The Left's anger at Bush's nomination of Condi gets to
the very core of the political dichotomy in out nation.
In a post today, Donald Luskin of THE CONSPIRACY TO KEEP YOU POOR AND STUPID linked to an article by A Burgess Jackson. Burgess Jackson opined that the Left has been critical about Condi’s appointment because it violates their preconceptions of how people in certain groups should behave. In Condi's case she violates the principle that blacks are liberal Democrats.
Luskin expanded: Luskin argued that the Left don’t like Condi’s appointment because it's a form of poaching - Bush is encroaching on Liberal turf - as if blacks and women "belonged" to the Left and the Democrat Party.
I want to expand what on both proffered, and offer what I think is the underlying reason for the Left’s critique of Condi, and Bush’s other high profile appointments of blacks Hispanics and women (see this post for a dramatic description of the breadth and depth of Bush’s appointments) :
The Left’s core beliefs are dominated by a post-modernist moral relativism which holds that a person’s identity and agency is defined by which groups they belong to –not by the “illusion” of the individual volition or agency.
Central to the Left’s worldview is that we are who we are because of which classes or groups we belong to: our economic class, or race, our gender, our sexual identity, our educational status, our religion and degree of religiousness – all of these define not merely who we are, but how we should behave. The Left wants an activist government to enforce equal results based on measuring achievements according to groups; the Left wants each of to "get" whatever anybody else "gets" as determined by analyzing results by group. (The Right expects each person to have the opportunity to EARN whatever they can based on their own individual merits and efforts.)
The Left argues against individual agency and individual rights – they do not believe in Natural Rights or Natural Law. This is a prime reason why the Left has always argued that criminals are made by their bad socio-economic situations and that therefore we shouldn’t hold them personally accountable for their actions: street gangs are the result of poverty and bad public school systems, not a bad value system based on broken families and the lack of a good father figure in the home.
To the Left, people do what their race and gender and class tells them to do – if they are “authentic.” When people go against that – do whatever they want to do based on who they are as individuals - they’re “selfish” and they violate their membership status in their group; they are inauthentic – they are traitors.
In Condi’s case, the Left says she’s an Aunt Jemima; they said Powell was a “house-slave;” and maligned Paige, too – indeed, the Left maligned the rest of the conservative women, blacks, and Hispanics in Bush’s administration or in the GOP as inauthentic traitors. HECK: When AARP endorsed Bush’s Medicare Prescription Plan, many on the Left said they were traitors to old people!
The GOP, and Bush – and the Right believe in Natural Law and Natural Rights - arguing that we are each unique, and that our individual rights are "OURS" because we are each endowed them by the Creator at birth. The Right argues that our rights are not bestowed upon us by the government or by our membership in any earthly or man-made group. That’s why the Right is principally opposed to Affirmative Action based on one’s membership in any group, whether it be race, or gender, or ethnicity. The Right believes that persons should be judged on their own merits, (in this case, Condi simply merits the appointment).
Luskin expanded: Luskin argued that the Left don’t like Condi’s appointment because it's a form of poaching - Bush is encroaching on Liberal turf - as if blacks and women "belonged" to the Left and the Democrat Party.
I want to expand what on both proffered, and offer what I think is the underlying reason for the Left’s critique of Condi, and Bush’s other high profile appointments of blacks Hispanics and women (see this post for a dramatic description of the breadth and depth of Bush’s appointments) :
The Left’s core beliefs are dominated by a post-modernist moral relativism which holds that a person’s identity and agency is defined by which groups they belong to –not by the “illusion” of the individual volition or agency.
Central to the Left’s worldview is that we are who we are because of which classes or groups we belong to: our economic class, or race, our gender, our sexual identity, our educational status, our religion and degree of religiousness – all of these define not merely who we are, but how we should behave. The Left wants an activist government to enforce equal results based on measuring achievements according to groups; the Left wants each of to "get" whatever anybody else "gets" as determined by analyzing results by group. (The Right expects each person to have the opportunity to EARN whatever they can based on their own individual merits and efforts.)
The Left argues against individual agency and individual rights – they do not believe in Natural Rights or Natural Law. This is a prime reason why the Left has always argued that criminals are made by their bad socio-economic situations and that therefore we shouldn’t hold them personally accountable for their actions: street gangs are the result of poverty and bad public school systems, not a bad value system based on broken families and the lack of a good father figure in the home.
To the Left, people do what their race and gender and class tells them to do – if they are “authentic.” When people go against that – do whatever they want to do based on who they are as individuals - they’re “selfish” and they violate their membership status in their group; they are inauthentic – they are traitors.
In Condi’s case, the Left says she’s an Aunt Jemima; they said Powell was a “house-slave;” and maligned Paige, too – indeed, the Left maligned the rest of the conservative women, blacks, and Hispanics in Bush’s administration or in the GOP as inauthentic traitors. HECK: When AARP endorsed Bush’s Medicare Prescription Plan, many on the Left said they were traitors to old people!
The GOP, and Bush – and the Right believe in Natural Law and Natural Rights - arguing that we are each unique, and that our individual rights are "OURS" because we are each endowed them by the Creator at birth. The Right argues that our rights are not bestowed upon us by the government or by our membership in any earthly or man-made group. That’s why the Right is principally opposed to Affirmative Action based on one’s membership in any group, whether it be race, or gender, or ethnicity. The Right believes that persons should be judged on their own merits, (in this case, Condi simply merits the appointment).
The Left believes that people should only be judged based on their membership and status in various groups (which, by the way, are mostly merely heuristic/epistemological concepts or constructs which they inflate into ontological categories with determinative power; this is a logical fallcy that A.N. Whitehead termed "The Fallacy of the Misplaced Concreteness," and it pervades Lefist thinking on many many matters. The Left's philosophy is permeated with "is/as" conflation - which is why they so often argue by using false analogies, rather than logic).
To the Left, people behave in ways that are infoirmed by their race and gender and class – if they are “authentic.” When people go against that – do whatever they want to do based on who they are as individuals - they’re “selfish” and they violate their membership and status in their group(s); they are inauthentic traitors.
Most people who believe in Natural Law believe in God, are pro-Life, and are for small government - and are on the Right. Most people who believe in the French concept of the Social Contract (as first described by Rousseau) are on the Left; they are pro-choice, and they want big government.
Most people who believe in Natural Law believe in God, are pro-Life, and are for small government - and are on the Right. Most people who believe in the French concept of the Social Contract (as first described by Rousseau) are on the Left; they are pro-choice, and they want big government.
This - IMHO - is the core dichotomy which divides our electorate.
On this - and on everything else that flows from it - the Left is wrong, and the Right is right.
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