The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Excellent Bits From Protein Wisdom And The Ace Of Spades

Posted on | April 21, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Sophistry:

. . .language divorced from its anchor (intent) and set to semiotic drift results, predictably, in cynical, self-serving, largely recursive narrative enclosures, with desire — a will to power — coming to stand in for meaning, creating illusory “truths” out of self-interested consensus. That is, mob rule.

Or, as Ronnie James Dio put it: “If you listen to fools, the mob rules.” The good news is the fools seem dimly aware that we’re onto them. The bad news is that this vague feeling does not prompt them to pursue wisdom.

Ace nails it here:

Tied for first place as far as “Things that Give Obama Away as a Man of the Left” (Tied with everything else he thinks and everything else he does) is his favorite “explanation” for the public disagreeing with them: That they’re ignorant.

This has a long history on the left as the go-to explanation for the public rejecting socialism. The earlier, more Marxist version of the idea was to claim the public had a “false consciousness” imposed on them by a manipulative capitalist media; the public, in this telling, were unwitting dupes, who didn’t understand socialism was in their best interest because the corporate masters who control the debate fed them a steady diet of lies. Anything to keep the wealthy and powerful in their positions of wealth and power. Anything to keep the Common Man from realizing he could be his own King.

The overarching irony here is that the real assumption of Common Man royalty is delivered by liberty, not socialism. Locke trumps Rousseau, barring actual wolves at the gate.

Category: Ace of Spades, Protein Wisdom

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