No, this page is not about the 80's rock band, Missing Persons. Although, I sure do feel like I am 'talking to a wall' whenever I try to explain this topic.
Have you ever watched a liberal and a conservative talk to each other? The liberal will say something like I want peace,
but the conservative will hear I want to surrender.
Then the conservative will say, I'm taxed too much,
but the liberal hears, I want the poor to starve.
DA: That's just hyperbole.
Of course I'm over-simplifying this, but I'm not that far off the mark. On this page I'll get into how words are used and misused in what often turns out to be a vain effort to communicate ideas. As much as what I'll present may lead you to believe, this page is not about lying – other than how we lie to ourselves.
It can be said that words are used to transfer ideas from one person to the other, but do they really? Let me ask you, what percentage of the ideas in your head are your ideas? In other words (wink), what ideas are your original thoughts, and what ideas did you get from someone else?
DA: I don't know. I've never categorized my thoughts that way.
10%?... 20%?... 50%?...
DA: I just told you, I don't know.
What if I told you that the original ideas in your head are the same percentage as anyone else. Got it now? That's right, they are all yours. Every idea in your head got there by you putting it there. It sure would be nice to believe that words can be used to transfer ideas from one person to another, but discounting the possibility of telepathy, no such thing has ever happened.
What actually occurs is that someone with an idea translates that idea into words – either spoken or written (it doesn't matter). Then another person translates, or as I prefer, interprets those words into ideas. So any idea in your head, you put there yourself. The transmitter of the words may have inspired the receiver, but it is the receiver who is responsible for the specific ideas in his or her head.
Another way to put it is that the only meaning you can get out of the words you see or hear is what you bring to them. It is the experience in life that you have gained up until the moment that you have read those words – and your own God-given imagination – that will determine what meaning you will get from them. The person who wrote those words played no part in what experiences you have had until then, so they really are not responsible for any new ideas you have gained by reading the words. With this understanding of communication, it is easy to see why so many people read into words things the author never intended.
Effective communication requires a feedback process where the receiver of the words replies back with their understanding of what they have received, and the transmitter confirms (or corrects) the receivers reply until a true understanding takes place.
Now imagine how this feedback process would work with people you have dehumanized as evil people, assuming it could work at all. Do you really think you are going to understand anything that they have to say? Or are you just going to assign the most evil meaning you can think of, and just leave it at that?
Why do you suppose a white supremist would call a black man a nigger?
DA: How dare you ask that question!
We can discuss at another time why some people like to shutdown communication by declaring certain words off limits, but for now, I want to know why white bigots call black men niggers?
DA: Isn't it obvious? It's because they want to harm them.
The only thing obvious is your predictable answer. This is typical of most intellectually dishonest people. You have found an answer that may be true, but even if it is, it doesn't do you any good – except to feed your continued prejudices and hatred.
Just because you have found a factually correct answer to a question, does not mean you have found the answer that you need to find. The only way you know that you have found the right answer is when you can use that answer to accomplish something productive. It's obvious that you hate the racist bigot, but where does that hate get you?
Now dig deeper. Think of an answer that leads to a solution. Why does the white supremist call the black man a nigger?
DA: (shrug)
Give up? The answer you should be looking for is that he calls the black man a nigger because it works.
He could have called him a 'book,' a 'tree,' or even a 'sock,' but none of those names would have gotten the black man to respond as if he was mortally wounded. The white supremist has no control over the black man, so the black man must surrender control to the white supremist for him to get what he desires. It is the black man, not the white supremist, that has determined that he is harmed by that word.
I’m sure the black man believes that he is defending his pride when he responds with outrage over the insult, but true pride requires no defense. In fact, the mere defense of pride is a declaration that it does not exist. The black man has simply fallen into the trap laid out by liberals that believe you can be empowered by being a victim, when it’s actually the liberal elite that derives power from victimhood, not their self-proclaimed victims.
DA: Are you saying that he should just ignore bigoted comments?
Not at all, I’m just saying don’t give them the response they want. They, both the white supremist and liberal elite, want the black man to be the victim, so the best response is to not be one. Any emotion that borders on anger is a declaration of victim status, and this will only justify why they do it. The absolute worse thing you could do in the eyes of these assholes is to look upon them with the pity they deserve.
