Model of Perfection

It seems that politics has taken a vacation for awhile, which is just as well. The Shuttle is in space, docked with the Space Station, and summer is being enjoyed in MN. Some discussions this week and happenings in my personal life have brought me to reflect on my “basic model” for liberals and conservatives.

One of the key features of liberals is that “consistency is not an issue”. They will allow a Ruth Bader Ginsberg to answer very few direct questions in hearings, but are very likely to turn around and demand that John Roberts answer all direct questions. Like all humans, conservatives are not consistent either, BUT, the difference is that for a liberal any such discussion will bring a blank stare. They simply can’t understand that there would be an issue with being “inconsistent” … Ginsberg is good, Roberts is evil. Why would you treat them the same?

While a liberal may be unable to discern “evil” in terrorists flying planes into buildings, pedophiles raping and killing children, or a Doctor partially delivering a baby and then sucking it’s brains out to both insure death and an easy remaining delivery, there are certain areas that they make exceptions. If one faces a liberal and tries to get them to admit to evil in such things, they will quickly point out “different points of view”, or “everyone’s right to see things as they want”, or “you don’t know what kind of background / thought process / brain chemistry, etc drove this person to do that which you judgmentally call “evil”.

One of my theories on why this is so is what I would call “the deity of the liberal mind”. Liberals tend to believe in no God, or in a God that is “unknowable”, “unrelated to us”, or “universal” in that sense that whatever you do would be OK with “*IT*”. Once one believes this, then what one person believes is no more valid than what another believes … but in the human equation, that quickly resolves to “my ideas are better” and ultimately "might makes right". 

When one is god, it is reasonable to expect that your model of the universe is correct and OUGHT to come to pass. It seems that most liberals have a rather abstract and rigid model of what the world ought to be. Since they don’t really believe in any concept of “original sin” and nearly always believe in the perfectibility of man, then the force of “evil” in the universe must be that which is preventing their abstract model from coming true.

This evil typically turns out to be “conservatives” or “Republicans” in some form. The “evil forces” will have names like “religious right”, “big business”, “the oil companies” and “the rich”. The abstract model in the liberal’s mind of a society that is “just”, “free”, “fair”, “peaceful”, “environmentally sound”, and “less filling” is something that would happen NATURALLY if it were not for those forces that are blocking it. Anyone blocking “heaven on earth” must be doing it for an evil purpose.

Once a liberal arrives at their “perfect mental model”, it is very hard to have allegiance to anything in this world and likely least of all the USA. It is a classic case of the “good being the enemy of the perfect” … and of course once it is identified as “the enemy”, it is hard to see it as “good”. Many may see the USA as the best of the best on the planet for governments, but since it falls far short from the abstract perfection inside a given liberals god-like brain, it is worthy of only scorn and derision. Americans being willing to “settle for” what the liberal sees as a sorry state of affairs earns them the derision of a Michael Moore to say about his fellow Americans; “They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks.”

While it might be easier to just respond to the left in kind, my guess is that they are actually thinking SOMETHING. Michael thinks Americans are dumb because many believe in odd things like God, Family, individual responsibility, morals, hard work, and a reasonable level of personal hygiene. Meanwhile, Michael neither believes in, nor practices any of these and makes millions of dollars while calling himself a “common man”.

I doubt that there is one iota of difference in the “hardware” (IQ) between the right and the left, but there is a significant difference in the “software” (mental models) that many of the people on either side are running. I’d rather accuse the left of “incorrect mental models” than being “stupid”. But I suppose that is only because I’m less sophisticated than the typical lefty.