A chap named MD stopped by with a comment on my “Trumpism as Religion” post and left some comments. I’ve decided to post his comments here and interact with those comments since they are revelatory of the way Worldviews work as well as how language gets distorted depending on what worldview context in which the language lies. I don’t know who MD is, and so far as I know I’ve never interacted with MD before.
MD writes,
Bret, I disagree with you almost completely on religion and politics, but I think you’re on to something here, though not the something you have in mind. So please allow me to offer an alternative explanation.
Bret responds,
I am humbled that you would read here at Iron Ink MD, though you disagree with me almost completely on religion and politics.
MD writes,
In general, for most of the past 50 years (since Nixon’s southern strategy), the conservatives have run on resentment — it’s the fault of the blacks, the Hispanics, the immigrants, the gays, etc. — whereas the liberals have run on optimism — we can give you health care, a good social safety net, and otherwise improve your lives.
Bret responds,
I am of the age now where I can actually remember the campaigns of the last 50 years with greater and lesser clarity. 1968 and 1972 remain a bit fuzzy.
Already though we see the imposition of worldviews. MD has it in his worldview that conservatives have run campaigns on resentment while the liberals have run on optimism. Of course only a liberal with a non-Constitutional world and life view could reason like that.
I, quite to the contrary of MD would insist that it is his liberals who have consistently run on resentment since 1968. Those student riots during the Democratic convention in 1968 sure looked like resentment to me as well as the riots at the Trump rallies during 2016. Democrat resentment swelled against Nixon’s law and order campaign and against Trump’s law and order campaign in 2016.
Indeed Democrats have campaigned on resentment against our social order, resentment against previous mores and taboo boundaries long established, resentment against law and order, resentment against our 2nd amendment rights, resentment against women as seen by their forcing them out of the home and into the workforce and they have done all this while labeling this resentment as “optimism,” and casting those who were running on optimism as those who run on resentment. This reminds of the scripture,
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
I would go so far as to say that the Democrats are the party of resentment but as they think their resentment is the norm everyone who disagrees with their resentment are those who are filled with resentment.
MD writes,
There have been exceptions, and the GOP has used coded language rather than stating it as bluntly as I just did, but I would say that’s generally true. You yourself proved my point in your third-t0-last paragraph in which you offer a list of things you’d like Trump to do. Every single one of them involves doing bad things to people you don’t like. There wasn’t a single line item on it in which you wanted him to do good things for people; it was all nasty things you wanted him to do to people.
Bret responds,
Here is another worldview example. It is true I don’t want the Government to do good things for people. Being a Constitutionalist and believing in the 9th and 10th amendment I do not think it is the role of the Federal Government to do people “good.” The role of the Federal Government is limited to those matters which are enumerated and delegated to the Federal Government powers. The Government does not exist to do people good in the way MD thinks. The good the Federal Government does is to stay out of the affairs of the American people except where enumerated and delegated by the US Constitution.
Secondly, only a liberal would see this list I cite as “doing bad things to people.” Here is the paragraph from the last Iron Ink entry which MD questions,
“If Trump were to cut the budget, kick sodomites out of the military, bar women entry into the military, turn off all loans to Israel, kick out the United Nations, turn off funds to states and cities who claim sanctuary status, implement their own version of Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” or any number of other sundry things I would say … “I was wrong about Trump. He really is anti-NWO.”
Let us review these,
1.) Cut the budget — This would be doing good things to people since the when the government subsidizes negative behavior the consequence is more negative behavior. Cutting the budget would go a long way to re-introducing personal and individual responsibility for one’s actions. That is a monumentally good thing.
2.) Kicking sodomites out of the military — This would be a good thing to people who are not sodomite since they no longer would have to survive the advance of sodomites in the military. It would also be a good thing for the nation as a whole because the presence of sodomites in the military cannot help but weaken the moral fiber of the military.
3.) Barring women from the military — Again this is good for the military because women in combat positions decrease the fighting ability of the military. Also, it is good for women since they will not be killed in battle.
4.) Turn off all International loans — This would be good for the American people since that money could either be returned to their pockets or that money could be used to pay down our national debt.
5.) Kick out the United Nations — The UN idea has forever been connected with the Marxist New World Order dream. It is a Marxist organization carrying out a Marxist agenda. It would be good for the world as well as the US to be done with the UN.
6.) Turn off funds to States and Cities that claim sanctuary status — As the presence of illegal aliens reduce wages for Americans, increases pressure on the social safety net, increases the national deficit, and contributes to the elimination of the middle class, it would be good for US citizens to have the FEDS turn off funds to States and Cities.
7.) Implement an Eisenhower version of “Operation Wetback.” See above #6.
So, while MD sees me advocating doing bad things to people I don’t like. I see me advocating following the law and doing a good thing to people who likewise are following the law. MD wants to do good to illegal immigrants, sodomites, feminists, Marxists, citizens of other nations, etc and the reason MD calls what I advocate bad is because his liberal worldview calls those things bad. Again,
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
So, it is only in a liberal (cultural Marxist) worldview where the things I advocated which MD complains about as “nasty,” are seen as nasty. The question that needs to be asked of each of us is — ‘by what standard is nasty, counted as nasty?’ I would contend that MD’s worldview forces him to call what is good by a scriptural account as nasty.
