Yoda: ““Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.””
No, Progressives can’t engage in debate and debate fairly using reasoning and fact. They can’t and it has been obvious for a long, long time. Racist, homophobic, hater, xenophobic, denier, nativists, religious fairy tale believers, rednecks, bitter clingers, deplorables and irredeemables, and now transphobics; and those are just some of the epithets that the Left uses in trying to cower the Right and other dissenters with the end goal of any of those descriptors is to stop any conversation, silence the opposition, and try to isolate those that simply disagree with them on any of several levels.
And it show they have no cogent argument for a debate – only raw emotion to be thrown at those of on the opposing side (and they do, as much as they accuse us on the Right of doing it) in an effort to Otherize (projection, as the psychologists have defined). A couple of snippets from The Corner post (the title above):
Increasingly, no.
- …MacLean manufactured a sleazy case that he [James Buchanan] was a racist who just wanted to create an excuse for opposing government action. That resonated with most leftists, who have been taught that exposing the supposed hidden motives of people who don’t want omnipotent government is all that’s necessary to win an argument.
- …Wasserman can’t just give an explication of Austrian thinking and then offer arguments as to why he disagrees. He poisons his book with all sorts of motive impugning barbs.
Another example from the news, and a long time in coming, is that the Methodist Church is splitting itself over the issue of biblical sexual immorality (traditional marriage vs homosexual marriage/LGBT):
The restructuring comes after a contentious General Conference of the second-largest Protestant denomination in the US voted last year to reinforce the church’s stance against ordaining gay clergy and performing same-sex weddings. New York Conference Bishop Thomas Bickerton, part of the group behind the proposal, told the official United Methodist News Service that heated debate at the conference demonstrated “the line in the sand had turned into a canyon.”
“The impasse is such that we have come to the realization that we just can’t stay that way any longer,” he said. At the St. Louis conference in February, the denomination decided that United Methodist churches and clergy could face removal if they did not affirm its stance against gay marriage and non-celibate LGBT clergy by 2021.
And of course, even in a religious setting when confronted with an opposing faction, the Left STILL can’t even hold itself together:
“Devastation,” was how former Methodist pastor Rebecca Wilson of Detroit described her feelings at the time. “As someone who left because I’m gay, I’m waiting for the church I love to stop bringing more hate.”
And another: Lorena Gonzalez Implies Resistance to AB5 Is Motivated by Sexism and Racism Because of Course She Does
Hate. This is about a clear an example as there is: I hold a position, you oppose it, you are the hateful one and you are the one that should repent. In this case, I will add, that Ms. Wilson isn’t just fighting against “haters”. I support and advocate for traditional marriage – am I a hater just because I hold to that position and the biblical reasons thereof? According to the Left, I am – because I am an obstacle. And so is anyone else that hold doctrinal / philosophical different position – and you must needfully be eliminated from “the table” in some way or manner.
And that brings us to more local versions of the same thing:
- NH State Rep Jan Schmidt lying about GraniteGrok in causing Merrimack female NH State Reps receiving police protection (and called us a “hate blog”)
- NH State Rep Deb Stevens accusing those with guns of plotting revolution if Trump loses with no proof (er, did she forget about Article 10?)
- And NH State Rep Rosemarie Rung accusing Steve of “hate” simply for putting her voting record
They accuse us of hate because they hate being exposed. They accuse of hate because they have no debating skill. They accuse us of hate because they have no sense of self-irony and no sense of self-awareness. That is, until they’ve lost the debate and are reduced, as I said above, to raw emotion. I would say heart of mind but it is clear that they have no heart as the bad results of their policies are never reconsidered.
“Can’t ‘Progressives’ Discuss Conflicting Ideas without Impugning Motives?”
The Democrat Progressives are what they are – and they act as they do. They do impugn the motives of others instead of on the issue itself. As regular readers know, we encounter this often. Even now, in the activism here in town about Policy JBAB where I’ve pretty much stuck to the themes of “what Power does this level of Government have and where is it derived”, Free Speech, Right of Conscience – classical foundational ideas. The response was that Jake Maxwell (Gilford) simply called GraniteGrok a “hate blog”. I simply disagree that turning an entire school district of 1,000 student upside down for one second grader AND remove basic Rights for everyone else is worth the self-esteem of this boy’s gender dysphoria (and the emoting parents).
As I saw on a T-Shirt: “Your emotions don’t override my Free Speech”. And that is what the Left wants: use emotions to subvert reason. In any place possible.
Rung shows the typical modus operandi: accuse someone of malfeasance, deflect or don’t even defend her own actions or words, make themselves to be the victims, and then attempt to take the high morality (“Steve, go to church for counseling”) as seemingly to be “above the fray”. Again go read Steve’s post to watch it unfold.
Learn this – learn to counter it.
(H/T: The Corner)
