm sure she's much too intellectually pure to sink to mere visceral preferences.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Or not.

Joan of Argghh! said...

I mean, it would be wrong to correlate one with the other, right?

wv: kingstes Yep. Definitely the power behind the throne.

Tigtog said...

To Grant Maher re:

"I'll toss one idea into the fray: Focused prayer."

Would not argue with your prescription, but would add thorough humiliation as an alternative. The thing the left abhors is not being seen as "cool", "smart", and "in control". Best medicine is to laugh at them for the fools they are.

If that doesn't work, then you're down to shooting them.

mushroom said...

I didn't have time to elaborate this morning, but this came up last night when I kept insisting that my wife change the channel while Rahm Emmanuel with on with Jim Lehhhrrer. I was saying, "I don't want to think about them!"

And that's true. Prayer works but it only works when, at some point in the process -- after we have vented and called Emmanuel and Obama bad names -- we stop thinking about them and begin to focus on Him.

In some sense, the very fact that we focus on these non-entities brings us under their power.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes. When you pay emotional attention to these people in the wrong manner -- that is, without proper detachment -- they've succeeded in drawing you out of yourself. (This is how I control the trolls who imagine that they "choose" to come here and comment. I'll release them at a time of my choosing.)

Aquila said...

mushroom & Gagster: I believe Psalm 109 was designed for that sort of emotional process. It begins with a series of rage-filled curses against an enemy, but ends with an appeal to the Lord for deliverance from oppression.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Well, the pagan world was full of socialism of some sort- you see, if religion is connected to the welfare of the people because it either 1. makes them 'happy' or 2. makes the gods favorable, those who oppose the state's religion (Christians in their time) pose a threat to the state. The state in that time had claim on people's bodies, so ... the rest is simple logic.

Given that socialism, when it enters the realm of health, posits at some point an ownership of people's bodies, the question of whether it has the right to take their lives will become less and less of an issue. Those on the left who so vehemently opposed the death penalty for a certain class of criminals may yet be responsible for unleashing it on all of us.

Cynical irony on one hand, but the blood of the martyrs to be, maybe makes it a wondrous irony - much like the evils the communists wrought created more Christian martyrs than any other time.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Also given my experience in day to day work, often we must choose our battles - this is in ethics, morals, etc - the law helps us a lot, since few are willing to do something if it is illegal, no matter how lucrative.

Change the legal status or the technical legality of killing someone, (however you wish to do it) you will change the ease with which the act occurs. No arguments about the evolution of society will hold out for more than a generation of such laxity. Euthanasia is perhaps the foot in the door, if you will.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

A third comment might be, that the death penalty fails to fall into this class of acts for some reason. I think that this is because that in societies that limit it to the worst criminals, it is both a hated and necessary act; whereas euthanasia is pictured as a positive thing, to be desired. Such is also the difference between blanket abortion and emergency abortion. (And the difference between hospice and euthanasia, I might add.)

WV: arear

Susannah said...

"Despise, organize, and pulverize." Tell it to GOP HQ!! "Focused prayer." This too!

Susannah said...

River, re: death penalty, probably because we apply the death penalty to people who've done some pretty heinous things. The victims' blood cries out from the ground, if you will. Not an act of vengeance, but an act of restorative justice...murder, and your life is forfeit, for how could you ever make restitution for anything as precious and irreplaceable as a human life? In my view, the death penalty can be a sign of a society steeped in the awareness of the sanctity of human life. (See: Noahic Covenant)

Anonymous said...

This is all some pretty lame stuff, people. I would say the left has little to fear from you.

Rick said...

Susannah,
I love that photograph.

"By the pitter-patter of little figs you shall know her."

:-)

PeterBoston said...

There is a huge and I believe uncloseable ideological divide between those who see government as the provider of quality of life and those who see liberty from an oppresive state and their individual effort as the provider of quality of life.

An individual can choose to misbehave but he will eventually be crushed by the intruding and unavoidable bureaucracy.

The major distinctions between the USA and the European populations that have caved into collectivism are that the USA has a much longer tradition of individual liberty, hundreds of years in all but a few cases, and a federalized constitution.

It is difficult to still see state sovereignty under the detritus of 150 years of federal legislation but it is still there as powerful and as vibrant as state legislatures and governors dare to make it.

The machinery is in place for Americans to separate and to self-organize into Communities of Character but only under the protection of state sovereignty. We do not have to invesnt social, cultural or political institutions. They already exist. We need only band together people of like-minded thinking to keep the collectivists outside the walls.

njcommuter said...

Hold true to the real truths. Do so in public. But keep them connected to ordinary things, and use pithy observations that actually force people to think-for-real, whether they like to or not. The contrast between capital punishment and euthanasia above is one such thing.

Right now, we could use a G. K . Chesterton. If, once a week, each of us could muster the insight and clarity in argument that he did tent times a day, it would be a powerful weapon.

