Reasoning with Leftists is a Waste of Time
The reason I'm not particularly nice to leftists is that leftists want me thrown in a cage or killed for refusing to pay for their whimsical idealism.
I'm tired of being forced at gunpoint to pay for other people to have kids when I'm not even fortunate enough to have my own children yet.
I'm tired of being forced to pay leftists to out-breed libertarians at gunpoint.
I'm tired of being called a racist and a xenophobe for not wanting the government to import theocrats and socialists who vote for my money to be stolen from me and who think it's okay to have sex with children.
I'm tired of being pressured to self-censor in order to preserve the emotional balance of people who are addicted to unreality.
I'm tired of the doublespeak, the gaslighting, and the psychological projection with which I'm met whenever I talk about basic economics or ethics.
I'm tired of people affixing the term "libertarian" to the terms "left" and "socialist" in an attempt to present libertarianism as its own antithesis.
The whole point of leftism is to violently seize property. The whole point of libertarianism is to avoid violent conflict over the use of property. Libertarianism and leftism are diametrically opposed to each other. Argumentation presupposes the validity of the libertarian property norms of first use, consensual exchange and non-aggression. To attempt to convince someone of something by means of persuasion is to acknowledge that they have the best claim to the use of their own body, and that physical conflict over the use of their body ought to be avoided.
By contrast, leftists are promising to use physical aggression to get what they want regardless of the outcome of the discussion. As such, everything leftists bring to the discussion is merely an attempt to get you to stop resisting their attempts to violently seize your property, which they openly admit, but which is also a performative contradiction. This means that there's literally no debate to be had with leftists. They openly call for the murder and rape of people with whom they disagree while simultaneously bitching about micro-aggressions and rape culture. They're fucking hypocrites, and I'm personally done banging my head against the wall with these people.
It only enables them.
The kindest thing anyone can do for a leftist is refuse to engage them in their pathological altruism.
You are making a mistake these same people make. I do not disagree, yet you are making a mistake. LABEL then GENERALIZE. In otherwords, LABEL then STEREOTYPE.
There are people that are on the LEFT that are not like you described but they are being drowned in the noise of vocal people over hiding under that umbrella that are nothing more than DRONES being lead around by emotional pheromones. The correct QUEEN simply need say the right words and point at some other LABEL as an enemy and the drones get to work attacking it.
Libertarian WAS directly between what was known as the LEFT and the RIGHT in the not so distant past. Socially LIBERAL and fiscally CONSERVATIVE.
That which described LIBERAL has changed before in the past. It appears to be doing so again.
A lot of people like you describe are very active, and very hypocritical on the so-called left. Yet there are other people of similar RULED by EMOTIONS in other areas.
We even have people posting here that we'd normally consider fairly rational. Yet when it comes to politics they are TERRIFIED of words and let that rule them. They don't need actions. All you need to say is the right words, their imagination will go to town creating all kinds of doomsday scenarios from WORDS and they will go to town trying to stop this horrible thing that is happening. Yet the thing is... it isn't happening YET, it is all in their mind. They are not reacting to ACTIONS they are reacting and freaking out over WORDS.
If they were reacting to ACTIONS then I may or may not agree to them. Yet I will say it now people who react like this to WORDS are fools. They need to wake up from their nightmare. They can too, as right now it is 100% in their head.
Exceptions prove the rule. GTFO it. Labels are worse than credible threats of violence? You sound like child.
Nice... You talk as you do yet resort to GTFO. I'm impressed. (/sarcasm)
You should reread what I wrote. I agreed with you. Yet trying to stick people in a label and treat all LEFTISTS the same as the clowns rushing around rioting is no better than what they do. That was my point. ACTIONS are more important than WORDS. People are more important than LABELS. A label can only define a single person.
Sorry for the multiple replies... just thinking about what you wrote and it gives me more to say.
How?
Really? I sound like a child? Reread those quotes above and truly think about that.
Also show me where I says Labels are worse than credible threats of violence...
It sounds like you are imagining and fabricating things. That seems to be what these LEFTISTs are doing as well. Imagining things that have not yet happened, and then rioting and protesting their imagination.
You need to think about what you have said and how that makes you any better than them. "Reasoning with Leftists is a Waste of Time" Which I am no leftist, rightist, etc. I'm just me. Yet when I respond to you... what was your first instinct?
To tell me GTFO it, and tell me I sound like a child.
So rather than having a rational discussion you attack, belittle, and give orders (GTFO it is an order).
