Leftists, Socrates and George W. Bush

Socrates, the father of modern philosophy and the intellectual scourge of Classical Athens, liked to have assumed truths proven to him. If they could not stand up to basic questioning, he reasoned, then they should not be assumed as necessarily true. His fellow Athenians, busily attempting to slaughter as many Spartans as possible at the time (lest they be slaughtered by the Spartans) didn't appreciate this distraction, and they slipped him a mickey.

This is much the same response that one will face if one applies the Socratic Method (so named for that famous corrupter of youth) to the assertions of the left. These assumed truths (the stolen generation, the fitness of Socialism, the necessity of the UN, and the inherent racism of all white people in all times, etc) leftists hold just as dearly as the Athenians held notions of Athenian military superiority.

Just like the over-confident Athenians, I rather suspect that we shall someday bear witness to the fall of the last leftist bastions. One can live in hope, at any rate.

Until that glorious day of a thousand rainbows, we will have to content ourselves by continuing to annoy our ideological foes into fits of foaming apoplexy. This is best done (as mentioned above) through careful and respectful application of the Socratic Method. But one should not be rash. To try to corner more than one leftist at a time in this way is to court death by outraged and indignant mob.

Having first taken the necessary precautions (target, isolate, remove all sharp objects within reach, etc), I set about doing this very thing at a Christmas party I attended over the weekend. The subject was a fairly typical leftist, in that he thought he knew everything there was to know about everything, but exposed to careful questioning, revealed his knowledge to be lacking in content, substance and insight.

"George Bush?" The leftist exclaimed, waving his small plastic cup of fruit punch around dangerously. "Don't get me started on that evil fuck."
"Oh come on," I purred in reply. "You can't mean that. Evil? Really?"
"Oh yes," the leftist replied, with the lowered tone and complete assurance of the true insider. "He's worse than Hitler."
"In what way?" I asked innocently.
"What do you mean?"
"In what way was he worse than Adolf Hitler," I smiled, being careful to be non-confrontational. "I'm curious to know, as I've no idea about history or politics."
"Well," the leftist fellow said, warming to the subject, apparently satisfied that I wasn't some NeoCon spy. "He went to war on a lie. There wasn't any WMDs in Iraq. He said there was, but there wasn't."
"I see," I nodded a good deal at this point. Then I paused, a thoughtful look on my face. "But... Didn't I read somewhere that the congressional investigation into WMDs found that, at the time, with the information available, it was easier to conclude that Saddam had WMDs?"
"He still lied."
"But if you don't know something," I reasoned slowly, as though talking to a child, "...and are forced to make a decision based upon that which you do know, rather than what you don't, isn't it better to err on the side of caution? That isn't really lying, is it? Rather more like being unaware, wouldn't you say? I think that the senate inquiry in Australia, and its counterpart in Britain all found that neither Howard or Blair had attempted to decieve anyone on the matter. They just made a decision, as all leaders have to." I sipped my drink, then quickly added, "...of course I could be wrong about that."
Fortunately, a beautiful woman had walked past in clothes which would have - if stretched - fit a pre-schooler, so most of what I'd said had gone straight over the leftist's head.
"Anyway," he continued when the partial nudity had turned the corner. "Like I was saying, Bush is evil. Just look at Abu Ghraib."
"Who?" I asked humbly.
"Oh come on, you must have heard of it." He rolled his eyes. "That was the prison where US soldiers were torturing Iraqi prisoners. It was hideous. They're no better than SS troops, I swear."
I suppressed a sudden and incredibly sensual urge to slam the heel of my palm into the base of his nose, sending fractured shards of bone and cartilage plummeting upward into what brain he may or may not have possessed.
Instead I smiled. "Abu Ghraib. Yeah, I think I remember that now. Bags over the head, sleep deprivation, dog collars and naked sessions, right?"
"That's the one," my teacher smiled proudly. I was obviously his most gifted student.
"Yes, that's bad," I said. "I don't think anyone condones that sort of thing, done without purpose. But how does it incriminate Bush? The guys on trial consist of - what - seven men and one woman? How many troops are there in Iraq? 140,000? 150,000? Statistically, that doesn't strike me as being so bad. Has a link been shown proving that they were instructed to treat the prisoners that way? To videotape themselves doing it? Say you're right, and Bush is evil. Does it necessarily also follow that he must be stupid?"
"Bush is stupid," the leftist persisted, his voice starting to sound a little wane. "He's a chimp. A real idiot."
"Compared to, say, someone like Al Gore? Or John Kerry?" I asked.
"Sure. They're smart guys."
"Bush did far better in university than Al Gore, and scored higher on his military aptitude tests than John Kerry," I replied smoothly. "He oversaw the invasion and pacification of two hostile foreign nations in a single term, and has seen to it that Al Qaeda couldn't mount a single repeat attack against the US homeland. He took the US economy away from a looming recession. He was re-elected by a significant margin, in wartime, with the weight of the world's media dead-set against him." I refrained from drawing the obvious conclusion, allowing my leftist friend to do that for himself.
"What about Guantanimo?" He spluttered. "He locks up people because they're Muslims!"
"Not true," I replied, after a sip from my ice cold Corona. "They were enemy combatants, operating outside the defined laws of war. As such, they have no rights, and should not be treated as soldiers. Of those who have already been released, a disconcerting number have returned to the Jihad. They're given fair trials, and are treated humanely. Some would say that it's better than they deserve."
"Sleep deprivation! Torture!"
"Sleep deprivation is a coercive measure," I countered. "It isn't a means by which one can extract a forced testimony. It merely breaks down the body's natural ability to resist interrogation. It, in effect, encourages you to tell the truth, as swiftly as possible." I smiled amiably. "Need I remind you what those 'poor prisoners' were doing to unarmed civilians and aid workers in Fallujah?"
"That's beside the point," he muttered darkly.
"Only because you aren't wearing an orange jumpsuit, and aren't kneeling before several men who are about to hack your head off with a blunt steak-knife. All for the love of Allah." I tried to sound reasonable. "Look, can't we agree that these people must be stopped? They are butchering people indiscriminantly, all over the world. They know that the US is only going to stay in Iraq until the situation stabilizes and the Iraqi democracy is functioning. The 'insurgents' want to stop that. They want to prevent the Iraqi people deciding their own destiny. Shouldn't we try to stop them from doing that?"
"You're a fucking Liberal, (Australian Conservative Party Member) aren't you?" The truth dawning, my little friend looked incredulous, as though he'd never actually met a conservative before, and was busily looking for evidence of horns and fangs.
"I'm not a member of the Liberal Party," I replied. "But I am a Neo-Conservative who voted for John Howard, if it helps."
I might as well have said Hi! I'm a Satanist, and I'd like to borrow one of your babies for the purpose of eating it. He stormed past me into the swirling throng, muttering about plastic turkeys and lying conservatives who want to dominate... well, you know how the rhetoric goes.

I didn't achieve much. He hadn't listened, he hadn't learned, and the last of my Coronas had been stolen by the squat little bastard who looked like a Mexican George Costanza.

But I had upset a leftist, and that should never be considered time ill-spent.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them