Going to Getugly

Rebuttals of the Week! #7: ‘Like, think about it…Mexico is so totally full of dangerous people who are like, different to us! So why would ‘progressives’ want to move there? Gawd!’

There was a lot of post-election material to choose from for this edition of ‘Rebuttals of the Week!’. But the breathtaking blindness to the neon-lit, flashing, day-glo hypocrisy of the ‘We’re moving to Canada because they’ve said mean things about Mexico’ thing encapsulated the truth about the emptiness of ‘progressive’ thinking so spectacularly… I decided to go with that.

Below are my interactions with three people who embody that style of thinking. You’ll notice all the standard ‘progressive’ characteristics: The withering, superior tone of feeling put upon for having to educate anyone so clearly less insightful than themselves; the obliviousness to the contradictions and inconsistencies in their own position; and the inevitable petulant defensiveness to having those contradictions and inconsistencies pointed out to them for the first time.

They were reacting to this reasonable comment of mine posted online a few days ago:

Going to Getugly Why do none of these non-bigoted, anti-wall building ‘progressives’ not want to move to Mexico? Why are they all choosing the ‘whitest’ of the two countries that border the USA?

TK: I’ll be nice. Hopefully this is a better way of getting to people who think like that.

They want to come here because Canada is a liberal country in comparison. Our prime minister is a progressive. We are also mostly friendly to other cultures.

Going to Getugly Oh… so they prefer to be around people who are like themselves…. they prefer people who share the same culture… the same values…. speak the same language…. somewhere they know is safe…. not too much crime or violence….. So that’s why they don’t want to go to Mexico! Interesting.

TK : Actually, I just took a look at your profile and I’m done commenting. You are as extreme as the people you hate. Complete waste of my time. Goodbye.

Going to Getugly And by “extreme” you of course mean you can’t handle having your poorly thought out ideas challenged.

AS: Not to mention that the majority here (in Canada) speak english. Not that that was obvious or anything.

Going to Getugly Oh…. so it’s because they don’t want to live around a bunch of people who don’t speak the same language as they do and who don’t share their culture! Now I understand why they don’t want to go to Mexico.

AS: Easier to assimilate into a group of people with – almost – similar ideals. Culture in Canada is too difficult to pin point as we have so much ethnicity (unless you go to Quebec or British Columbia… maybe even Alberta). To go to another country with so much of their own culture, it would be difficult to adjust.

They would probably be able to afford the hell outta mexico. The climate is beautiful too. But the battles between the cartels and government have been pretty extreme.

Going to Getugly I see…. so these people feel that immigration works best when the immigrants have very similar cultures, traditions and values as the place they are moving to. After all, it makes assimilation so much easier. I see your point…. that makes a lot of sense!

JB: Think about it. Mexico is pretty corrupt, dirty cops, bad government, cartels who pretty much have power over police and government etc. Mexico is beautiful and probably the most fun place I’ve been to for vacation, but I wouldn’t want to live there

Going to Getugly OH MY GOD! Is it THAT bad? Somebody should build a wall or something!

JB: If you read my previous post I said Mexico was beautiful and one of the most fun places ive ever been. I like Mexico and no they should NOT build a wall, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a dangerous country

Going to Getugly Yes … I read your post very carefully. You said it was a beautiful country full of dirty cops, corruption and violent drug cartels. As you say, a very dangerous country. And if you, your family, your kids lived in a town that was right on the border of that very ‘dangerous country’… and if thousands of undocumented people from that place were streaming over that border every year right into your community…. do you think your attitude about building a wall might be different?

JB: I still don’t support building a wall. They leave their country for a reason: a better life. It may not be done legally, but most of those illegal immigrants dont come to cause trouble. So, no they should not build a stupid wall!

Going to Getugly I asked you if you think your perspective might be different if you lived near the border of a country that you have described as dangerous, corrupt and full of violent drug cartels. In other words, can you show empathy for the people for whom this is a real, daily concern…. rather than merely preaching to them from a comfortable distance of thousands of miles away?