The most important thing to take away from this is that if you see any evil in the words used by those you disagree, you must take responsibility that you are the one that put the evil meaning in them. The people uttering those words may truly be evil, but you will never accomplish anything worthwhile if you don’t accept responsibility for the ideas in your head.
I can't stress this enough. Don’t be a willing accomplice to those who wish you harm.
Words rarely have absolute meanings. By that I mean most words cannot convey ideas on their own. It is the how, when and where words are used that determine their meaning, and this is referred to as context. It is the context of words that give them meaning.
I’m sure you have seen plenty of examples where selected words from someone’s speech are pulled out and presented on their own so that they can convey a different meaning than the one the speaker intended. As common as this may be, it does not reflect a serious problem. This is just another form of lying, and can be dealt with by carefully considering the source of the information.
What I want to spend my time on are two serious problems associated with context that are not apparent, and are not done with the intention of lying. The most prevalent is actually a type of self-deception. This is the kind where you do hear everything said, but because you don’t live in the world of the speaker, you get a different meaning.
I read this great example that nails the idea of context so well that I like to use it. Let’s say I'm discussing with several people our preferred weapons to go into combat with, and that this discussion was being recorded. Each of the others mentions different things like M16’s or AK-47’s or Uzi’s or whatever. Then it gets around to me and I say I would prefer a lightsaber, and just left it at that. Of course we all would know that I am speaking of the fictitious weapon of the equally fictitious Jedi Knight. On the other hand, someone reading this discussion a thousand years from now would probably believe that I prefer to fight with a sword that does not weigh that much.
Some one in the future does not live in our world, and unless they see some reference to Star Wars in the words we are using, they would never even know to look for another meaning for light saber.
The previous example was of someone in the future looking back on our world, but it was a benign example. Let's now look at an example where people of our time look back to something written long ago and come to the wrong conclusions because they have applied our context, instead of the one used then. This example is with the story of Robin Hood. It is said that he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and liberals like to liken themselves as modern Robin Hoods that tax the rich to give to the poor, but is this an accurate comparison?
Rich and poor do not have the same meanings that they had when this story became popular. At that time, the rich were the government. The rich were the powerful. So in order to convey the same meaning that was intended then, his actions should be described now as robbing from the powerful to give to the powerless. In this country, at this time, being rich doesn't make you powerful. Without government intervention, the only way the rich can stay rich is by providing the goods and services that we want. They cannot use force to do so.
Yet there is one word that described him whose context is still accurate, and that is that he was an outlaw. He operated outside of the government. Today's liberals do not operate outside the government. They want to use the law to steal from the rich, so their belief that they are modern day Robin Hoods is completely without merit.
Now let's look at an example where two worlds exist today that create different contexts and misunderstanding, and that is the two different worlds of the liberals and the conservatives. As the example I started this page with, we live in different worlds, and the words we use carry completely different meanings. We think we are sending one message, but it is received very differently.
And if understanding the other side is an actual goal, then liberals are at a particular disadvantage to understanding conservatives than conservatives are in understanding liberals, and there are two key reasons for this. First of all, there are no former conservatives among the ranks of liberals. Absolutely none. So they have no one in their lives that can adequately offer the necessary feedback required for proper communication.
Note: I do not mean that liberals don't know any conservatives. I'm stating that without any liberal friends who were once conservatives, they don't have anyone to engage in effective conversation that requires positive feedback to attain a true understanding of what conservatives are saying.
On the other hand, most conservatives are former liberals. They just grew up and realized that liberalism equals socialism before they bought into the fantasy of socialism as a functional process. So as a conservative, you either have lived in the world of the liberal, or you know a conservative who has. This gives conservatives a large advantage in understanding the other side of this intellectual conflict.
DA: Hold on a second. People only convert from liberal to conservative, not the other way. How can that be true?
The reasons why political conversions are only one-way are directly related to the real differences between them, and I am not ready to get into that at this time.
DA: Oh no you don't. You can't make a statement like that and not defend it. I know several liberals that were former conservatives.