Sound familiar?
This likely is the very same tactics those you are complaining about use.
I've read a lot of your stuff and know you're a smart guy. Smart does not mean we are not mistaken in other areas.
I was NOT disagreeing with you when I originally responded. I even up voted your post. Yet your first instinct was to attack. So rather than use reason and give a reasonable response you followed that instinct and attacked.
This is what the crowds are doing too. They are following their instincts based around fear and their sense of righteousness rather than stopping long enough to think and use reason.
You are smart enough not to fall for this. You are also young enough this is not completely your fault. If you choose not to also be critical of yourself and consider yourself infallible then there is nothing I can do to really help you and you can create a bigger label that encompasses those you post about and stick yourself under it as well. Yet if you are the intelligent person you seem to be from past posts I think you can consider this.
My post to you was essentially a message of YOU ARE RIGHT this is happening, but you are committing a logical fallacy by generalizing people. If you realized that your future posts on such subjects would likely get stronger.
I make mistakes and am critical of myself. I also do not mind constructive criticism. I also don't mind civil discussion. If I did not CARE about what you think and who you are I would not have responded to you as much as I have.
Soft censorship is often disguised as paternalism. I'm definitely smart enough not to fall for THAT. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, as the old saying goes.
Yep. Gotta talk about censorship and then resort to a flag. I use the flag for abuse, plagiarism, and spam. That's it. "Logically self detonating word salad" - you didn't logically challenge anything. You spouted platitudes. Spoke of censorship. Then censored me. ;) I like your blog post talking about hypocrisy and projection. :) Think about that.
The multiple posts can be because you engaged someone. You could choose to view it as a compliment that you have someones interest. You could choose to view it as an attack. That perception is totally up to you.
Dwinblood has a point here.
No need to respond though. I saw the flag. I don't think I've ever had a comment flagged in 4+ months here. That doesn't impress me. I don't flag people EVER for disagreement. Nor will I. Though I will not follow such people. Have a nice day.
Flag is for spamming multiple comments worth of logically self detonating word salad
Could you explain why you flagged the post above?
That was the response he gave me.
Spoke about me trying to soft censor him by replying. He actually had my interest, I was not trying to censor him at all. I was trying to engage him. He responded with belittling, and platitudes and then censored me. :) Hypocritical and talking about soft censoring was a bit of projection I guess considering the blog post.
Here is my blog post about this occurrence.
If you are for excessive taxation to provide programs to support people, who are not actual dependants or the tax payer, or for government control that is outside of the laws setforth by the Constitution, which comes from ABC agencies, then you are a leftist and the antithesis of freedom, wear your label with pride.
That's the problem. I am not.... Read my blog and you'll see a lot of anarchist writings. I don't write them as often now as there are people who joined after I did that seem to have those bases covered.
My initial post to him had ZERO to do with me being a leftist. It's pretty funny I've been called a LEFT, I've been called a RIGHT. It all depends upon whom I disagree with.
Me disagreeing with people using generalizations does not mean I am part of the group he is generalizing about.
That is another assumption and logical fallacy.
I've been part of the RIGHT as an infiltrator as a delegate in the GOP in 2008 and 2012. I was a Ron Paul supporter and considered myself a Libertarian.
Eventually I discovered Anarcho Capitalism and if I must choose a LABEL that is the closest to what I am. Yet ultimately I am an INDIVIDUAL. No label fits me completely except perhaps HUMAN.
I have been called leftist extremist and right extremist for one post once. After that I was very comfortable with most haters.
Hahaha.... that is pretty funny.
I would guess leftist would say reasoning with you is a waste of time.
I don't follow very many people, but I do follow you because have always respected your work. I initially gave this post an upvote, but after seeing your response to dwinblood, I can no longer support this post.
The truth of the matter is that if you don't think you can reason with someone, then chances are you cannot reason with them. On the other hand, if you believe that you can reason with them, then you can.
Whether you think your can or not, you are right!
Would you say the same thing to a rape victim?
Attempting to reason with people who are trying to do you physical harm isn't the moral high ground. It's not even a good idea. If your position is that one should never be rude and that manners are more important than actions, keep your shekels. You upvoted a post about not reasoning with lefitsts, and then you were upset that I wouldn't reason with leftists - but not until leftists made a big enough stink.
When the site operators are virtue-signaling leftward, it's no wonder that user enthusiasm and participation are dwindling. If that's the way it's going to be, I'll take my work and my audience elsewhere.
