The Left's Brain Uncovered

It's nice to occasionally get confirmation that you're on the right track. Especially when it comes straight from the horse's mouth.

Frontpagemag.com hosted a symposium of six former members of the Left who finally realized the error of their ways and have become, if not exactly Conservative, at least rational human beings.

I found it fascinating because they echo exactly what I've been saying all along about people on the Left being immature, self-centered, power-hungry misfits who don't really care about any "cause" they espouse, but want only the socialization opportunities that ganging up with other misfits provides.

It also documents their self-serving sense of "superiority" over those whom they supposedly stand up for. In my opinion that sense of superiority over others is born of insecurity, which would expain the self-loathing that they describe amongst those on the Left.

Here are some interesting excerpts, but I recommend reading the whole thing. It gives a great understanding of the motivations of the Left.

(Exiles note: in my very first post ever, I wrote: "I don't intend this blog to be a log of Hillary's actions, but rather a discussion of Democrats and liberals and they're motivations". Quite frankly, even I'm surprised that I came as close as I did.)

John Bradley:

And you are right: it was for us a blind faith, completely black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. We knew all the answers (every single one of them!), as though they had been revealed from a higher being; and everyone else was simply stupid – not least the great mass of workers, who would one day wake up to that fact, of course, and finally recognize the SWP as their saviors.

What I find most odd, looking back, is that I didn't see myself as a victim at all – I mean, not only of the SWP, but even of society. I didn't have the sense that I was fighting on my behalf. No: I saw everyone else as a victim, and myself as savior – one of the chosen few.

Viewing everyone else as a victim gave me a sense of superiority, I suppose. Joining the SWP was a way of rebelling against my parents. I was using the great masses as my excuse to make myself feel good, to give my life a sense of direction and meaning. It took me years to cast off the shackles of that sense of superiority – of a failure to recognize the world's nuances and complexities and differing points of view, not to mention my own limitations and hypocrisies.

There are a few points to be made there, not the least of which is the fact that, at least when it came to them, personally, there was such a thing as "black and white, right and wrong, good and evil." Moral relativism is for everybody else. They were crusaders, anointed by themselves as saviors of "the little people".

Also, his quote about "using the great masses as my excuse to make myself feel good, to give my life a sense of direction and meaning" was spot on. I couldn't have (and probably haven't) said it better.

The part about his rebelling against his parents just shows the adolescence of the whole Left. They're still rebelling against authority, even the ones in their 70's (see Chomsky). Karl Marx was probably still rebelling against his parents when he wrote his schtick.

Tammy Bruce:

Narcissism, while frequently thought of as “self-love,” is in fact the opposite. It is self-obsession based on victimhood and paranoia. Narcissism is actually the belief that everything that happens, happens because of you, or revolves around you. As an example, feminist narcissists see the pro-life movement as being against women, or as a jihad against women, as opposed to an expression of those peoples’ concern for life. The issues for narcissists, whether they be feminist, gay or black, is always about them, surrounding them, or about how the opposition is out to get them. Paranoia is a key factor in narcissism and easy to exploit.

Harold the Troll (if he hasn't run away) might want to apologize. He disagreed with my suggestion that pro-abortion Leftists saw anti-abortion people as wanting to control women. He wanted proof. Ms. Bruce used to be the president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, and she's saying exactly what Harold was trying to argue with me about. I would call that proof enough.

And, of course, the rest of the quote confirms that any "cause" that they stand for is actually about nothing except for themselves.

And does anyone want to disagree with the paranoia of the Left and their conspiracy theories? It never did occur to me to link it to their self-centeredness, though.

This narcissism also explains how they can believe that they can overcome their beloved "theory of evolution" and change the way that humans have behaved for hundreds-of-thousands of years in their tiny little lifetimes, such as their belief that global warming has happened in their lifetime, society-wide acceptance of gay lifestyles will happen in their lifetimes, acceptance of all cultures as equal will happen in their lifetimes, women and men are equal in all ways, etc. These things have been true for hundreds-of-thousands of years, but these arrogant children believe that they can change them.