Oh no you don't back at you. They may have thought they were conservative, mainly because their parents told them what to think, but they never understood it, so they never could defend it to themselves. Again, I'm not ready to get into this at this time.
Getting back to the topic at hand, the other disadvantage liberals have is the heavily liberal-biased media that we all experience. Even when liberals hear the words of conservatives from their preferred media source, these words are framed in a liberal context to send a liberal message.
Take the issue of gay marriage. I do not know anyone I have met who is against gay marriage because of religious reasons. I know there are people who do, but they don’t represent the majority of people who are against it. Yet the mainstream media are always showing these people as if they are the ones that represent the opposition just so that they can label all people who oppose gay marriage as being nothing but religious bigots.
On the rare occasion when we are given an opportunity to respond to this by stating that gay marriage will destroy marriage as an institution that benefits our society, this gets framed in the media as if we believe gay marriage threatens our marriages personally, which of course only makes us look like a bunch of idiots. I think that I can state quite confidently that there is not a single person against gay marriage who believes their own marriage is threatened by it, but that is not the impression you would get in the mainstream media.
Yet the point of this discussion is not to debate the merits of gay marriage. This is far too important of a subject to cover only lightly, so I'll go into more later. At this time I am writing about the self-deception in the liberal media of presenting what they believe to be conservative messages. I don't believe they have willfully lied by taking anything out of context. They have simply fallen into the trap that I stated before, where they stopped looking beyond the first answer that fits their world view, rather than digging deeper to find the answer that serves them well.
They do not live in a conservative world, and so are incapable of delivering a conservative message. Everything you see in the liberal media is a liberal message, regardless of the words of conservatives that they present.
So liberals really are at a disadvantage if they want to know what is on the minds of those they oppose. Conservatives on the other hand are buried deep in the liberal media, so they have no problem what so ever in finding the messages of those they oppose. They have to go out of their way to find true conservative messages, but they at least know where to go.
The take away point of this part of the topic is that if you actually want to understand what the other side has to say, then you can’t take for granted that you are getting their message. You may only be getting their words formed and framed to deliver some other message.
DA: Assuming what you say is true, why should I care what a bunch of ignorant assholes think.
Any liberal who does not believe he should know about those he considers to be the biggest threat to his life and liberty – bigger than even the jihadis – is the true ignorant asshole.
Again, as I started this page, I am not concerned about how you lie to others. This page is about the lies you tell yourself. I know from my own personal experience that it was the lies I was telling myself that caused me to hate others. If your entire goal is to hate and destroy those that believe different than you, then go right ahead; believe that you have understood what they say, and see where that gets you.
When I started this line about context, I said there are two serious problems associated with it. We covered the first one, which is believing that you understand the words of people who live in different worlds, but can't, and the disadvantage liberals have in this case. The other problem is far more insidious.
Just as the meaning of words cannot be fully understood unless the context they are being used is known, the flip side can also be true. That is, sometimes words come with a context already associated with them, and this already established context makes them susceptible to something I call context hijacking (maybe there is another word or phrase for this, but I don't know it).
In context hijacking you take the context of one word in order to replace the context of another. A couple of benign examples that are easy to understand are the evolution of stewardess to flight attendant, and secretary to administrative assistant. In both of these cases, neither job actually changed, just the names.
The reason for the name change is that negative connotations got associated with the original terms, and rather than educating the populace about the real importance of these positions, the members of these positions decided to call themselves something else to give people a more positive spin on what they do.
Like I said, these examples are benign. The important thing to take note at this time is that they did not do this for those that belonged to their group. They did this for those outside of it, and more important to note is that they did this because they did not want to bother with educating those outside of their group of the importance of their work.
There once was a time when liberalism was an enlightened form of thought. It actually was, but that hasn’t been true since the beginning of the twentieth century. Before then, liberalism was about focusing on the individual and liberating him to be the best that he can be.
Then something happened, and I’ll let the words of Norman Thomas explain it. He said these words in 1927, and then went on to be the six-time nominee of the Socialist Party for the president of the United States. He said, ‘The American people would never vote for socialism… but under the name of liberalism, the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.’
