<< REALITY BESPOKEN ~ MAIN ~ WHO YOU GONNA CALL? >>
ASSUMPTION CORRECT
Alaskan lefty Gryphen ponders the ideological divide:
I have been the recepient of an unusual number of visitors of late. They are coming almost exclusively from a link placed on a right wing bloggers site called Tim Blair. Now I have to say that the few comments I have recieved from these individuals have been polite and respectful. This led me to wonder what is it that really causes our ideological differences?
To be brutally honest I usually assume that there is some intellectual disparity that seperates us.
Looks like he’s right. Meanwhile, due to a surge of intellectual dissidents eager to test Homeland Security response, Mao’s Little Red Book has jumped to an Amazon ranking of 6,207—up from 12,646 the day before.
"Seperates?” Maybe what separates us is the ability to spell.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 26 at 02:01 AM • permalinkya gotta worry about someone who asks ‘What is morality?’.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 26 at 03:18 AM • permalinkG-d-nammit! Why can’t these people learn how to put stuff through a spell-checker? At least he didn’t need a gender-checker...
On another note: has anyone noticed the ‘don’t torture sheep’ advertising? I clicked on it because of the chick with a flag painted on her arse, instead of porn I got some hideous PETA lady :(
This Gryphen character sounds like a sad sack to me. After pondering the possibility the us RWDBs may actually possess an “intellect”, he actually asks the question:
Go ahead and tell me how we can see the same information and come to completely different conclusions.
The obvious answer is that Gryphen is not starting with the same assumptions and/or premises, let alone the same information. As I stated in his comments:
It’s very simple. We start out with different assumptions and/or premises (e.g., Bush is not necessarily evil), and processing the information with a different set of values (e.g., morality is the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct; said standards have existed for a long time, with respect to secular law and religion dogma).
For a dude who asks “What is morality?” (i.e., he questions the things many people believe in), his request to explain different conclusions demonstrates extraordinary cluelessness on his part.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 03:39 AM • permalink...said standards have existed for a long time...
And there’s the rub, Jeff. Most lefties I’ve encountered just can’t fathom the notion that somebody’s assumptions and premises might be based in something that they haven’t thought up or experienced personally. It makes them feel all intellectual ("those stupid Christians simply act by what the Bible tells them, but I’m smart enough to figure out my own morality!” etc.) while in reality, it merely makes them prone to falling for every pretty-sounding crackpot scheme imaginable.
Here on the right side, we at least realize that a) our common sense might be a little lacking at times, and b) there were plenty of smarter people before us and it doesn’t pay to ignore their wisdom.
The left believes in direct action : if you can’t see, you stand on your toes. Nothing changes if it’s everybody : everybody can see better if everybody stands on their toes.
Yet it doesn’t work.
It must be because tall people are defeating it.
After you’ve been governing for a while, all the problems that can be solved with direct action have been solved. What’s left is problems that respond to direct action with perverse side-effects.
The right more or less believes in perverse side-effects, and the left doesn’t.
So you find the right favoring breaking up teachers’ unions to improve education, and the left favoring paying teachers more.
Another perverse side effect is that the left goes bananas
The right more or less believes in perverse side-effects, and the left doesn’t.
That’s very astute. It’s true, but I don’t recall seeing it put exactly that way before.
I was trying to recall the term for this sort of thing, and it took me a while because there are acutally two related factors: perverse incentives and unintended consequences.
You’re absolutely correct; the left simply doesn’t believe that these things happen. They think that with the right attitude, a detailed plan, and sufficient money, the results will always be what they intended.
People who have actually had to deal with the real world at some point in their lives know different.
o.t Tim Costello’s World Vision has incurred the ire of fundamentalist Muslims in Tsunami ravaged Aceh for “Prosetylising”.
Also some other church based organisations helping out after the tragedy.
Tensions are rising in the area. Costello has flatly denied the accusation.I see nothing wrong with Costello spreading his Christian beliefs. Costello and other aid workers are probably copping it from Muslims because they have hardly anyone from their own faith in the region to help the victims of the tsunami. In a situation like that, Muslims would no-doubt question Islam, at least as an ‘organisation’.
I’m sure if most of the victims asked aid workers why they were helping, many would reply ‘my Christian faith doesn’t allow me to stand by’. That in itself would enrage your average Islamo-fascist.