Anyone else feeling relieved these people lost?

It’s not a hitherto submerged but widespread racism, misogyny, bigotry etc. of the so called ‘alt-right’ that the election of Donald Trump has allowed to come spilling forth into the world….. it is the unstable, hyper-emotional, narcissistic and infantile irrationality of the allegedly ‘progressive’ Left that has broken free of all restraints…. like an unhinged, shamelessly self-aggrandising Frankenstein’s monster that is now rampaging across the land.

The more self-serving, reason-free hysteria I see of the kind the author of this grotesque Slate screed has indulged in the more relieved I am that these mentally and emotionally fragile people didn’t get their way.

Here’s the original Slate article (if you can stomach it): There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter

Rebuttals of the Week#6: Annoying Self-Righteous Canadian Alert!

ANNOYING SELF-RIGHTEOUS CANADIAN ALERT!

No… not Justin Trudeau. Or even David Suzuki. Although both would easily qualify.

No, this time it’s life of the Party, Naomi Kline. And she has travelled thousands of miles in a huge, fossil fuel guzzling, CO2 spewing jet (business class no doubt)…. has been driven back and forth between airport, luxury hotel and media studios in fossil fuel guzzling, CO2 spewing cars… getting treated like a VIP…. eating well and often….. all so she can lecture average working people in Australia about how they are obliged to feel ashamed of their lifestyle and modest standard of living.

Yes folks. It’s climate change again. You’d forgotten about it, hadn’t you? What with all the hysteria about the US election and Donald Trump taking up so much oxygen for the past several months.

Naomi hasn’t forgotten about it. Nope. Naomi never forgets about it. And she considers it her business to make sure you don’t forget about it either.

Professional obnoxious, self-righteous bores like Kline and Suzuki seem to really embolden the amateur obnoxious, self-righteous bores that are out there.

Below is the response from one of these self-anointed, amateur intellectual powerhouses to a comment of mine that expressed my reasoned disinclination to obediently submit to the judgements of the hypocritical academic class of which Kline is a privileged member.

B B : Imagine this for a moment: let’s say in a month from now, having made a genuine effort to listen and learn and think, you find that you have changed your mind and that climate change is in fact real and desperately, frighteningly urgent. How would you look back on your previous attitude? Would it be with shame or anger? To what extent would you blame yourself? Or should you blame others? I can answer that for you: it’s not really your fault. You have been actively misled by businesses that make *trillions* of dollars out of fossil energy production. You have also been ‘in denial’ in a way that is common to all human beings, i.e. we deny our fear of death. Think of it this way: clinging to ultimately false and foolish disinformation is not rare: it’s normal. What is rare is science: a disciplined approach to knowledge that in some ways is only 250 years old. The fact that you haven’t yet understood what makes science different from all other human beliefs is therefore not surprising. There are thousands like you. Don’t be angry. Just see what you can learn. The evidence and information, and patient people who can teach you, are available.

The dripping condescension and the assumption that anyone who doesn’t share his uncritical devotion to the ‘catastrophic man-made climate change narrative’ must never have heard the various slogans, clichés and ‘go-to’ talking points they all rely on is pretty standard. The weird faux-Freudian ‘denial of death’ stuff is a nice innovation though.

Here’s how I slapped him down:

– Going to Getugly: If you’re going to use fallacious arguments, at least try to come up with an original one… don’t just parrot standard clichés like “you’ve been brainwashed by oil companies and all of their anti man-made climate catastrophe propaganda !”

I’m always amused by people who mindlessly regurgitate that one as if it’s some devastating insight.

Because we are constantly being bombarded with oil funded, anti-climate change propaganda, right? It’s everywhere! I mean, we can go back to that multi-million dollar , Oscar-winning movie by a former American vice president that promoted the anti-man made climate change message…..

Oh wait. That was promoting the concept of man-made climate change.

Well, there’s all the messaging in schools indoctrinating children into disbelieving in man-made climate change….