I have an entire page dedicated to explaining my idea of enlightenment, so I'll not get into what it is now, yet at this time I can assure you that socialism is not enlightened, and is in fact one of the many antithesis to it. Socialism is about sacrificing the individual for the common good, yet there cannot be a common good when the individual is sacrificed. When socialists hijacked the context of liberalism, liberalism died as an enlightened form of thought.
I’m sure the socialists at the time thought that they were enlightened, and they wanted to use liberalism because they believed that socialism got its name unfairly associated with negative things. Yet just as the names flight attendant and administrative assistant are used by people who don’t want to educate those outside of their group, the same can be said of liberals. They do not want to educate people outside of their group either – specifically, that they are socialist.
The big question to ponder here is, who are the ones that are outside of their group that they don’t want to hear that they are socialists? They are not doing it for conservatives. Most conservatives are those that left liberalism once they understood it to be socialism, so the context hijacking is not going to work on them.
This goes to another key difference between conservatives and liberals that I’ll go into more later. For now, liberals are made up of two distinct groups. There are the elites, and there are the tools. Whether you are a tool or an elite depends upon your motivation in defending liberalism from the charge that it is nothing more than socialism. If you believe that the charge is false, then you are a tool. If on the other hand you believe that most people will never understand that socialism is the best thing for them, then you are an elite. If you actually respected people enough to try to convince them that socialism is the right thing, then you are a socialist, and you would have no need for hijacking liberalism.
Conservatism, on the other hand, has no need for context hijacking. Everyone in it is expected to understand it. The closest example of context hijacking that I have seen from a conservative is when the former President Bush ran as a ‘compassionate conservative.' This absolutely infuriated me, because it implied that conservatism is normally not compassionate.
Yet the exact opposite is true. If you want to be compassionate you must start with conservative principles. Compassion is not something you demand someone else to do for you – like the government. Compassion is something you must do your self.
DA: Since you are saying that liberalism is not enlightened, are you implying that conservatism is?
Oh, heavens no! I think it’s pretty safe to say that most conservatives are not enlightened. Yet conservatism is a good place to start. Enlightenment is about knowing the things you should know, and not about the things you want to know. Most conservatives know they are going in the right direction; they just don’t really understand why.
DA: This is a pretty bold claim you are making. How can you be so sure that socialists have hijacked liberalism?
It’s not all that hard, really. You should take a look at a Democrat Presidential debate that occurred during the 2008 election cycle. In it, a very sincere tool asked Senator Clinton to define liberalism, and asked how as president she would defend it. I’m not surprised he asked that question; in fact, I don’t know why more don’t.
As an elite, Ms. Clinton couldn’t very well say it’s socialism, so she said what any self-respecting liberal elite would say in that position. She denied being a liberal, and instead called herself a progressive. Of course she didn’t define what progressive was either. That’s because there isn’t a damn bit of difference between the two, so what could she say?
You see, liberalism was never meant to be defined. The word is being used because of its context; because of what people think when they hear it. Many liberals have now started calling themselves progressives because the liberal context has lost its sheen… that and their useful idiots have started asking questions.
When I've asked people what they think words are for, a common response is that they represent things so that we can discuss them and come to a common understanding about them. I would agree with this definition up to a certain point, but it's very important that we recognize that some words do not reflect anything that actually exist, and that the use of these words can only serve a useful purpose as long as we remember that.
DA: What do you mean? Are you talking about fantasies or lies?
No. Not at all. They can be used truthfully. They just don't exist, yet many treat them as if they do, and this leads directly to a lot of the problems we see today
Let's begin with a benign example that's fairly easy to grasp. Darkness does not exist, but light does. When I flip a light switch on, photons come out of the bulb and illuminate the room. Yet when I flip the switch off, darkness does not come out of the bulb.
Darkness is nothing more than a communication tool. It was created so that instead of saying ‘there is insufficient light in the room to see,’ we can say instead ‘the room is dark.’ This shows that you can say something that may be factually correct, like the room is dark, but that does not mean it exists.
DA: What utter rubbish. If the room is dark, then dark does exist. Simple logic.
Wrong. There is no dark, only varying degrees of light. Any scientist will tell you that no room can be devoid of light. So at what point does the lack of light make a room dark? That's the crux of these words. They are highly subjective, and can have us arguing over things that don't actually exist.