I'm glad that you respect my work, but I just lost mine for yours. Be easy, Dan.
I don't know what concept you have of "left" and "right", but in my mind I am as far on the hard-core voluntarism side of things as possible. Something I am doing makes you think I am leaning left, perhaps you could describe what that means.
If you assume I am left leaning then you will act as if I am left leaning. Perhaps you could be wrong about me?
Whether or not you can reason with someone depends upon how you react to them. Obviously, if you are being raped then the time for reasoning is long past. But so long as we are talking to people over the internet, then it seems that our ability to reason with someone is at least partially derived from our own beliefs about them.
It is hard to reason with someone when the conversation is "one way" and everything they say is tainted by our own bias. If our bias says they cannot be reasoned with, then we will not even attempt to understand what they are saying.
If you were so inclined you could check out my blog... scroll away. I think you'll quickly find I am VERY far from a leftist. I've been pretty vocal against both Hillary and Bernie at times. Yet I've also been vocal about Trump. I simply don't agree with generalizations. That's the only thing I said you were doing wrong. So now that I don't agree with your generalizations I am suddenly part of the group you were generalizing about. You don't see a rationality problem with that? Also, I did not remove my up vote of your post. I didn't think your post was bad. I simply know generalizations are a logical fallacy and wanted to point that out. Your reaction is surprising, not just to me.
Is dwinblood a "leftist?" C'mon man. If you wish to be dismissive that is your prerogative, but don't pretend that your response to his comment was an argument. You are pulling the same stunt you accuse leftists of. I'm surprised you can't see this.
Just for clarity. I am an anarchist. I started in July. I posted quite a few anarchy related blogs back then. Then people like Larken Rose, Jared here that we are talking to, Dragon Anarchist, and many more joined steemit. Some of them were active and well known Anarchists. I did not feel the need to post anarchist related articles after that, because they were here and for awhile there were a ton of those articles. I even had some conversations with Jared about Anarchy back when he joined. So am I a leftist.... hahah hell no. I am not a rightest either. I told Dan that I am right handed, and I sure do click my left mouse button a lot. So if either of those make me leftist or rightest then I guess I am. Yet if it is ideological left, and right... I haven't bought into those labels for many years. I consider the labels left and right to be very ineffective and now that I think about it I was in some debates on reddit where I had someone accuse me of being a right extremist and then elsewhere in the same debate have someone else call me a left extremist. Some people just really feel the need to try to put people into nice little boxes. The bad thing is when they decide that ANYONE that disagrees with them even partially belongs in the same box. You are either with me, or you are against me type of logical fallacy. :) However, I am an anarchist, I simply leave the anarchist posts mostly to other people at this point.
If reasoning with Leftists is a waste of time...?
Isn't it also a waste of time to write about reasoning with Leftists being a waste of time? ;)
I just call them elitists now
Elitists is better than Leftist because it defines a specific attitude. There are elitists on the right, left, and all over the place. I'm trying to think of a better label for these people. They are essentially a horde of people that are reacting to words and have forgotten that words can be uttered and nothing happen. If they were reacting to actual actions then we might understand. Yet, they are rioting and destroying purely fueled by their imagination of terrors that have been inspired by words.
They are aimed like a weapon, and the media seems very happy at aiming them and adding fuel to the fire.
I think they call it cultural marxism...
I realised it's the same mindset as music purists but with real life impact and far reaching consequences.
Being an elitist is like being part of a music subculture that believes it has the best taste in music and that all other music is inferior, maybe because the person believes the genre to be technically superior, associated with high ideals or just trendy.
The adherence to that certain genre of music becomes an obsession and the person seeks to further identify with it believing each abstraction to be more virtuous or purer than the last until they are listening to total crap and are completely out of touch with what good music is.
I like the cultural marxist label, but they have to have a label because this ideology has to be called something derogatory, leftists are winning the war of words, and replacing all of the negative connotations with positive outlooks.
Truly I never really bought into the LEFT and RIGHT thing. The so-called "leftist" ideals do seem to be a heavy media push. Yet even when I've been knee deep as a delegate all the way up through state in the GOP in 2012 I still saw word play, corruption.
The truth of the matter is hijacking words and repurposing them has been going on for quite some time. I had I think blog posts on that subject three or four months ago. Some examples: Piracy, Terrorism, Occult, Conspiracy Theorist, Anarchy... all words that have been redefined. I use the term hijacking because it is always for emotional impact.