#12 crash - I’m not surprised about the accusations even though I believe Tim Costello when he says they are not prosetylising - maybe some other organisations are. Either way, it makes it a very dangerous situation for aid workers as some Islamist would see this as a legitimate reason to kill them.
From The Age on 2005: Singer Janet Jackson topped Google’s “news” category over rumours about a secret daughter, ahead of disasters including hurricane Katrina and last year’s tsunami.
Janet Jackson had a secret daughter? And even if, people give a toss?
Biggest News Of The YearMost lefties I’ve encountered just can’t fathom the notion that somebody’s assumptions and premises might be based in something that they haven’t thought up or experienced personally. i]
Well put, PW. I used to wonder about this myself (during my brief foray into Leftie Land), but I eventually realized that reinventing the wheel just means I will make a lot of the same mistakes people did a long time ago. Morale values (in whatever form) is actually sound advice from which we can learn from past mistakes.
This doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes, or that our ancestors knew everything about anything, but we at least have guidelines for evaluating new problems in an attempt to achieve similar results.
Perhaps, in the end, being a “conservative” means learning from our forefathers, and being a “progressive” means blowing them off. IMHO, anyhoo.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 12:56 PM • permalinkSorry about the broken formatting. PIMF :(
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 12:57 PM • permalinkHere’s the problem. Gryphen thinks we all see the same information. He doesn’t know that his view is severely limited to what the msm and the liberal establishment want him know and think.
Perhaps this will make him curious enough to do a little research. If he’s intelligent, he’ll be forced to admit he’s being fed a line of garbage and may start questioning his presumptions.
I’ve got to agree, Gryphen, that the spelling criticism is petty. “Seperates” is a common mispelling, as is “hte” for “the” (caused by people typing too fast), mixing up “there,” “their,” and “they’re,” as well as “your” and “you’re”—and so on. As well, to the commenter who nitpicked, I really doubt that people bother installing a spellcheck program in their blogging software; I certainly haven’t. I also don’t use a fancy word-processing program like Word to write my posts; I just use the posting entry window. I imagine most other people do the same thing.
Anyway, let’s leave the nitpicking over minor and common spelling deficiencies to petty people. If Gryphen displayed the sort of typing-with-his-toes-while-blindfolded spelling and grammar errors like that Margo Kingston woman that would be one thing, but he doesn’t seem to have that problem.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 26 at 01:30 PM • permalinkPlease, there must be hundreds of things that I have written on my site which makes you question my intelligence and you choose spelling?
Fair enough, Gryphen. But please note that several readers here have commented on your blog content; I even left a comment there. So it’s not like everyone is harping on your spelling skills.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 01:44 PM • permalinkI liked his response. Paraphrased, “Thanks for coming by. Thanks very much for not being nasty. You’ve all said some interesting things. Now go away and leave me alone.”
Posted by Steven Den Beste on 2005 12 26 at 02:06 PM • permalink#10 rhhardin
The right more or less believes in perverse side-effects, and the left doesn’t.Good point. But, I’m not sure the right “believes in” perverse side effects. That makes it sound like the right “favors” perverse side effects.
I think I would say: The right isn’t averse to perverse side effects, but the left is.
“Thanks for coming by. Thanks very much for not being nasty. You’ve all said some interesting things. Now go away and leave me alone.”
I read his response as “LA LA LA LA LA!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!”
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 02:36 PM • permalinkHey! I read these comments rinardman.
I’m just waiting for the time you misspell “seperate”. Or your name for that matter.
(writes rinardman in List of Holy Retribution Once Ascends to Master Status; notes running out of space, must get another spiral notebook)
Posted by wronwright on 2005 12 26 at 03:19 PM • permalinkEven I, as Agent Y of the Spelling and Grammar Police don’t usually go after people for spelling/grammar/punctuation errors. Frankly, with the appalling state of literacy on the net I’d get nothing else done. Leetspeak alone would drive me to distraction. I do make exceptions in cases when the mistake substantially affects the meaning of what’s being said (prescribe vs. proscribe, raise vs. raze, etc.) or when the writer has indicated he deems himself (or herself) intellectually or educationally superior.
Oh, wait ...
