Why the Left is my punching bag.

I tend to rip on the Left a lot these days. Some might be wondering what the hell my problem with them is. Or wondering if I'm just some angry conservative. I'm keeping this out of my Triggered series, since this isn't meant to be satire, though it is meant to be social commentary.

Well my reasoning is this, generally speaking I strongly believe in individual rights, in individual rights and in minding your own goddamned business. Generally speaking, in terms of society, I take the Classical Liberal view of protecting individual liberties. I don't fuck with you, in exchange, you don't fuck with me. I try to be as consistent to this as possible, so whether the Left or my Right is my punching bag, wholly depends on which way society's pendulum is swinging. Let people walk their road in life, and over come their own obstacles. Back in college in the early years of the '00s, aside from firearms, I was actually quite liberal, but the left kept on moving since my college days, past the point of still being liberals, while I had stayed largely put in my social and political views. In other words, the left, left me behind, and that is certainly not a bad thing.

Simple enough, but there are always groups of people that, for one reason or anything, they think they know better than everyone else, and that we should listen and do what they tell us. If this was, say, 2004, then I would be ripping a whole lot on the Right, specifically the Religious Right. The thing is, today the Right is the group that's socially "out of power" so to speak. They lost their social influence when the Republicans fell out of power in the 2006 midterms. Ten years later we're in a position where the pendulum has swung the other way, and rather than Right-wing social totalitarians we have Left-wing social totalitarians.

Totalitarian - exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

I refer to these groups as "social totalitarians" because they don't actually have political power. Sure they can influence public policy to some regard, but they're not bestowed legal state powers the way members of the Nazi party or the Chinese Communist Party are. Rather than exercising control over the freedom, will or thought of others though organs and institutions of the state, these people use social pressure and various forms and levels of shaming to impose their control over people.

Lets take a look at the right first.

In 2000, George W Bush won/was awarded the White House, and with him came this ideology referred to as "Compassionate Conservatism", characterized by:

Compassionate conservatism suggest that social issues such as health care or immigration are best solved though private companies, charities and faith-based organizations, rather than large government -funded programs. 

That bit there, "faith-based organizations" brought along with it a wave of religious conservatives like John Ashcroft. During this time, things like their "Faith-based initiative" were passed (basically giving federal money to private religious schools), gay rights were curtailed, and multiple restrictions on abortion were passed. Their religious doctrine even creeped into public schools in the form of prayers and to more serious extent in the form of teaching abstinence-only sex "education", which predictably was an abysmal failure that resulted in a spike in teen pregnancies. More or less we had these religious moral busy-bodies with nothing else better to do with their time, telling people what to think (basically telling people they need to be religious Christians). It got to the point where we had someone like Ann Coulter saying we needed to bomb the Mid East and convert everyone to Christianity. Basically to the extent that these Right-wing social totalitarians wanted to launch another Crusade.

Needless to say, they didn't give two shits for individual rights beyond what it did for their particular brand of social ideology. With things like bigotry being cloaked in "freedom of religion". They wanted to lock the thoughts of others within the box of their form of socially conservative Protestant Christianity.

The Religious Right demonstrably wanted to exercise control over the freedom, will, and thought of others. They wanted to control what a woman could do and couldn't do with her own body. They wanted to dictate to people what they should want and what they should think. That people should want and embrace their brand of missionary Protestant Christianity. That people's thoughts should be in accordance with their brand of Protestant Christian doctrine.

But enough of that, that was all 8 years ago. Now on to the Left.

Fast forward to 2015 or so, past Barack Obama's decisive 2008 victory. We now have the Left in the position of Thought Police. Where in 2005 it was the Religious Right trying to tell people what to think, we have the Progressive Left (I say "left" rather than "liberal" because the Progressive Left are not liberals) trying to tell people what to think. After the Right was decisively crushed in 2008, the Left found themselves as the wing of society in power, and just like the Right did, it wanted to impose it's own vision of society on people rather than simply letting it be.

The point I would single out where the whole thing exploded and snowballed out of control into full totalitarianism was when the whole "Gamergate" controversy broke. Prior to this most of the focus was on legalizing gay marriage and to a lesser extent rolling back restrictions on abortion.

