When I say socialists/statists are stupid, it is my attempt to give them the benefit of the doubt. The unpleasant alternative, which I'm trying to avoid, is that they are evil. I believe evil is worse than being stupid.
Once they've decided it's OK to allow government to commit a "little bit" of theft or aggression (archation) on their behalf-- and if they're not stupid-- they've willingly chosen evil.
Why they did so-- fear, "culture", pragmatism, complications of statism, whatever-- doesn't figure in.
If I believe they are smart and yet they continue to advocate socialism/statism, stupidity is no longer an excuse. That option has been taken off the table. So what is left?
I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but they make it hard and don't appreciate it anyway.
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Reminder: I could really use some help.
Doublethink is like decaffeinated cognitive dissonance.
ReplyDeleteMany "normal" people haven't even gotten to the cognitive dissonance part yet and to twist a Thoreauism are perpetually "swatting at the branches". I'd substitute your term stupid with ignorance, although I feel your pain and sometimes have thought of them as stupid too.
What brings me down to earth is the realization that I once stood among the ignorant and didn't question things as much as I do now. Sure am glad there's people like you who can articulate concepts well, don't get discouraged. Rome wasn't destroyed in a day.
I don't want to think of them as stupid. But ignorance only works until they've been shown how and why they are wrong.
DeleteBack when I was statist in many areas, the evidence that I was wrong helped me change my mind. Not immediately, but fast enough that I immediately stopped espousing the statist mantra while I considered the new evidence.
But what I see most often is that in the face of evidence, they get louder and more determined. I'm not sure how to write that off as ignorance-- although it would be nicer of me to do so.
(And I realize I have lost a LOT of readers over the years due to my near-inability to excuse statism-- I've seen what they've written about me in comments on other, more "conservative"/statist blogs. So it's probably not a good thing for me, personally.)
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