Don't Think. Feel.
The Politics Of Emotions
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet*********************
Oscar Wilde said:
“The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence.” That single sentence by Mr. Wilde, from a very long time ago, explains everything you need to know about the American left, indeed, leftists around the world.
They are ruled by emotions. In my opinion,that explains their overly abundant use of profanity and vulgarity to express themselves.
As I said above: they are ruled by their emotions. Rational, reasoned, thinking is nowhere to be found when these folks get their hormones flowing.
Those who populate the left side of the political spectrum are easily manipulated and they are manipulated quite often. They are the "Useful Idiots" so often employed by the Marxists to further their agenda around the world and especially in the United States.
It should be obvious why the word "idiot" is used in describing them. Simply because they seem to be incapable of "reasoned" thinking.
For instance... have you paid attention to how the leaders of the left have manipulated their followers over gun control legislation? They are using pure, raw, emotion. It is of no concern to them that the laws they are proposing will not do a single thing to reduce gun violence n America.
Gun control is all about people control, not gun control. To realize their goal the left's leaders have whipped up the emotions of the useful idiot crowd and tossed any attempt at reasoned debate right out the window. Their mission was to ignite as much emotion throughout America as was possible in the shortest time possible and get their gun control law through the Congress before Americans had a chance to cool off and look realistically at what was being proposed.
That explains the disrespectful way the victims of the school massacre in Connecticut were treated and the way their families have been treated -- and -- used as pawns to continue to stir up America's emotions.
Fortunately, the political right has caught on and began delaying tactics as soon as they possibly could to allow a cooling off period in which the ability to reason returned (to some degree) to the American populace.
Consider this from Kyle Becker at The American Thinker: "Today's typical totalitarian leftist is thus not a jackboot-wearing thug, but an overly sensitive, cardigan-wearing milquetoast, whose obsessions about feelings make him immune to rational argument. The danger of granting the government endless power to do good, like everything else, is rationalized away or dismissed by the leftist, since even the thought of making peace with an imperfect world makes him uncomfortable. This is why the left will never learn from history: the past is only prologue to the coming utopia, which will be perfectly just and fair." SOURCE:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/the_lefts_greatest_mind-trick_politicizing_emotion.html As crazy as it may sound at first, one must understand that liberalism is a philosophy of totalitarianism. Liberalism is an authoritarian philosophy. The left is all about accumulating unto themselves as much power as they possibly can. See, they believe all that power will be used for good, which is to say used to further their agenda which, of course, IS good. They will trample over their own grandmothers to acquire power. In their minds the ends justify the means.
They will not hesitate to use force to implement their "good" agenda. Anything that helps bring their much sought after "Utopia" is justified.
As a conservative I believe absolutely in individual rights, liberty, and freedom. But -- I have a very close friend who subscribes to the philosophy of the left and he is all for the "greater good" and pooh-poohs anything having to do with individual freedom and individual rights.
The very idea of America is based on the rights, the freedom, the liberty of the individual. It is based on the fact that a man owns himself, that his life is his own to make of it what he will, what he is capable of, without outsiders, especially the government, forcing him to alter his life for the "greater good."
Mr. Becker, in his excellent article at The American Thinker says: "The rule of law and the scientific method were developed precisely to protect human beings from the hazards of acting on raw emotion and ignorance. Democratic politicians and left-wing activists, on the other hand, thrive on these human vulnerabilities." We encourage you to read Mr. Becker's article, in full, at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/the_lefts_greatest_mind-trick_politicizing_emotion.html As I write, America is facing the full brunt of Obamacare, socialized medicine. The majority of Americans never wanted it in the first place. It was forced on us by a socialist Democratic Party. Not a single republican in Congress voted for it.
The left used raw emotion to to flay anyone who did not agree with them on socialized medicine for America. Those of us who resisted were accused of not caring that sick people weren't being cared for -- notwithstanding the fact that anyone, with or without funds, can, and will, be treated at a hospital in America just by showing up. The left was attempting to whip up the emotion of the proletariat.
Even today, in the gun control debate, the left is using gut-wrenching, raw, undiluted emotion -- no reason mind you, just plain hyper-emotion -- to push their plan to confiscate America's guns. The left doesn't care that some of us are embarrassed and sickened at their naked abuse of the victims and the families of the victims of recent violent episodes in which the gun was the tool chosen to deal death in large quantities.Again, for the left, the ends justify the means.
So, here we are today with emotion and reason squared off against each other in America -- the political left and the political right.
Emotion and rational thinking are mutually exclusive. There is no common ground. This explains gridlock in our government. The left is furious with the right because the right will not succumb to their emotional tirades and just give in and allow them to drag America into the cesspool of socialism/communism. (Make no mistake -- THAT is the end game for the political left.)
Emotions have a way of cooling after awhile. Smart politicians on the left understand the need to maintain the emotions of their followers at a fever pitch. You, dear reader, need to understand this to know why America seems to lurch from one crisis to another -- continuously. It is contrived by the leadership of the left to stoke the fires of emotion in their followers. It is summed up in their motto: "Never let a crisis go to waste."
The left's use of emotion and arrogant condescension in politics is as old as Marxism, from which it sprang, and to which they subscribe. The Utopia they seek is a Marxist America.
The "reasoning right" will never be free of the "emotional left." Even if we split the country and gave the left, oh, say, all the territory west of the Mississippi. They would be forever attacking us across the river because we OUGHT to be doing things THEIR way because they are GOOD and we are BAD, they are right and we are wrong, and their agenda is so good it must be forcibly instituted on us -- for our own good.
So what can we do, those of us who rely on reason in making decisions and ordering our lives both on a national and a personal level? Other than recognizing the near insanity of the left, there is little we can do. We must continue to block their advancement as often as we can, however, else the county would/will be in a state of utter chaos. Too, we must understand that it is not going to get better. The power brokers of the American left, and the world, have learned they can control the "useful idiots" of the left by whipping up emotion and channeling that emotion in the direction they desire. They will continue to take full advantage of that fact by taking America from one crisis to the next until, finally, she collapses. Then the cycle will begin all over again.
I wish I could offer a more constructive, more satisfying answer to the problem, but I cannot. Since Cain killed Abel in a fit of emotion we humans have been seeking a way to coexist amiably, peacefully, with our emotional brothers. We have made some progress, but not nearly enough.
Until such time as all emotion can be erased from the human mind, we are stuck, in place, dealing with our near insane brothers.
On the other hand, we must never forget that emotions help make us human.
So. In the end, in the final analysis, we are involved in a never-ending struggle with ourselves. The "reasoning right" can learn from the "emotional left" as they pile up failure after failure while feeling good about having tried! We can learn from their mistakes, correct what we can, while ignoring their protestations, order our world aright, and build a better tomorrow. Really, we have no choice.
© J. D. Longstreet