Distilled down, Gamergate was basically a consumer revolt after information got out that game developer Zoe Quinn had slept with Kotaku writer Nathan Greyson in exchange for exposure for her game Depression Quest on the Kotaku page.

Normally something like this would have been simply swept under the rug and Greyson quietly disciplined, but instead the video game "journalist" (they're essentially just glorified bloggers really) circled the wagons and painted these angry consumers as "sexist" and crafted this narrative about how they didn't want women invading their hobby. The narrative stuck, blew up on social media and caused this massive chain reaction that lead us to the point where we are now. The point where "everything is sexist, everything is racist and you have to point it all out."

So now we're in a position where the Left demands that individual liberties be subordinated for the sake of "diversity" and "equality". Sounds great on the surface, I mean who doesn't want diversity and equality? Only for the social totalitarian Progressive Left, diversity and equality are subordinate to all other considerations. Where as the Right draped the cloak of "poor moral character" over opposing thought, the Left drapes the cloak of "bigotry", "racism", and "sexism" over opposing thought. Not automatically and blindly agreeing with women and feminism is "misogyny". Rejecting the idea that there are 2000 genders is "bigotry", as is being weary of fundamentalist Islam. Refusing to support Black Lives Matter because of the more radical elements of the movement is "racism" regardless of whether or not you think that Black lives are just as important as any other.

When a socially totalitarian Progressive Leftist encounters thoughts and ideas that are outside or in direct opposition to the orthodox Progressive narrative, it is met with hostility. The speakers of the "wrong think" are shamed to the point that there are demands to their employer to fire them. Espousers of the wrong think are not allowed to speak in public and are shouted down, with the Progressive Leftist, in some cases trespassing into their speaking engagements with the intent to disrupt the event to the point that the speaker is not able to speak.

In their quest for diversity and equality at all costs, the Progressive Leftist demands all sorts of accommodations and concessions for even the most bizarre and made-up conditions. Then when they're denied they throw tantrums and act the victim like a child that was never told no. Additionally Progressive orthodoxy is enforced though the same social totalitarian engines of shame and internet harassment, as well as creating echo chambers euphemistically called "safe spaces", where the Progressives are shielded from any wrong think that might challenge them or worse yet, cause them to question Progressive orthodoxy.

This wouldn't really be a problem if their social totalitarianism stayed localized to their own circles, but they want to spread their totalitarianism as far as they can go with it. Instead they go and try to infest as much of society as they can with it. Most notably being university campuses, where things like pushing "safe spaces", race segregated student housing, and bullying those opposed to Progressive orthodoxy. They've also taken to social media with both their bizarre messages, that while varied still fall in line within Progressive orthodoxy, and the enforcement of their Progressive orthodoxy. 

How is this all totalitarian? Though various social engines, namely some form of shaming/harassment, they seek to exercise control over the freedom, will, and thoughts of others. If you say or think this, we will dog pile you on the internet, and blow up your boss's phone in an attempt to get you fired. By labeling things as "offensive" they seek to control people's freedom of speech. You can't say this or that because it hurts people's feelings.Though their shaming and harassment they try to control what words are acceptable and which aren't. As Orwell demonstrated, you can control thought, by controlling the words that conceptualize thought. They seek to control people's will and thought though various ways out side of the shaming/harassment, many (certainly not all) university professors are "tolerant, progressive, liberals" and pass on their Progressive orthodox thought to their students, teaching them the things that they are supposed to think. In complete and total opposition to the purpose of college, opposing views are attacked and students are shielded from it.

For someone who is in support individual rights, the Progressive Left is a natural social enemy. Progressive orthodoxy couches social issues in terms of identity, society is broken up into identity groups and from the perceived oppression of each group. As opposed to looking at particular circumstances around an individual, or smaller sub-group's life Progressive orthodoxy is essentially a collectivist view of society. There are no individuals, only groups, and the more each group is perceived to be oppressed the louder of a voice/the more valid the things they have to say are. In enforcing Progressive orthodoxy, the Progressive Left is in fact, the most racist, most sexist and most bigoted of all.