The Left’s organizing relies on selling the line that everyone who disagrees with the leftist status quo is a hater of some sort; those who disagree with leftist policy are not dealt with as serious people who have a different opinion on the issues. That would then require arguments based on reason. Instead, leftist leadership casts their opposition as haters who live every moment planning to eradicate the gay, woman or black. When your base is primarily narcissistic that’s an easy line to sell, remains emotional devoid of reason, and makes people easy to condition and control. Leftist politics, like a vicious circle, rely on the damaged as footsoldiers, while the most damaged, the “Malignant Narcissist,” as I explain in The Death of Right and Wrong, move into positions of power and leadership, furthering the cultural and political destruction of our culture and of the left in general.

I've always called them 'misfits', because that's what they were when they were damaged, but she's saying the same thing: these people are social losers who are very unhappy with themselves.

John Bradley, again:

Abandoning the straight-jacket of the hard Left has liberated me -- I am now able to see many sides to each issue, and I am willing to meet and discuss politics and religion with a much wider variety of people than would previously have been the case. We don't always agree -- and that's fine. The goal should always be to increase each other's understanding.

In other words, it's not we of the Right that "march in lockstep". But we've always known that, haven't we?

From Michael Lopez-Calderon:

John R. Bradley’s statement “that the Left never offers any kind of practical solution to the world's problems” bears an uncanny resemblance to what I had written nearly four years ago about my earliest doubts of the left: “However, there was one troubling, recurring weakness about the Left that kept reappearing like termites, eating away at my wooden edifice of arguments and premises: The Left offered no solutions. … We hammered and chipped away at America, but unlike Jean-Antoine Houdon, we created detritus instead of magnificent sculptures.” The left has a tendency to embrace failed causes, losers, and the envious. As part of the latter, it reserves a special place of loathing for those that succeed in the corporate world and the market place. That's why Ward Churchill’s "Little Eichmanns" statement was met with indifference in some leftist circles and celebrated in others.

The part about the Left having no solutions is obvious enough, but the part about the Left's "tendency to embrace failed causes, losers and the envious" is just so obviously their empathizing with people who are like themselves, that I almost feel bad pointing it out. My readers are smart enough to get that. Even some of the trolls.

It also explains their hatred for "corporate America" (i.e. successful Capitalists). If you magnify this to a larger scale, it also explains why all Communists/Socialists hate Capitalism.

And this needs no explanation:

Also what I saw happening to those of us on the left was the growth of an unexpected elitist hostility to ordinary folk. Many of my leftist friends and a few colleagues adopted the position that the masses were not only deceived, but had also played a willing role in their deception. Here we were, the harbingers of an ideology that purported to stand with the ordinary folk, and yet we despised practically everything they embraced, e.g. family, faith, consumerism, money-making, patriotism, and so forth. We did not live in a world where most lived, ensconced as we were in universities. Near the end of my university years, I began to notice this strange contradiction of “loving humanity but hating people.” I’ve realized since that it was part of the stock-in-trade of the unrealistic vision of the left, and blaming the failure of that vision not on the flawed assumption of the ideology but rather on the ingratitude of the “great unwashed” that we sought to liberate.

When the hell is your average Democrat going to realize this? The people who are now leading their party despise them. I've been trying to explain this to the "Democrats" that I know for years, but they just can't get past the changes that have happened in the political landscape.

The piece goes on and I could comment on every paragraph, but I doubt that you need me to do that. Not to mention the fact that it would probably be the longest post ever and I'd crash Blogger (hmmm).

I do highly suggest reading the whole thing if you'd like to understand the motivations of the Left better than you do now. Maybe it's just me, but I find their motivations the most fascinating part of the Left. How they can hold the irrational beliefs that they do fascinates me. How they can ignore logic is amazing to me.

It also doesn't hurt to know the enemy's motivations if you hope to defeat them.