It essentially is them taking some emotional impactful metaphor and after awhile the idea that it is just a metaphor is glossed over and forgotten.
Though it does boil down to labels.
If we don't have labels for things it makes it far more difficult to divide us and fuel the bigotry.
Black,White,Right,Left,Male,Female,Heterosexual,Homosexual.
The only people I see benefitting from our generalizations over labels are those that use it to keep us divided rather than paying attention to what is going on with the state.
Do we want anarchy? (the true definition... not the hijacked variant) If so then we need to get rid of labeling our fellow humans. Labels are used to divide us.
Is the division of labeling, truly a bad thing?
Plenty of people out are actually advocating theft from the people who are just out of the taxation cut off, remember if you receieve earned income credits you actually are not paying taxes, while I am not advocating paying taxes, I am the guy who won't even ask family for help when I struggle, while others are perfectly content to live with their hand out to government, while also voting for bigger and bigger government and more control over my earnings. I don't wish to be unified with those people, I vehemently oppose them making my decisions for me.
While not being a slave, is the goal, it has never happened in history, their has always been a hierarchy of power, or someone seizing control
The original intent of The US, was to limit that hierarchy's power, and one group is trying to like hell to undo the limitations, label them.
It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. I guess it is more how people use labels. You see I simply disagree with generalizations and suddenly this SMART person here decided that I too am leftist. He didn't research my ideology, he didn't recall my anarchist posts he has commented on and up voted, he simply received some criticism and suddenly I was leftist. He is not the only one that did this. The problem with LABELs and boxes is when people start using them in broad strokes and throwing whatever they want into those boxes. Examples: You disagree? You're a leftist. You disagree? You are a right wing extemist. You disagree? You must be white. I didn't challenge ANYTHING on the activities of the people he was describing. Not once. I only stated that it was a generalization. I also know that it is not the majority of the people that could be considered LEFT that are doing what he is saying. It is a very vocal minority. They also appear to be intentionally being stirred up by the media. So saying LEFTISTs cannot be reasoned with. I understood WHY he was saying that as I've encountered it too. Yet that is not even close to ALL leftists. They are a vocal minority that are very active. Yet by generalizing he vilifies them all, and the vast majority of them are simply people.
Exceptions don't prove a rule, they disprove it. That's kind of how logical proofs work.
Now it is very easy to remedy this if a person doesn't get defensive and lash out at criticism. The term LEFTIST implies all on the so-called left. VOCAL MINORITY IN THE LEFT or anything that qualifies is more specific and does not generalize the entire group of them.
You don't have to preach to me about what their policies are. I am no fan of any form of socialism. I'm not a fan of any form of governance. They all are corrupt, and they are all giving power of people to force other people to live a certain way. THAT was not something I criticized. All I criticized was the generalization, because I know what he was saying, but the generalization is a logical fallacy and thus it weakens his position. So that criticism could be viewed as constructive. Furthermore, I only posted that single reply. He responded with the platitude, told me to GTFO it, and said I sound like a child. He was someone I respected, so this was a bit shocking. So I responded multiple times as I'd write something, then I'd think, and I'd have more to say. My multiple posts were a reaction to someone I respected falling from grace figuratively speaking. Basically the idea was post something and maybe he'll say "Oh, yeah I had a bad day, sorry about that, I see what you're saying" Did that happen? No he lashed out more and more. When a person that claims they cannot REASON with (insert group) and they act like this then really I question whether they can reason with anyone. If this is his reaction to a simple criticism about generalization then how can he reason with anyone. Apparently his idea of reason is he says something and everyone agrees. If they don't then he can't reason with them. Kind of like a priest. My mentioning generalization made me into a blasphemer.
This is why he got reactions from other people as well. I had one person contact me and say while they agree with most of what Jared writes (which I tend to also) they learned he doesn't take any form of criticism well at all and is arrogant. So they still read what he posts, but they don't bother to say anything to him.
Is this reasoning with people?
EDIT: I was trying to think of a way to qualify so it is not such a broad generalization target. The people he is describing are really the Social Justice Warriors on the left. So simply saying SJW LEFTISTS cannot be reasoned with would have removed the targeting of every person on the left. There are a lot of reasonable people over there. There are people over there that are leaning towards Libertarian, and from there eventually maybe Anarchy. Yet his LEFTISTS generalization includes them. It is simple. If a person disagreeing means they are unreasonable then he doesn't really understand the concept of reasoning. Disagreement is natural, it is how you handle disagreement that indicates whether you can be reasoned with, or whether you yourself are reasonable. People are generally unreasonable if they believe they are RIGHT and leave no room to be challenged on their beliefs.