Under Progressive orthodoxy, women are seen as an oppressed social class as are minorities, racial and others. Progressive logic being, that if women are oppressed, then men must be privileged. For the Progressive, equality is brought about though removing the privileges men have. Naturally this all falls apart and looks like blatant misandry when the premise that women are an oppressed social class is rejected. Progressive orthodoxy does not look beyond the on the surface appearance nor does it look into things along a case by case basis. The best example is the supposed "wage gap". On the surface it looks like women make less than men, however when taken a deeper look, you'll find that the discrepancy is in the types of jobs men and women tend to gravitate to, and to the average number of hours men and women tend to work.

Of course That isn't to say that in some non-western societies, like Saudi Arabia, aren't oppressed. However the Progressive Leftist, isn't rallying and protesting these countries. You won't find a large scale feminist protest in front of the Saudi embassy.

Progressive orthodoxy is essentially the same way in terms of race. Under Progressive orthodoxy all non-White races are oppressed, due to Slavery and the era of Imperialism that occurred in the early 1900s. While I won't say that racism doesn't exist, on the same token as mentioned earlier Progressive Leftists do not look beyond surface appearances. Racism is something that needs to be looked into on an individual level. Since the Civil Rights movement, and Jim Crow laws going the way of the dinosaur, racism has by and large been purged from the frame work of the legal system and jurisprudence. Where the Progressive Leftist's failure to look into things deeper causes issues, is that they don't differentiate an individual state actor's (like a cop) racist behavior from the larger legal system. Laws have already been passed that ban discrimination based upon race. Example, I go to the DMV and a person is rude to me and tells me to "take my chink ass the fuck out of there" that's not racism on the part of the DMV, that's racism on the part of that particular DMV employee.

The incarceration rates are often pointed to, so lets look at that. 37.8% of the prison population are Blacks, while Blacks make up about 13% of the overall US population. So just looking at those two numbers itself, makes it look as if the system is racist. But when we look deeper we'll notice a few other things. One of those things is that about 50% of violent crimes are committed by Blacks. Does that mean Blacks are more violent, or is something else going on here? If I was like a Progressive Leftist, I would stop there and just say "look, the numbers show that Blacks are more violent! The African-American poverty rate is about 24.1% (10 million people). There are 71,904 Black prison inmates. Given that crime is generally more prevalent in poverty stricken areas, and that a quarter of the US's Black population lives in poverty, is the incarceration rates for Blacks a question of race or a question of poverty? How many Blacks in prison are in the same economic class as, say, Michael Jordan, vs how many Blacks in prison are in the same economic class as pre-NWA, pre-Death Row Records, Dr. Dre?

On a side note, I myself an Asian-American. I've gone into various different gun shops and not once have I encountered a law that forbade the sale of a gun to me on the basis of my race, nor have I been told by any gun shop staff to GTFO of the store. If there was institutional racism as the Progressive Left claims, then wouldn't only White people be allowed to buy guns? The Progressive Left sees guns as evil tools of mass killers... and yet Whitey has no problem selling one to me...

Then there's the Muslims. As with everything else Progressive orthodox treats Islam as a monolithic group. Yes there are legitimate refugees escaping the violence of the Mid East, yes there are Muslims that don't hold an extremist believe and leave their neighbors alone, but Progressive orthodoxy applies this characteristic to ALL Muslims. The Progressive Leftists makes little to no distinction between different groups of Muslims, it refuses to recognize that some of the Muslim migrants are religious fanatics. They essentially refuse to acknowledge that there are Muslims that refuse to integrate into their new societies, and that these Muslims bring and impose Middle Eastern/North African social norms. Because Progressive orthodoxy eschews individuals and subgroups within a larger group, Progressive Leftists never address issues and concerns related to things like Sharia Patrols in countries that do not have an established religion, or issues involving spikes in sexual harassment/assault of women.

"Not all Muslims!" Is what the Progressive Leftist will say. And that is true, but not everyone is saying "all Muslims" but on the same token you can't deny that something like this had nothing to do with Islam, any more than bombing an abortion clinic, or assassinating a doctor who performs abortions had nothing to do with Christianity.