Let's now focus on something that is a little less benign, and also a tad bit more difficult to grasp. There is no cold, only varying degrees of heat. Instead of saying ‘there is insufficient heat in a room to be comfortable,’ we can now say ‘the room is cold.’
Like I said, this one is a bit harder to grasp because of how we can open the front door during winter and feel a cold rush of air flow in. Yet it distinguishes itself as nonexistent by its far more subjective nature than dark. There is at least some agreement about when a room goes dark, but there is little about when a room goes cold. The way I can be watching the TV with my wife where I am just dripping in sweat and her huddled under a blanket attests to that.
Another way to show that cold doesn’t exist is by looking at how a refrigerator works. Many people believe that refrigerators work by creating cold inside of it. Worse yet, they believe that if you leave the door open it will cool off the kitchen, but the exact opposite is true. Refrigerators are nothing more than heat pumps. They transfer heat – which does exist – from the inside of it to the outside, and they generate heat in doing so. While there will be an initial rush of cool air when the door is open, leaving a refrigerator door open will only heat up the kitchen.
So, to wrap up things up so far, dark does not exist, but light does. Cold does not exist, but heat does. You can use dark and cold in a sentence and be factually correct, but that does not make them real.
Now for the one that really rips people. There is no rich or poor, only varying degrees of wealth.
DA: WHAT!?!
See what I mean?
DA: Denying the existence of the poor doesn't make them go away! With the gap between the rich and the poor in this country growing everyday, it is unconscionable that you would take that position!
Simmer down, Skippy...
DA: I will NOT simmer down in the face of gross injustice... and STOP calling me Skippy!
Nonetheless, I find it very telling that when people talk of the gap between the rich and the poor they always assume the people at fault are at the rich end of that scale. Heaven forbid that we actually accuse those at the poor end of being in a situation of their own making.
If a person can own their home, two cars, three televisions, a microwave, and all of the other creature comforts of modern life – oh, and let's not forget suffer from the complications of obesity – yet still be called poor, something is seriously wrong with the definition of that word.
DA: Just because there is no consensus on who is poor, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Surely someone with no wealth at all is poor.
A baby doesn't have wealth. Does that mean he's poor?
Look. Whether you are rich or poor is strictly determined by your attitude. I have traveled the world and have met people with far less wealth than the so-called poor do in this country, yet they don't look upon themselves as poor. The main reason why is that they do not live in a society that derives power from people being victims. There is absolutely nothing for them to gain by considering themselves as poor, so they don't. This is a theme I'll develop more later.
DA: All right, so what is your definition of rich or poor?
First of all, I have no use for the word rich. While I continue to use dark and cold, rich has no useful purpose in my vocabulary. I am not interested in engaging in class envy, nor am I seeking targets as a source for wealth redistribution scams – and I do mean scams – so identifying who is rich is a meaningless exercise for me.
As for the poor, I let them decide that. If you do not believe that you have the resources to live what you have determined to be a minimally acceptable life, then you are poor. The key distinction here is that I don't determine who is poor. The poor do.
Once someone has determined that they are poor, they have two choices to make. They can either do the honorable thing and convince those that do not see themselves as poor that they are worthy of charity, or they can do the dishonorable thing and give political power to those that will go out and steal for them because they believe that asking for charity is beneath their sense of dignity.
Never forget: Electing others to steal for you doesn't make you any less a thief.
By now, you should be seeing the basic point I am trying to make on this page. Words are not anything real. Their intent is only to represent things, either things that exits like light, or mere concepts, like dark. They are never the things they represent, so they are never real in and of themselves, even when they are used with the intent of telling the truth.
So if words aren't real, then what are they? They can be used to tell the truth, but they can't be the truth. And if they can't be the truth, then they must be lies. All words, regardless of intent, are lies. I've read many authors make this point, but none have carried this to its logical conclusion, which is to define the truth. Their reluctance is understandable, because if you believe that all words are lies, how can they be used to define the truth? Yet a definition is required, or how would we recognize it when we see it?
Before I start, remember what I just wrote. These words are lies, so to define the truth, you will have to conceive it, because you will never read it. If you think you can, then you are only lying to yourself.