Well, what would you characterize the ideologies as, if not left or right?
If we as a nation have no common ground, which it would seem that we don't, with one side screaming for all manner of free things and control over the rest of us and our earnings, why should we be unified with those fellow humans?
Yes, this is a second reply. I do think we have common ground. We all want freedom. We all want opportunity. Yet, some people don't really know what that means. They do not understand why the bill of rights is as it is. They do not understand that FREE SPEECH is to protect the unpopular speech. They do not understand why we have the right to bare arms. They do not understand that when you ban something it only impacts innocent people, as those that plan to misuse something won't have an issue with the fact they are committing a crime to get access. They don't comprehend that there is no such thing as FREE STUFF. Someone pays for it.
The big issue really is they don't teach critical thinking and logic in schools, and it is taught less there now than it was in the past. So the more recent you went to public education the less likely you encountered such teaching unless you found it on your own. I am 46 and I didn't get a good exposure to it until I took an obscure course in college. What they taught about it in K-12 was appalling. I have 6 kids. I am familiar with the education system. They teach it less now then they did back then.
I've come to the conclusion that we should be teaching people how to understand appeals to authority, generalizations, ad hominem attacks, etc at a very early age.
If you know those things it is harder to be susceptible to them. If you do not know those things then mostly it is emotions, feelings, gut feelings, and guessing that guide us. We imagine things and suddenly we believe the thing we imagined is real. We delude ourselves.
This happens to smart people too...
Why do smart people fall for this?
O, I get this, here in Europe we also have a lot of leftie problems. In contrast; a - referred by them - bully with more reason:
There is a reason behind the leftist refusal to compromise.
Previously the left were able to talk freely, to exchange ideas with other parts of the left or even the right. Then along came The Frankfurt School and its uncompromising idea of political correctness.
This thinking, that some ideas are politically more correct than others, was tested out in Maoist China. It worked well there.
And so it was brought to the West via academia and the education of children.
And now we have the most bigoted worldview masquerading as a drive towards peace and love. This is not what these people want. If they did they wouldn't attack people with dissenting views or riot at the slightest provocation. They simply want their side to win.
Now, if you're opposed to unlimited immigration you're a 'racist.'
Now if you're opposed to those leftists who say they want to kill white babies because white people are the cause of all problems you're a 'White Supremacist.'
They have their ideas on identity politics and their minds are now full up and closed off.
We are stuck with them. It's almost impossible to deprogramme them as any information which conflicts with their position is deemed politically incorrect.
They are essentially mindless robots reacting to stimuli in a pre programmed way and I suspect that at some time in the near future normal people will have to defend themselves physically against these extremists.
whats a leftist ?
are they like rightists ?
This a danger any ideal can be inflicted with. If we are lead by emotion rather than reason then we become easy to control and manipulate. In crowds this emotional response seems to magnify.
Right now it is predominantly on the LEFT but not completely. It also has a lot to do with the education system and how it does not properly teach people to use critical thinking. They know those two words. As long as people agree they claim to know those two words. Whether they UNDERSTAND those two words is only revealed when you see how they approach challenge. Disagreement in itself is natural and good. It is how people handle disagreement that is the important thing.
There is a lot of this crazy brainwashed crap going on right now and it is not just the LEFT. They just happen to be the groups the media keeps targeting and adding fuel to the fire. I personally think it is intentional.
The media is attacking the left? Now I know you're just here to troll. That's the most retarded thing I've ever seen. The media is unanimously on the left. Please stop spamming comments on my post. You're clearly a leftist in denial. I'm not going to contradict myself by wasting time reasoning with you
You already said once that you were done. What would it take to hold you to your word?
I replied to other people. :) I only reply now because you asked.
Why does Steemit preference YouTube over other video sources...
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSrslyTV/videos/1024335554356504/
I don't think it is simply steemit. I have friends that will link videos from facebook on places like Slack and they don't auto embed either. It is more likely a facebook thing than a steemit specific one. However, making sure it embeds all sources like vimeo and such may take extra coding. I don't know it is a guess, but I do know that facebook does this on slack too, because I stopped using facebook long ago so I usually don't view facebook videos due to forcing me to sign into facebook.
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