Look, you cretans, dysfunctional spelling, grammar and punctuation is worn by the leftists as a badge of honour!
It creates an ambience of not having attended an elitist educational institution, and immediately identifying oneself with the Common Man.
I think it extremely patronising of those on the right to condescendingly pick out spelling and grammatical errors in the sincere works of their intellectual inferiors.
It never ceases to amaze me: lefties see Joe McCarthy under every bed, earnestly believe that before too long greenhouse gasses are going to form a giant magnifying glass and fry us all like ants on the sidewalk, and think that all those terrorists in Iraq were just honest rug merchants before being driven to violence by that Satan’s spawn, George Bush. AND YET they cling smugly to the notion that they are intellectually superior to righties. T’was ever thus.
ot aap is no longer calling terrorists insurgents. they are now guerrillas. who’d a thunk
#8 KK. Don’t be disheartened -the root word is Fr. ‘guerre’ meaning ‘war’, so some more people might actually come to believe that we are involved in a *real* war after all, rather than just a phony ‘rightwing fear/hate/racism/world hegemony’ bid.
THAT would be intellectual progress for the left.The Gryph commented on my site too. He’s so sharp, he didn’t even know that ANWR has weeks of continuous darkness in winter. I think he must have that thing you get when you’re blinded by too much snow, what’s that called? Oh yeah - stupidity
Posted by beautifulatrocities on 2005 12 26 at 06:29 PM • permalinkHe’s so sharp, he didn’t even know that ANWR has weeks of continuous darkness in winter.
For someone that lives in Anchorage, that is REALLY clueless.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 07:22 PM • permalinkHmmmm.
Frankly went and read some of the posts on this guy’s blog and I really wasn’t overly impressed.
Posted by memomachine on 2005 12 26 at 07:52 PM • permalink...where he blew off all the atrocities of communism in practice and asked what was really so bad about it...
Oh geez, he’s one of that particular brand of morons? Good thing I didn’t visit his site then...I try hard not to lash out in comments sections, but that type of idiocy gets my blood pressure boiling. (Given that I just had a long talk with my grandfather the other day about how the Commies nearly had a reason to send him to jail back in the late 50s, but in the end “only” parked him in a go-nowhere job for the next 30 years as punishment, Gryphon ought to count himself lucky I’m ranting here now instead of on his blog.)
...Gryphon ought to count himself lucky I’m ranting here now instead of on his blog.
Well, in the Bizarro world where Gryphon lives, he’d probably treat your grandfather’s “employment” much like a lot of lefties treat the 18,998% literacy rate in Cuba sans a choice of books: as a “benefit” of Communism.
Seriously, this guy sounds so clueless that I’ll bet he views all those cute and cuddly widdle wild animals that foray into Anchorage for food as members of some petting zoo. Which might mean he might get stomped on by a defensive moose, or swiped at by a hungry bear. Or possibly try to pet some hungry wolves.
If so, one can only blame Mother Gaia, eh?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 26 at 08:38 PM • permalinkWell you have much better spelling than I, Andrea! Everything I write- I put through a spell-checker. If I’m posting an argument and misspell a single word, someone always jumps on it, and thus takes the emphasis away from what is important. Also, if you are referring to me as the “commenter who nitpicked”- it is, effectively, the subject of the post, but nonetheless- I apologise to Gryphen, I should have criticised his arguments instead- although one last point, shouldn’t *Gryphen* be Gryphon ;-)
paco—yes. But the skirts were on 12-year-olds…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 26 at 11:32 PM • permalinkWhat is morality? Here is your end of term paper.
1: I come to your house, piss on your stove, crap in your fridge, root your missus, and shoot your dog.Is this
a: Moraly right
b: moraly wrong
c: Tick this box if you are a “brown” person, a victim of the state, or a self proclaimed oppressed minority.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 27 at 12:26 AM • permalinkPixy Misa
Nah that was just extrapolating from a certain unnamed RWDB’s behaviour at a party recently. Not sure on his breeding, could be a bit of possum there. Um, his, er, “tail” didnt look particularly bushy though.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 27 at 02:22 AM • permalinkI live in the friggin’ desert along the southern border of the US, and I KNOW THAT.