The truth is not a concept. It is real. What is real is what is the truth. This means there is nothing subjective about it. The truth is pure objectivity. If you believe that the the truth is subjective, then you are lying to yourself.
Conversely, lies are not real. They do not actually exist. In fact, describing any collection of words as a lie is an oxymoron. Of course they are a lie, but can you perceive the possible truth intended by the person presenting the words to you? Even when they intend to deceive, there are truths to be found. At a minimum, their lies can tell you the thruth about them, assuming you know that truths can only be percieved, and are not the words used.
So no matter whether someone is intending to tell you the truth, or intending to decieve you, they are all telling lies and any truth you find you must percieve it. This is not a passive process. You have to actively look for it. Complicating matters is that most people first lie to themselves before they attempt to tell you any truth they believe, so their intentions, while relevant, are immaterial to the truth.
This is the most critical aspect to finding the truth. Don't get hung up on intent. Whether you believe they are intending to lie to you or tell you the truth, there are truths to find.
What follows is an important lesson on the lies we tell ourselves, which is critical to know when you are looking for the truth.
At the beginning of my seventh grade math class, I had an experience that would shape my future in a profound manner. At the time its was just a frustrating experience, and it wouldn't be until well into my adulthood that I fully understood the ramifications. I'm sure my math teacher didn't think he would have that impact on me, he just wanted us to be aware of the pitfalls of some word math problems. This is what he said:
There were three traveling salesmen who arrived very late one night at a hotel. The clerk had stepped away for the moment, so the only person in the lobby was the bellboy. He could tell these guys were tired, and decided to check them in for the clerk rather than make them wait for him. But there was a problem. There was only one room left. These guys were too tired to be modest, so they decided to share.
The bellboy knew that the rooms were ten dollars per person, so he collected ten from each and took them to their room. When he got back to the lobby the clerk had returned, and so gave him the thirty dollars he had collected from the salesmen.
The clerk said,
I only expect to collect twenty dollars per room. How about we return five dollars to them?
So the clerk took five one-dollar bills out of the cash drawer and gave it to the bell boy to return.
Off he went, and just as he was about to knock on the door, he thought, 'How am I going to split five dollars among three guys?' The easiest solution that could come to his mind was to pocket two dollars, then hand each guy one. So that's what he did.
My math teacher then asked, OK class. Each guy paid nine dollars. Three times nine is twenty-seven. Plus the two in the bellboy's pocket equals twenty-nine. So where is the missing dollar?
The class was silent. A few timid answers were offered, but none were correct. He then said that this would be homework, and he expected an answer from someone the next day.
That evening I was completely flummoxed. I looked at it from every angle I could think of, and I couldn't figure out where the missing dollar was. I was even doubting math itself; that maybe there were things that math couldn't solve. The next day, not a single person in class had figured out where the missing dollar was.
Did you, Skippy?
DA: Sure. It's simple.
Then where is it?
DA: I'm not cooperating while you are calling me Skippy.
That's a pretty easy dodge.
DA: Fine. Have it your way. It's a fallacy. There is no missing dollar. Three times nine is twenty-seven. That's twenty-five in the clerk's cash drawer and two in the bellboys pocket.
I'm impressed. I've told that story hundreds of times, and no one has gotten it that quick.
DA: Save the flattery. What's your point?
Wait a second. I first need to explain what a fallacy is for those that are unclear. A fallacy is when an erroneous conclusion is drawn from the available facts. A popular example is God is love. Love is blind. Therefore Ray Charles is God. All it really takes to buy into a fallacy is for someone you respect, like your math teacher, to present certain facts, then you will most likely believe the conclusion he has drawn from those facts. For liberals all that is needed is one fact, like Greedy people want wealth. This leads to the empirical fact that people who want wealth are greedy.
So what's my point? Of course I've come across plenty of fallacies since then, but that one played an important role in my life when I later had to deal with the hatred in my heart from my liberal beliefs, because some of the side effects of believing in fallacies are hatred and mistrust. I was lucky in that I could look back on that experience and remember the anger and frustration, and most importantly, the mistrust that I had in mathematics. Because of this experience, I could use it to understand what was happening in me.
