Sarah Palin is a drug addled mentally ill bimbo? Is that a self evident truth? Posted by Anonymous to OregonGuy at July 4, 2009 2:15 PM From the fractured lens of the Left, there's nothing wrong with such a comment.
The weakness of the Left lies in its inability to form sentient thoughts. The question, as asked in the
original post was, " What is the name of this essential document, and give an example of a self-evident truth."
I was stuck. Obviously, we don't mention the turd in teh swimming pool. And yet, there it was.
How do I respond?
Is it reasonable to refer to the original post and ask for a more linearly directed answer? Is it reasonable to simply suggest that the post is "off topic" and move on?
The answer is probably diffuse. My reaction was more of, "If I knew this guy, I'd kick his ass." There is not a gate that I wish to impose for different opinions than my opinions,here. But the commenter knew that he was rude, was going to be rude, and would mar a discussion about apodictic truth.
That's what the Left does.
There are a great number of truths that are available to you. Truth as distinct from belief. And that doesn't mean that truth is either the hostage or victim of the Left or Right. There are plenty of conservatives who still succumb to the intellectual tribulation of equivocation and ambiguity. Take, for instance, the comments of
innoimatus:
"The Founders must have also struggled with this, for they prefaced their claims with "We hold..." The Declaration was a revolutionary document in several ways. Just to assert that all men are created equal was contrary to all the "Royals/ Nobles/ Gentry/ Peons" class systems that predated that assertion. It was self-evident to the founders but utterly unimaginable to many on the Continent. In other words, it's all relative."Which brings me to a moment that I wish you would experience. It's a movie, called, "WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?"
This movie is an experience that we should all have. It is a lesson in what is true and what is believable. The difference is stark. But you must have a sharp knife.
I played this movie for my mom. And then we had a discussion. There is a lot of language you hear that evokes an emotional response, and the authors of the above-mentioned movie are well secured in their efforts to approach an issue emotionally, rather that intellectually. And they do it in a way that would be prized by former elite practitioners of what was then dubbed "propaganda". It is a movie of wonderful example and dialogue, and yet, unlike "Hylas and Philonous", the argument isn't fair.
What Bishop Berkeley attempted was an unequivocal argument between two men who had differing opinions about the nature of reality. What the authors of the above film attempted was to take the shading of any clear question out of play. To lead the viewer into an experience bereft of the true intellectual challenge that was attempted by the play. To further increase the areas of equivocation by introducing ambiguity. And at that point, the authors had gained their objective.
My question, however, had to do with the unequivocal nature of truth.
I had held my own opinion, wanting to hear your opinions. It is my belief that the strength of our republic lies within the people who live in that republic. And critical to my optimism is the simple truth that sustains me from day to day: I am.
There is no possible equivocation or ambiguity to that simple statement. innominatus suggests that "Even today we find that less and less is "self-evident." And that isn't the point. What is the point is that there are still those self-evident truths that are as much alive today as these same truths were a hundred, two hundred, a thousand or two thousand years ago. Increasing complexity isn't a barrier to understanding. It's simply a door we haven't opened yet.
Irreductability. Friend innominatus makes a simple error. Not everything is relative. Some things are irreducible.
I think. innominatus thinks. And another friend, ZZMike, thinks.
And it is for his thoughts that I post this.
There are a lot of you who read this that hesitate to comment. (Unlike Anonymous, who can't wait to weigh in with his thoughtful
rapprochement.) But unlike Anonymous, innominatus spends some time explaining his erroneous position. And while innominatus is wrong, my point here is not to repeatedly hold up innominatus for his error...it is to highlight the light tone I take with a scurrilous lout who comments as Anonymous.
My Fourth of July post was based upon the kind of thinking that occurred when our Forefathers worked to come up with our country. What are the irreducible truths about the human condition that will serve us now, and for our progeny? They weren't any smarter than us. They weren't any better on an X-Box than us. What was it that motivated the Founding Fathers in their search for a form of government that guaranteed us--their progeny--with the greatest likelihood of success?
My answer still holds: I think.
I think, and you think. And you wanna know what? You are responsible for your thoughts, just as I am, mine. And here's the catch: what do you do about property?
What is property?
A thought that the thoughtful man would have would relate to the ability to determine what is worth investing in, and what is not.
That is the essence of Capitalism.
Capitalism is based upon the belief that a man's thoughts are his own.
Incumbent upon this belief is the truth that when a man's thoughts lead to behaviour that makes him an enemy of his society, that man becomes apart from his society. So here's the "chicken and the egg" question, that comes from the previous question, "What is the name of this essential document, and give an example of a self-evident truth."
Dead guys, like John Locke and Edmund Burke and lotsa others, wrote about the relationship between the government and the governed. What they pretty much agreed upon was this, that when a man's conscience became conflicted with his government, what would occur would be generally known as resistance, or generally, as opposition to his government. There is a line between which oppressive governments must tack against to avoid a popular uprising.
After decades of successfully engineering our educational system, the Left is now attempting to impose upon the rest of us the fruit of their dominance. What they have forgotten is the lesson that was faced by all of our previous experiences with attempts at total world domination: you can't fight a war on two fronts.
The attempts by the Left to occupy the seat of total world domination is being upset by the very forces that seek to upend our national government. That man has his own thoughts. And when an idea is wrong, it is wrong universally. For some, this distinction takes place on a group level, as in the Chinese view of the world versus the Russian--or American--view of the world.
These are macro concepts. But they arise individually in areas or states. It is possible that we (the human race) has arrived at a point where "world wars" are no longer necessary. But the conflicts that we impose upon ourselves aren't, or won't, be lessened by our willingness to give up our individual rights.
And this is the war of two fronts. You cannot have a right of individuality with an external imposition of commonality. Commonality is a gradual acceptance of social structure. Enforcing commanlity is a feature of fascism, or worse.
We were having a discussion about truth, and the comment that disturbed us was "Sarah Palin is a drug addled mentally ill bimbo? Is that a self evident truth?"
Where is the degree of commonality that we seek to achieve within this comment? To me, this comment is pure rubbish. It doesn't seek to advance an argument. It is simply dross. And you can't fight a war on two fronts. Yet, increasingly, we find ourselves facing greater levels of vituperitive commentary while asking questions that should, in themselves, demand answers.
The two fronts are becoming increasingly clear; direct answers to questions, and increasing misdirection from those who seek to obscure the intent of their actions. The result?
Equivocation and ambiguity.