On the same token, because Christianity is not the minority faith in the US, it is seen as "privileged" by the Progressive Leftist, and in an inverse of the views on Islam, the views of the extremist Christians are applied to the whole.

Each of these all involve some form of minority group. As minority groups they're automatically perceived as "oppressed" where as Whites, specifically White males are automatically perceived as "privileged". The whole ideology, is nothing more than a game of Oppression Olympics. Progressive orthodox thought is stuck in zero-sum mentality.

Though it doesn't just stop there, Progressive orthodoxy groups and categorizes other things as well. As with Muslims, Progressive Liberals have the same monolithic view of gun-owners. Regardless of an individual's race, sex, education level or ideology, the Progressive Leftist simply groups all owners in as White, Conservative, uneducated, Christian, males. This makes it easier for them to "other" these people and demonize them. The same goes for video gamers. Video gamers are probably the most diverse group of people, you'll find that it crosses sexes, it crosses age generations and it crosses cultures and societies. Yes there are little punks and assholes on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network who like to talk a lot of shit online (whether they are genuine sexists and racists or they're just saying things because they know they'll get a rise of people is another issue). But when the whole Gamergate thing broke, the Progressive Leftists in the industry, in their efforts to circle the wagon and protect and maintain the chicanery that goes on being the scenes of their over glorified blogs, applied the characteristics of the worst of these fringe elements to the broad group as a whole.

This collectivist view, coupled with their totalitarian social engineering completely tramples the rights of individuals. It runs completely contrary to this country's founding principals. Individual rights were held to such great importance, that before the USA in it's current form could even exist, 10 Amendments, all protecting individual rights, had to be made to the Constitution before all the delegates were willing to get on board. For the Progressive Leftist "everything is racist, everything is sexist, and that have to point it all out." But not just pointing it all out, they feel the need to rectify it, nothing wrong with wanting to do something about racism, sexism, or bigotry but it's in the way they go about doing it. Progressive orthodox thought places great emphasis on equality, but rather than equality of opportunity, it seeks equality of result. We couple this with the privilege/oppression paradigm and social collectivism we see an ideology that seeks equality of result, not thought lifting up all boats but rather by drilling holes into the hulls of boats that are in their perception floating higher than others. Rather than working to address each individual boat's particular issues (this is the view I take, to teach everyone how to fix their own boat) the Progressive Leftist seeks to affect the entire class of boats.

When looked into at a deeper level there is something insidious within Progressive orthodox thought. Because of it's emphasis and focus on identity and privilege/oppression, a sort of White male savior complex has emerged from this thought. The idea that White males are responsible for much of the ills of the world, also leads to the idea that it is White males that have the power to fix it. If White males have the power to cause these problems, they have the power to fix these problems. We see Progressively aligned groups, demanding that White males do something about these social problems. By doing this, it logically follows that White males must do something about society's problems because minorities are too weak to do anything about the problems that affect us. Progressive orthodox thought is racist in that it assumes that minorities cannot overcome the challenges that we face without the help of Whites. It is also sexist in that it assumes that women of ethnic minorities are unable to overcome the challenges they face without the help of males, specifically White males (tell my mom or her sister that they can't get by because they're minority women and they'll smack you across the room). In fact, due to this, the White male SJW "allies" are actually the most racist and sexist of Progressive Leftists. Before they know the individual, before they get to know a particular individual's life conditions, they automatically assume that they have something to offer and the power to help a minority person or a woman by virtue of being a White male. They assume that someone like me, needs them to be a voice for me, or to help me in some other capacity because I am oppressed.

I've made it known in the past, what my views towards SJW "allies" are. But I'll reiterate it here. "Hit the road you arrogant fuck!" I've been making my way though life in the US as an Asian-American with immigrant parents just fine without your help. I've fought my battles though life, taken my victories and defeats while you college freshmen SJWs were still sipping on that Capri-Sun pouch in the back seat of your mom's SUV/minivan after soccer practice. I sure as shit do not need someone who was still eating kindergarten paste while I was working on my Bachelor's Degree to be a voice for me.

I really don't give a damn who you are, whether or not you think you're doing God's work, or you think you are a tolerant, progressive, liberal, if you're opposed to individual liberties, you will get nothing but open hostility from me.