The real take away is that I wasn't focused on what was real, so I wasn't focused on the truth. If I had just focused on what was real, I would have seen where the money really was, and I would not have been led astray by someone elses conclusion.
Another important point about this story is that it is a very poor example of a fallacy, because the person presenting knew it was a fallacy. Falacies are the prime vehicle for how we lie to ourselves, so if someone is telling you one, 99 times out of 100, he doesn't know that he is.
Liberalism isn't just based on fallacies, it is a fallacy. It is based on feelings and good intentions; reason be damned. I don't care what it is, you show me any cherished liberal principle, and I'll expose it as the fallacy that it is.
As an example, the absolute master of liberal fallacies is Michael Moore. No one – and I do mean no one – can weave the most clever of facts to draw the most erroneous conclusions. Even more, he'll have you laughing your head off as you are filling your heart with hate.
Take his very first movie, Roger & Me. In his own words, from his own web site, he describes the movie thusly: In 1989, Michael Moore burst onto the American moviemaking scene with Roger & Me. The groundbreaking documentary chronicled the efforts of the world's largest corporation, General Motors, as it turns its hometown of Flint, Michigan, into a ghost town. In his quest to discover why GM would want to do such a thing, Michael Moore - a Flint native - attempts to meet the chairman, Roger Smith, and persuade him to come and visit Flint to see the destruction first-hand.
You really should try watching this movie. Michael is a master. The way he can pluck at every heart string imaginable to get you to hate General Motors is truly awe inspiring. When you have finished you will believe that GM wanted to harm Flint MI. Yet he never properly answers two basic questions. The first is why should any company stay in a town that is not making them any money, and second, if he is so confident that cars can be made profitably there, why doesn't he start his own car company? Considering the millions he has made from his books and films, he certainly has no aversion to capitalism.
That is the core problem with liberal fallacies. The hatred they inspire in you blinds you to the real solutions (the truth) you need to solve the problems in front of you. More importantly, you blame others and never yourself. Assuming Michael is correct in his assessment of GM's actions, that makes him no different than the man who doesn't stop the rapist. His failure of saving Flint, while claiming to fully understand the problem, makes him just as guilty as GM. He has demonstrated with his movie that it is far more important for him to hate Roger than it is to help his fellow citizens of Flint.
Everything that I came to despise about liberalism could be summed up by this. Michael Moore was claiming to understand the auto industry well enough to condemn Roger Smith, yet he doesn't know it well enough to start his own company and help his fellow citizens. These two statements cannot be resolved. Either he wants to hate people without sufficient reason to do so, or he wants the harm to occur for his own political gain. Which is it?
So what are words for? The intent may be to communicate ideas, but without serious thought to the obstacles to understanding people, they are more than likely only going to feed your existing biases and prejudices. And if you got the impression while reading this that I was accusing anyone of lying, then you were only feeding yours.
As I stated at the beginning of this page, I'm not concerned with lies. They are easily dealt with. Lies actually weaken fallacies. The more accurate the facts that are used to draw the fallacy from, the more likely others will buy into it. Even with the context hijacking, I'm not accusing liberals of lying. They honestly believe that the words they use better reflect what they believe, it's just that the primary purpose of them is to avoid actually explaining themselves.
Without the courage to explain yourself, you're really only lying to yourself.
No. It's not the lies we tell each other that harm us, it's the lies we tell ourselves that do. These lies we tell ourselves corrupt us, and force us to believe in real lies that damage us further. Lies like 'Bush lied. People died' are the inevitable result of the deceptions liberals play on themselves. The house of cards that liberals need to maintain their ideology, require them to believe the most evil things about people.
Look. I don't for a second believe that Michael Moore wants to hate people without sufficient justification, nor does he want to harm his fellow citizens of Flint for his own political gain. He didn't start out in life with an utterly unsupportable mindset, it's just the inevitable result whenever anyone starts indulging in fallacies. They are very seductive, and unless you are very diligent, they will lead you astray.
I'll go into far more detail about other liberal fallacies later. For now, just remember that you can't do good with evil, and also, you can't get something for nothing. Keeping these principles in mind will help you prevent some liberal from having you search for his 'missing dollar.'