Well, Sortelli, you are a bona fide RWDB henchman, and not a friggin’ clueless leftie intellectual. I would think that you know something about this world.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 27 at 03:07 AM • permalinkHmmm.
you are a bona fide RWDB henchman
That would make for an interesting t-shirt.
“Henchman of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”.
Posted by memomachine on 2005 12 27 at 01:15 PM • permalinkIt continues to astound me that this guy is (allegedly) 45 years old. His grasp of politics and discourse skills are at the level of your average teenager. To judge by the posts I’ve read so far, he’s been operating thus far in an NPR-powered bubble, being fawned over by a credulous clown called enigma4ever. The result is endless iterations of the written equivalent of using a crayon to mark up a picture of someone you don’t like.
Enigma, btw, makes Gryphen look like an intellectual giant. His response to being fisked bloody by Pixy was to gabble about koolaid and FAUX News and salaam thrice in the direction of the Guardian.
Well this explains why my ears were burning.
I don’t want to interrupt your little game of “slap the liberal” but I thought some more information might be helpful.
I am still fairly new to the whole “liberal blogger” thing. When I started my site I did not have any idea what I would write about. I posted articles that I liked or that irritated me, and linked to sites that shared my point of view. All typical blogger stuff.
I am also just recently registered as a Democrat. I was an Independant for most of my life. I am what you might call a “George Bush Democrat”. As you might have gathered I don’t like him much.
It has been correctly noted that I did not find this site, Tim found me. I imagine he Googled the “little red book” story and there I was! I seriously doubt that the more well known liberal bloggers would choose me to represent them to such a well known site. But over you came.
When I realized how many visitors I had from here I surfed on over. I found where you had discovered that the story was false. I checked that myself, and found that you were right. I corrected the story and credited Tim for pointing it out to me. It seemed like the right thing to do.
At first I did not know this site originated in Australia. I was completely ignorant of the Australian point of view concerning the war and President Bush. I asked you for more information concerning your point of view and by god I got it!
Believe it or not, I did visit many of the links suggested to me. I am sure that none of you expected me to suddenly come to my senses and abandon my previous point of view, but I am a more informed person now.
I actually enjoyed some of the comments posted to my site. I did not see our exchanges as particularly adversarial. To me it was a chance to talk to somebody who thought differently then I do and to try and understand why they have that point of view.
If any of you had hoped to start a war of words then I am sorry to disappoint. Not my style.
I stand by what I said before. I still welcome your visits to my website. Even if you read my posts while rolling your eyes and slapping your forehead I don’t mind. And if you feel the need to correct me or direct me to other information, I welcome that.
After all no matter how our ideologies might differ, we are all in this together. I believe that there are many challenges in front of us in America and I imagine you will have similar ones in Australia.
If you find any misspellings be sure to let me know. Thanks
Nice post. Very reasoned and reasonable response.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 12 28 at 10:08 AM • permalinkSeriously, though, wronwright’s right.
WHAT? How the hell did THAT happen? What universe am I living in now? Quick, gotta find a mirror ... do I now have an EvilSpock beard?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 28 at 07:31 PM • permalinkGryphen, where do I start? i before e except after c, separate, Independent… Whatever you do, Gryphen, please, for me? Don’t start spelling definitely definately. Just that. OK? Nothing else. My eyeball muscles are sore from all the rolling, and my forehead is red from all that slapping I had to do. Bad enough correcting the spelling...(gripe gripe mumble...kaff kaff...hack...)
Achillea has it right. Regime change always was the main reason. Whatever the pretext. Tried to explain it to Gryphen, but all I got was… Hey! Where the hell is my t-shirt? F*ck! Gryphen’s site is a total gyp. No t-shirts, no mugs, no caps. What’s the bloody point?
P.S. wronwright, I already excited Gryphen way too much by thanking him/her on his/her website. So that’s covered. No need to go overboard. Only encourages him/her, next thing you know we’ll have another champy on our hands.
51 f’ing mole
What is morality? Here is your end of term paper.
1: I come to your house, piss on your stove, crap in your fridge, root your missus, and shoot your dog. Is this ...It depends. Did you leave the power tools alone?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 29 at 11:30 AM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
You may as well call attention to his use of “bloggers” too. It’s either an incorrect plural or an incorrectly executed possessive.