Bob, somehow as I read this article, once you mentioned the "warriors" I started to hear your text in Rush Limbaugh's voice. Some parts of it actually woice and cadance. Much of it actually worked that way. Does that make you a member of the militia?

Gagdad Bob said...

A spiritual warrior, to be sure. But I'm too temperamentally laid-back to be drawn into political debates with inveterate liars and fundamentally intellectually dishonest people. I just can't handle that. I don't like to argue, just describe what I see, in the hopes that it will help other readers see it, name it, assimilate it, and generally feel more confident about it as the Real and abiding reality.

Although our temperaments couldn't be more different (nor would I compare myself to someone whom I consider to be a truly great man), I relate to something Schuon said, to the effect that he was not interested in wasting his time arguing with profane thinkers, but to simply expound upon perennial truth for the benefit of those capable of understanding and assimilating it. His mission was "to teach the truth -- the whole and uncolored truth -- only to those who seek it, urgently need it, and are satisfied by nothing else. I am not interested in numbers." In this context, you can understand how our trolls always confirm the doctrine they so despise and attack here. It's actually a comfort, for if people so low could appreciate something so exalted, it wouldn't be that exalted.

Joan of Argghh! said...

That's it, exactly.

I can't help that I was graced with a tempestuous spirit that boils over one minute at the slightest show of blazing duplicity, and collapses in tears of sympathy for the smoldering wick of the weakest seeker of Light.

It's too easy to tell which is which, and our trolls are highly indignant when they get called out; they feign rejection and hurt, toss straw everywhere and fling poo.

"Train up a child . . ." translates as, "give a taste for feeding" and is a term of midwifery. So even the helpless babe in arms has recourse to learn to love Truth. But the self-satisfied are only full of themselves and can't be filled with better fare, they can only despise the lovely feast we enjoy.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Speaking of feasting, we scored some tickets to go see Van the Man next month.

Don't be hatin'. . .

Tigtog said...

It seems our Anonymouse would happily volunteer to be Head Capo of the ovens; to each according to their need, from each according to their talent.

It has become clear to me that the left has grossly overplayed their hand and are quickly becoming a joke. When individuals who voted for him are publicly apologetic in discussions you know you are close to the end of the "Pirates of the Cook County Courthouse" ride. Yo Ho. Have you noticed to dearth of Obama bumper stickers in traffic lately?

Who knew placing an immature, inexperienced racist cypher as head of state would have turned out so poorly?

As it stands, there are only so many democrats left that wish to commit political seppuku. Methinks this ebbing of the secular faith is currently reflected in the White House's efforts to sweep the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" campaign promise down the bureaucratic rabbit hole.

From a committed leftist point of view, the continuation of Bush's WOT and now the backsliding on Gay Rights will at some point be seen as traitorous with the faithful and result in an erosion of support. The problem for Hussein, Pelosi, and Reid, is that they have created the expectation that bribes must be offered to secure votes. What representative wishes to look the loser by not gaining a sufficient amount of pork when selling his vote? Even the media finds this practice distasteful; or at least they say they do.

Finally, there are a limited number of representatives left standing that have closeted gay lives for Rahm to out. So from a practical perspective I would guess the "Obama Surge" has crested only to find out that they need "more boots on the ground" to secure the victory. November can't come soon enough.

Anonymous said...

One is reminded of Blake's comment to the effect that truth cannot be told so as to be understood and not believed.)

I like how you are quoting with approval one of Blake's "Proverbs of Hell". That's almost as funny as your deployments of Nietzsche and "Bob" Dobbs. Do you also like the one a bit before that, the one about "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."? Or "Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion."?

It inspired me to invent a proverb of my own: When idiots quote geniuses, the result is idiocy.

Stephen Macdonald said...

You sound closer to full-blown psychosis every day.

No, that would be the sound of a man enraged by the destruction of the country he loves. This is not something a leftist is even capable of understanding. Never forget, many of us here were once what we are now. We were -- you are -- intellectually shallow and malevolent.

The good news is that people can and do change. I will pray for you, whoever you are.

Tigtog said...

To Northern Bandit.

It seems Anonymouse is touching himself again. Stand back or you may be soiled by his intellectual wanking.

Stephen Macdonald said...

"It inspired me to invent a proverb of my own: When idiots quote geniuses, the result is idiocy."

Don't be so hard on yourself. It's not all your fault your literary sensibility came from a gumball machine. Seriously man, that's all you got? Sheesh!

Where's your blog, Barney Rubble?

Matteo said...

"It inspired me to invent a proverb of my own: When idiots quote geniuses, the result is idiocy," he explained, as he quoted a genius.

Susannah said...

Thanks, Rick...that was a little moment of truth at my sister's wedding last year, just before the big event. These are my youngest five.

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