Oh wait. That’s all promoting the unquestioning belief in man-made climate change.

Well, there’s the mass media which has spent the last 15 years legitimising only one side of the argument and promoting the belief that the ‘science is settled’ and proves that man-made climate change is not true….

Oh wait. They’ve done that for the pro man-made climate change side.

Well, at least we can point to all of the major politicians in the world who refuse to get on-board with the pro man-made climate change agenda! That’s why there’s been no carbon tax programs introduced anywhere. No cap-and-trade programs. No taxpayer subsidised ‘green initiatives’. No wind turbines erected anywhere etc. And of course there was that huge gathering last year in Paris when all of the world leaders got together to formalise their total rejection of the catastrophic man-made climate change premise and signed documents pledging not to pretend they can control the temperature of a planet to within fractions of a degree, 20 years into the future!

Oh, wait….

So essentially we’ve had 10-15 years of consistent, unified and exclusively pro man-made climate change messaging from the mass media, the education system, the entertainment industry and the political class (in other words, society’s elites). But your conclusion is that people such as yourself whose position on the subject conforms precisely with that wall of single-focused messaging are the people who are free from the effects of propaganda and manipulation……and it’s people like me whose perspective is at odds with messaging that is constantly streamed from every easily accessible source and yet maintain that there are legitimate reasons for remaining sceptical despite overwhelming pressure to conform… it’s us who are the weak-minded victims of a program of propaganda that is nowhere to be found.

Yeah, yeah Brenton… there’s absolutely nothing about that premise that is in spectacular defiance of simple logic or is in any way hilariously ironic.

No seriously… the depth of your insight and the potency of your reasoning skills totally justifies your pose of intellectual superiority which otherwise would just come across as adolescent and embarrassing.

Not surprisingly, he gave up after that.

A ‘Progressive’ reacts to the US election results

Mainstream media: ‘Boo hoo! No one appreciates us!’

tr2

Reid: Curse Mainstream Media (MSM) all you like, but beware the Alt-Right even more

You know you’re in for some fair and balanced analysis when an editorialist in a major newspaper begins his column with this:

“In less than a week the free world might be ruled by an orange-skinned Bond villain. If that happens, voters will have only themselves to blame. But it’s also as good an excuse as any to lash out at the media and the role it’s played in this tunnel-of-terrors election campaign we’ve all been forced to endure.”

Scott Reid is about as mainstream media establishment as you can get in Canada. Besides running a big league PR company called Feschuk Reid, he was Senior Advisor and Director of Communications to Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and has served in senior communication capacities on national, provincial and municipal election campaigns. He is the co-anchor of National Affairs on the CTV News Channel in Canada. Reid is also a regular contributor on politics, current affairs and communications to several Canadian print publications including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, and Maclean’s magazine.

If anyone should have ‘Mainstream Media Dude’ as a vanity licence plate, it’s this guy.

And guess what? Reid isn’t so keen on the alternative media. In fact, he’s feeling a bit underappreciated.

And it’s YOUR fault!

Why? Well, isn’t it obvious? It’s because you’re too thick to understand that only people in the mainstream media are worth paying attention to!

In his recent column for the Ottawa Citizen, Reid has offered an exceptional example of a mainstream media insider whining about how the population is too stupid to appreciate what a fantastic job the MSM is doing.

It’s a Canadian example that is indicative of the hubris of mainstream media elites throughout the Western world. And it is precisely why their industry is dying.

Reid opines: “If people are threatened for doing their job — especially when their job is to provide challenge to those who seek power — then that represents a real attack on institutions and norms that we rely upon to help order our democracies”.

Reid conveniently bypasses the obvious issue that applies to any industry: If people perceive that you are not providing the service you claim to provide, they are entitled to reject you.

Clearly, many people have discerned that the mainstream media is conspicuously selective in the degree to which they “provide challenge to those who seek power”. But rather than recognising their own failure to convince the electorate of their objectivity, the MSM has increasingly adopted the attitude of an enlightened class that the masses are obliged to appreciate for their superior insight and wisdom.

