THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

The joke regarding prayer is that it is perfectly normal to talk to God, but time to realize you have slipped over the edge when he starts talking back.

While I believe in God, blind faith is not the answer to everything. Logical reasoning does not have to be part of our religious beliefs, but it must guide our ideological beliefs. Not having all the answers is not the same as being ignorant.

Of course, this brings me to liberalism. If Socrates was the great questioner, then liberals are the emphatic opposite end of the Socratic spectrum. It is not that they have strong opinions. It is that they are so positive that they are right that facts and logical reasoning become irrelevant if contradictory.

Global warming has to be a fact. Al Gore said so. Of course, he has to be right because some scientists that are respected told him so. Yet don’t other respected scientists disagree with him? That does not matter.

What about the 3 million homeless people? Ok, so the number is a lot less, but who is counting? What about the 70 million without health insurance? Of course this counts those that voluntarily choose not to buy it, right?

Guns are destroying our society. How come the areas with the strictest gun control laws have the highest crime rates, and vice versa? Well that is irrelevant. Of course the second amendment is about a collective right…right? Well that makes perfect sense that amendments one and three through ten would be about individuals, but the second amendment would be about a collective. When grouping 10 items, and making an exception, I would pick number two as the perfect spot for the aberration.

People have every right to be liberal. All I ask is that they do some actual research on issues, and not let raw emotion guide them. At the very least…question things.

If liberals can prove to me that George W. Bush knew about 9/11 in advance, I am willing to listen. However, memo to liberals, just because Michael Moore uses fake footage in a movie and calls it a documentary does not make it so. He is not what we call in the journalism world a credible source.

I am aware that the conspiracy theory nuts do not make up the entire democratic party, but they are growing. Environmental and animal rights activists are not known for rational debate. If someone wants to tell me that smoking causes cancer, I am willing to accept that as fact at this point in history because enough credible sources have come together to validate this view. As for second hand smoke…I question it.

Now liberals go insane when anyone questions gospel such as global warming, second hand smoke, the need for gun control, etc. What they do not realize is that if they questioned their own beliefs, and then they turn out to be right (hard to imagine, but this is a hypothetical example), they have only strengthened their own arguments.

If all a liberal does is read the Jayson Blair Times and watch CNN or the BBC, of course they will get a viewpoint that would be far different from someone taking the time to read the Wall Street Journal or watch Fox News. When the democrats canceled their Fox News debate, they claimed that they did not want to speak before the enemy. What they failed to grasp is that by only speaking to the sycophants who already agree with them (which they still believe is a majority of America, hence the need to resist change), they are missing out on trying to persuade the persuadables.

I am not as hardline on illegal immigration as some of my fellow republicans would like me to be. However, when anyone who questions an open border policy is considered a nativist and a racist, it pushes me towards the hardliners.

When diplomatic missions repeatedly fail, liberals simply attack warmongering neocons, instead of thoughtfully asking why diplomacy keeps failing.

Liberalism works well in an ideal world, but life is not ideal. Bad things happen to good people, and bad people do things to make things worse for good people. I hate to have to break it down in Sesame Street language, but it really is no more complex than that. Some things are what they are. 2 + 2, despite efforts to question it, really is 4. However, much of life is unproven.

Just because some obscure dour senator from Nevada says we have lost the Iraq War, I am more inclined to trust armed forces commanders with boots on the ground. They say the war is going a lot better than is reported in the Jayson Blair Times. Just because some hippie children of hippie children believe in the beauty of social democracies with large welfare states, I am more inclined to look at the failing bureaucracies of Europe, hence the desire of these nations to finally start emulating America.

Truths will stand the test of time. Pythagorus told us that a2 + b2 = c2, and centuries later, that still stands. However, when theories change on a weekly basis, they might not be as sound.

Global warming exists, so we should forget about global cooling, the rage of the 1970s. Tax cuts are bad, except when leading to more growth, and more revenues, which is pretty much always. The stock market is a club for rich white men, except for the millions of small investors placing $100 per month into their mutual funds.

I do not have all the answers, but I am constantly questioning things. I did not support Reaganomics because I was a republican. I supported it because it was proven right. It worked, and still does. My political party does not tell me what to believe. I have a core set of principles, and the republican party met those principles, so I joined them. However, it is the principles that matter, not the party.

I do not support free trade, supply side tax cuts or a preemptive foreign policy because they are republican ideas. I support them because they are right. Democrats like JFK supported supply side theory, back when democrats did not reflexively reject any idea that came from the other side.

The way to have a stronger argument is to attack your own ideas and then attack the attack, aka build the ideas back up. What does not kill us makes us stronger. This is true with humans and with ideas.

The next time a liberal decides to explain to you that George W. Bush is trying to destroy the world so that we will all be dead, preventing democrats to ever win another election, do not immediately call the men in white coats to take these people to their respective rubber rooms. Simply look at them and ask them where they get their information. Offer them an alternative respected publication not to change them, but to allow them to at least think the entire issue through. If they simply tell you that what they are saying is fact, then the men in white coats can always be called back.

My college calculus professor used to always say “When all else fails…think.” My beliefs are solid because people of credibility have failed to tear them down (In some cases I have changed my viewpoint, because “facts are stubborn things.” Empirical evidence does matter). Liberals would do everybody, including themselves, a big favor by merely acknowledging the possibility of alternative viewpoints to their dogma.

When liberals start ranting, just coolly ask them the one question that will lead them down the road of mental crisis and uncertainty. Liberals, where do you get your information?

eric

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 1:09 am and is filed under POLITICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.