Sunday, December 26, 2021

Satan's Greatest Hits

We know that criminals as a class -- luckily -- are significantly more stupid than the average human being. What about demons? After all, just how bright can a being be who abhors being?  

Or, could it be that we're making the elementary mistake of attributing to demons what is more razomably occamable to plain old low IQ? 

FJB, for example, is an idiot. Ah, but who is pulling his strings? More to the point, who is pulling theirs? Who's behind him, and what's behind them? How to explain Slow Joe's intelligent ventriloquists and slippery puppeteers? 

Hard to say, being that quite intelligent people are easily as susceptible to demonic influence as anyone else, especially given their typical hubris, for pride is always a point of entry for our vertical antagonists.

Almost by definition a liberal is someone smarter than you are. After all, what else qualifies them to run your life?  

True, they're also more virtuous than you are, but what fun is virtue signaling without the intellectual condescension? You rarely see one without the other, being that truth and goodness converge even in the inverted reality of the left. For as the Philosopher writes,

the intention of every man acting according to virtue is to follow the rule of reason, wherefore the intention of all the virtues is directed to the same end, so that all the virtues are connected together in the right reason of things to be done.... [T]he intention of the sinner is not directed to the point of straying from the path of reason (Thomas, emphases mine).

Oh. This is helpful. A few pages later he suggests -- after ruling out all the objections -- that "inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin." Which means that intelligence alone is only a sufficient cause, and requires the necessary cause of excessive self-regard.    

Let's look for some more hints about how the demons roll.

There is in fact a correspondence between a subject's cognitive power and the degree of universality of the species that he utilizes. The greater the intellectual power, the more rarified and universal are the angelic species utilized (Bonino).

"Species" is a term of art referring to the concept which the intellect abstracts from the data of the senses. 

Which suddenly reminds me of a very wisecrack by the Aphorist to the effect that The liberal mentality is an angelic visitor impervious to earthly experiences.

As usual, Dávila has nailed it, for the left is full of sweeping generalizations that perhaps make superficial sense until you realize they are wholly detached from the senses, AKA, from the real world. 

Examples abound from the low-haranguing fruits of the left, but here are some of their greatest hits:

In America, poverty is the main cause of crime.

Blacks (apart from their behavior) are disproportionately victimized by police violence. 

Women (because they are women) are subject to a "pay gap."

Intelligence tests do not reliably measure intelligence.

Printing too much money doesn't cause inflation.

Rent control doesn't cause housing shortages.

Minimum wage laws don't cause unemployment.

Celebrating sexual deviancy doesn't cause more of it.

There is empirical proof of manmade catastrophic climate change.

Defunding police will reduce crime. Just look!

Strict Gun control laws reduce crime.  Just look!

"White privilege" actually exists.

As does the "Patriarchy."

Not forgetting "homophobia," "transphobia," and soon, "pedophobia." 

All these illegal immigrants are obviously making California a better place to live. 

Electric cars prove that Milton Friedman was wrong about free lunches. 

That was a straight-up insurrection on January 6. 

Sure, Nancy Pelosi is normal.  

College makes you smarter. 

Biden won the 2020 election fair & square. 

This is a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated.

Trump supporters are racists. 

Every one of these is a naughty angel, being that each is a generalization with no connection to the empirical world. Rather, they're just dead -- or undead -- viral concepts in search of minds to host in order to propagate themselves.

21 comments:

julie said...

Almost by definition a liberal is someone smarter than you are. After all, what else qualifies them to run your life?

Yes. And of course, they also run your life with a clear conscience, because they do it all for your own good.

We spent Christmas Eve with someone like that, although outside of politics and covid we love her very much. The sad thing is, along with living in fear and expecting everyone else to do the same, it seems like she's being crushed by life. Controlling whether the people around her wear a mask may actually be the only thing she feels she has control over.

I wonder how often the lack of control in the personal life goes along with the other two traits?

Gagdad Bob said...

At the very least, there must be a deficit in self-awareness, the subject of the next post.

Gagdad Bob said...

And therefore a relative lack of true psychic unity... or a kind of top-down imposed unity. Jello or ice.

Gagdad Bob said...

"Conservatives score higher than liberals on personality and attitude measures that are traditionally associated with positive adjustment and mental health..."

Gagdad Bob said...

Or, as a leftist would put it, conservatives are plagued by a pathological deficit of envy.

julie said...

That's been my experience.

Christina M said...

Zombies, vampire bats, and egregores.

John Venlet said...

In thinking about Satan's greatest hits, the hits listed here are mere gold records, one could say, in comparison to Satan's platinum hits which, to this day, remain at the top of the charts with record sales: Socialism, Communism, Fascism - these greatest of Satan's hits have spawned off all the gold jingles listed by Gagdad. A Satan's greatest hits record burning is in order.

Gagdad Bob said...

Featuring the classic double A-side single of Pride and Envy.

Gagdad Bob said...

Nuance:

"Just so we’re clear on the Right’s agenda -- racism good, abortion bad, money good, women bad, capitalism good, sustainability bad, stupidity good, science bad, power good, equality bad, white people good, nonwhite people bad."

julie said...

It's so thoughtful of them to tell us what they think we think. So from that we can conclude her agenda:

racism bad, abortion good, money bad, women good, capitalism bad, sustainability good, stupidity bad, science good, power bad, equality good, white people bad, nonwhite people good.

At least, that's what they think their own agenda is. Going by what they actually do, the results are rather different. Dare I say, more nuanced.

John Venlet said...

Julie, actually, the Left is in full agreement with the Right that power is good, but only in the Left's hands. Unfortunately, for us mere citizens, in the case of power, both the Left hand and the Right know what they are doing.

julie said...

Like the Karen on the airplane, they never for a moment ever ask themselves, "Are we the baddies?"

julie said...

Shifting gears, for Christmas I got a new set of decent-sounding headphones. Listening to music today, I realized there are instruments and things going on in songs I've heard a million times that I never heard before. It's the audio equivalent of trading old scratched-up glasses for new ones with a better prescription. Wow!

Gagdad Bob said...

Like a new eyeglass prescription, suddenly things pop out.

I fall asleep every night with my headphones on. Speaking of music with lots of stuff going on, one of my favorites is -- no joke -- the Carpenters, especially the early stuff, for example, this.

Here's one of my favorites for auditioning new audio equipment. Here's one I like for testing bass response. Surprisingly, this is one of the best sounding albums ever.

Gagdad Bob said...

I mean this track for bass.

Gagdad Bob said...

I like this because you can pick out the voice in each ear.

julie said...

I used to fall asleep with headphones on. Haven't done it in years, though.

I still haven't heard a lot of the Carpenters; she really did have a gorgeous voice.

Great tracks, all - thanks!

Sound of Silence reminds me of an album I had when I was a kid, probably something obscure and I don't know what it was now, but there was a melody that would switch from one speaker to the other and on headphones it was like the music was leaping right through your brain. Which sounds weird, but was actually a delightful effect.

With the headphones, you know they're good when it doesn't have to be loud to pick up details.

julie said...

Good Muddy Waters album, too - I don't have that one. A bit too blue for painting Strasbourg, though.

John Venlet said...

While I appreciate the nuances of sound which can be garnered by listening to music through headphones, I still prefer the physicality of sound waves from a good set of speakers. A prime example of this physicality, for me at least, would be the sounds of a congregation singing a hymn such as "How Great Thou Art," or "It Is Well With My Soul." The sounds of that music physically washing over me never fails to move me emotionally.

julie said...

No disagreement here. At present and in the foreseeable future, headphones is the best I can do :)

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