I suppose the sheer ignorance of everyone not dependant on traditional media for their living could be one explanation for why people are abandoning those sources of information in droves. The other possibility is that the MSN has become just another institution that has calcified into a culture constricted by very conventional thinking and which therefore only hires people who are capable of generating content that reflects very conventional thinking. This means that when smart people turn to mainstream media, they find themselves confronted with insights that strike them as mediocre and predictable at best.

The dreaded alternative media may be something of a Wild West of ideas and viewpoints…. but unlike Reid and others wedded to convention, thinking people find this intellectual environment stimulating, challenging and refreshing. Reid and his colleagues apparently find it distasteful and threatening.

Boo hoo.

Anyone else nostalgic for when rock stars were against the establishment?

r-and-r

Can you say sell outs?

Rebuttals of the Week! #5: Metaphorical shark… meet your trans/non-binary/twin spirited/ gender fluid jumpers! (part 1)

There was a rare sighting last week of what had long been thought to be merely a creature of myth and fantasy. No… it wasn’t bigfoot, a unicorn or a women’s studies graduate with a useful job. It was a prominent academic from a major university with the guts and integrity to publicly oppose the tyranny of politically correct, SJW-style, “progressive”, Left-wing ideology.

Honest to God. I saw it with my own eyes.

untitled Globe and Mail: U of T professor’s stand against genderless pronouns draws fire

Jordan Peterson is a popular and prominent psychology professor at the University of Toronto who has found himself on the receiving end of some intense hostility from the tolerant, non-judgemental, morally superior champions of diversity at his esteemed institution of higher learning.

His offence was to use a series of video lectures to present a detailed and reasoned critique of how anti-rational, politically correct ideology has infiltrated the legal and education systems and how it poses a real threat to the values of freedom of thought and speech. But what really drove the PC crowd nuts was his rejection of the premise that he is obligated to affirm the subjective self-conception of people who identify as transgendered by adopting their preferred use of pronouns. Peterson went to great lengths to justify his refusal to submit to this expectation on the basis of logic, principle and the right to intellectual autonomy.

The self-anointed enlightened class responded to all this logic and carefully reasoned argument by chucking the label ‘bigot’ at him, attacking his character and generally calling for his head on a platter.

As is evident from the sample of comments below and in the next Rebuttals of the Week!, the catalyst for their outrage was not the quality of Peterson’s argument, but his unwillingness to conform to concepts they deem to be supreme and sacrosanct.

As I have pointed out in other Rebuttals of the Week!, it is this intolerance of nonconformity that drives the aggressive emotionalism that is so characteristic of the progressive’s response to dissenting points of view. And it is the privileging of the pre-rational urge to attain social affirmation above all other considerations – including objectivity, reason and the pursuit of truth – that determines the progressive’s opinion and makes him immune to interventions of reason.

Here is the first sample of my interactions with Professor Peterson’s critics….

M CW

freedom of speech is still fully intact. you still have the complete right to say things that are blatantly ignorant (like the idea of this event…) and not risk persecution from your government.

what free speech DOESNT let you do is literally DENY someone’s gender identity because its you dont believe in it and have no one call you out for it.

you people are a goddamn joke.

Going to Getugly Freedom let’s people do all kinds of things other people dislike. Your apparent inability to tolerate that represents the real problem here.

M CW

no the real problem here is that people like you want a world where you can say whatever you want without any thought to the harm it will do to already marginalized people without. that, i have an inability to tolerate.

Okay. Now the next comment from WR is a perfect example of how NOT to confront the assertions of ‘progressives’. It isn’t that the point he is trying to make is incorrect. It’s that simply presenting an alternative opinion to the one being expressed by a ‘progressive’ doesn’t accomplish anything. Remember, they’ve already decided that not sharing their opinion is the same thing as being wrong and stupid. They don’t assess the veracity of your opinion in contrast to their own… they just react to the insolence of not submitting to the absolute perfection of their position.