So MD as proven my point. He advocates for nasty things to be done to people and calls the good things I call for “nasty.”
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
MD writes,
It reminds me of the guy who found a genie in a bottle. The genie said, “You can have anything you want but your neighbor gets twice as much.” The man thought for a minute and said, “Can you make me blind in one eye?”
Bret responds,
And MD reminds me of the guy who found a genie in a bottle. The genie said, “You can have anything you want.” Whereupon MD said, “I want perversion to be normalized. I want the Marxist utopian dream to come to pass. I want women and men to be non-distinguishable. I want the Federal Government to be an ever-present Genie always doing what I want.” Finally, the Genie stopped him and said …”Dude, even reality has boundaries.”
MD wrote,
And what happened with Trump’s election is that everything aligned just right so that we now have a president whose entire administration is based on the politics of resentment. He’s not a Judas goat so much as the culmination of fifty years of conservatives running for office on a platform of resentment. And your real quarrel with him is that your list of people you want punished doesn’t precisely match up with his, though you’re certainly getting more from him than you would have from Hillary Clinton.
Bret responds,
The politics of resentment MD according to how your worldview defines resentment. Had the Hilda-beast been elected the politics of resentment would have really gone into high gear. Christians bakers, florists, and photographers would have been continued to be resented. Resentment against any idea of limited Government would have been overthrown. Resentment against heterosexual marriage would have continued to be exercised. MD thinks that he can demonize conservatives by characterizing them as practicing the politics of resentment when in point of fact it is the left which created the whole category of resentment and envy. The left could not exist if it were not for its practicing the politics of resentment. Yet, the left is crafty, and like the terrorist who is being chased by plainclothes law officers, the left turns and screams while pointing at the law officers and says, “the Terrorists are trying to get me. HELP.”
MD writes,
And the reason he’s (Trump) going to make the GOP, and conservatism, irrelevant is that people are now actually seeing what a government based on spite looks like. Before, it was all theoretical. Now, it’s playing out in practice.
Bret responds,
This is really quite bad political analysis. As anyone can tell you who knows me I carry no brief for the GOP, or for modern conservatism (so-called). However, the GOP and modern conservatism most certainly will not be seen as irrelevant because the electorate finally sees what a Government based on spite looks like. That thinking is a liberal fairy-tale. The GOP and conservatism will be seen as irrelevant because the politics of resentment and envy which is characteristic of the left’s cultural Marxist base will finally have overwhelmed traditional Americanism in terms of sheer numbers. Our political landscape is now almost completely dictated by demographics and it is the weight of these demographics and the resentment the cultural Marxist left has seeded in those demographics which will finally make the GOP and modern conservatism irrelevant.
MD writes,
And now that people are actually in danger of losing their health care and social security, they’re running for the exit. Maybe in 2018 and 2020 they’ll give optimism a chance.
Bret responds,
Only in a twisted liberal Worldview could the centralized bureaucracy and Governmental Tyranny required for the euphemistic malapropisms called “universal health care” and “social security” be considered “optimism.” It is so surreal that the only response it can be met with is a hearty belly laugh were it not for the case that so many people have swallowed this bilge. Over and over again in the 20th century, we’ve heard the utopian promise that if we will just give optimism a chance then we will be able to get something for nothing and over and over again the Government has placed its long ugly tentacles in the fiber of our lives only for the citizenry to be sickened and jaundiced by governmental remedies and cures found in government programs like government healthcare and government social security.
And how did the liberals get people to believe in these fairy-tale promises? You guessed it … by practicing the politics of resentment and envy. By placing words in the left’s upside down, inside out, and backward worldview with the result that honoring the mores and taboos of the past end up being labeled as practicing resentment. Semantic and linguistic deception were birthed by the left.
MD writes,
Now, here’s where I split from your conclusion: When Trump got the GOP nomination in 2016, I knew he would destroy the Republican Party and conservatism. I just didn’t realize he’d have to get elected first. And because I don’t agree with using government to punish people, I just hope he doesn’t drive the country itself off a cliff first. I would really hate for the next Democratic administration to spend all four years doing little but clean up the mess his incompetence and cluelessness will leave. Candidly, that may be part of the GOP strategy — to make a mess so big that the Democrats’ energy once they return to power will all be spent on that rather than on actual governance. Perhaps we should have this conversation again in 2021.
Bret responds,
1.) It is my prayer that both the Republican party and the Democratic party implode as they are really just different words for the same establishment.
2.) You really need to examine the past few election cycles at the State levels. The Democrats have been getting their heads handed to them. I think it is just as reasonable to argue that the Democrats are on the edge of extinction as the Republicans are.
3.) You do believe that government should punish people. You just think that when the Government is punishing Christian cake bakers and florists and photographers that does not really count as punishment. You either know this and so are lying to advance your cause, or you don’t know this and so are just one of the useful idiots that Lenin talked about.