Blogging Tory; mesopotamia west writes; There is one fact that binds Liberals, Socialists and Communists; a belief in the perfectibility of man, the feeling that somehow, someway, a loving, caring and compassionate humanity can be hammered out of the anger, greed and loathing of human nature.
Oh what a conceited negative view of oneself this poor man has. Clearly though since humanity is such a beast it must be dominated and ruled over. Hence we should make laws that protect us from ourselves. But wait he opposes this.
I can never understand how those who declare we are vestigial beasts can then turn around and declare we should have the right to bear arms, to kill each other at will, at a whim. As Mr. Mesopotamia West does. Since this would seem to be a contradiction. But wait no of course given that then we need to have both the right to bear arms and a police state to govern us.
What stupidity. What illogic. But of course one cannot take these kinds of arguments seriously, since the premise is incorrect. Humans are social beings, we like other animals live cooperatively, in solidarity, balancing out our personal needs with our social obligations. There is no need to hammer that into us. We are inherently compasionate, which is what all great religions in the world appeal to and tell us is so.
We are loving or we would have no families, kinship groups, tribes, why society would be nothing less than the war of all against all. Opps thats what Hobbes said to Calvin.
We are inherently socialist because we socialize, individualism is liberalism, socialism arose out of the liberal movement of the 18th century as did anarchism.While the conservative politics of Mr. Mesopotamia West are a Burkean throw back to Empire, to not just the rule of law, but the rule of tyrants, and empire. The rule of the Great Man who needs to hammer chains onto humanity to keep us from returning to our beastial selves.
Mr. Mesopotamia West refers to Stalin, as if he was a Marxist, when he was just another tyrant using ideology to justify his rule over the people. In fact he was truly a conservative the ideal Great Man that Burke and other conservatives love to praise.
Socialism and Anarchism recognize humanities 'human-ness', while conservatives deny that, they believe we are red in tooth and claw and in need of restraint. It is conservatives who created the State to satisfy their demented need to dominate others. The state will always be conservative, not liberating. Hence even Marx and Engels accepted the need for the withering away of the state.
What is truly loathsome is the rhertorical strawmen in articles like that written by Mr. Mesopotamia West.
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Typical right-wing logical fallacy of the straw man variety. No doubt 18th Century French Enlighntenment thinkers believed in "perfectability", but I suspect few of us do today. "Better" does not equal "perfect". Similar to the crap that we anarchists believe in the "innate goodness of humanity." All excuses by the right to maintain the authoritarian status quo, as illogical as it is...
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