W R

Except that this is about a law that turns ANY statement against trans people a hatecrime… that’s not equality.

Compare that response to the one I present below. Notice that I don’t offer a contradictory set of subjective assertions about the topic. Instead, I address the specifics of MCW‘s reasoning process. I highlight objective inconsistencies in his logic. How he takes for granted his own entitlement to indulge in the very freedoms that he advocates should be denied to others. How his lack of hesitation to insult, generalize and dismiss the validity of other people’s perspective and experience demonstrates not only a profound hypocrisy, but a crude and genuine nastiness that reflect the very character flaws he claims to revile.

Going to Getugly

Nope. The problem is that you don’t recognise that insisting that principles apply only in certain circumstances according to your personal preferences and biases is irrational, unethical and only appealing to hypocrites.

For instance… you have expressed your contempt for ‘people like me’ who you characterise as expecting the freedom to “say whatever you want” without regard for the negative feelings it may inspire in other people. You have even written: “you people are a goddamn joke”.

But it is perfectly obvious that you grant YOURSELF the freedom to make sweeping negative generalisations; to issue insulting, unproven condemnations of character; to be deliberately antagonistic and insulting …. and essentially say “whatever you want” with no regard for the feelings of the people to whom you’ve directed those harsh comments. You’ve even expressed the sentiment that ‘people like me’ don’t deserve to be recognised as existing…. since we are nothing but a “goddamn joke”.

Now either it is wrong and worthy of contempt to “want a world where you can say whatever you want without any thought to the harm” it may cause other people…. or it’s only wrong when people other than YOU do it in whatever context you’ve personally decided makes it okay. Clearly, you take for granted it is the latter. Which makes you unprincipled and a hypocrite.

And as is so often the case when you challenge the absolute certainty of a progressive’s sense of moral and intellectual superiority by applying his own judgements back at him… MCW spewed a couple weak insults and ran away.

M CW yup play victim

M CW get your sympathy likes fam

Going to Getugly

The fact that the only response to my argument you feel you can offer is this transparently weak ad hominem should inspire some serious reevaluation of your position.

Stay tuned. We’re just getting started and there is a lot more to come on this issue in the next Rebuttals of the Week!

Climate change science wrong again!

Man-made climate change ‘science’ seems to be unique among scientific disciplines in that it doesn’t matter how consistently it generates predictions that turn out to be wrong when compared to real world observations…. it never justifies re-assessing the validity of the theory.

Scientist accused of ’crying wolf’ on climate change with claim that Arctic sea ice would vanish

Instead, we get the argument from the very people who kept getting it wrong for 10 to 20 years that we are obliged to consider this track record irrelevant and to accept that all the claims, predictions and policies they are promoting today are beyond questioning.

Shockingly, there are still adults out there who believe their absolute refusal to recognise any justification for any degree of scepticism about the claim is the most rational position to hold on the issue.

Quick thought: Carbon tax is based on a false premise, Part 2

Andrew Coyne’s article: Liberals’ carbon price hardly a drastic measure

I’m astonished that Andrew Coyne would present such an atrociously anti-rational argument as this:

” But if you accept, even as a probability, that global warming is real and that it imposes costs of its own, potentially catastrophic, then the costs of action need to be reckoned against the costs of inaction. Put simply, the world cannot do nothing — nor can Canada, if it wishes to maintain its position as a member of the world community, avoid doing its part.”

This is exactly the problem we should expect from blurring the boundaries between what is supposed to be factual, ‘hard’ science… and the vague, subjective supposition, personal opinion realm of politics and social policy.

Coyne is actually making the argument that the implausible subjective belief that carbon taxes will have the effect of altering the temperature of the entire planet by exactly 2 degrees, 50 years from now and thus avert a future catastrophe that exists only as a conjecture… amounts to an obligation upon the sovereign nation of Canada to impose upon itself an onerous, extra layer of taxation to demonstrate our subordination to the preferences of an undemocratic, supra-national governing class.

What is going on here? Has everybody lost their minds?

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