Paradigm Shift(s)
Posted on August 4, 2007 - Filed Under Politics |
I will try to make this brief, for I am drunk.
Long have I scorned the common pursuit of my peers, that of ‘going out’ to a club to become inebriated on over-priced liquor. But, I now declare, no longer, for I have tasted the fruits of a night on the lash, and, though questionable and expensive, they beat the hell out of a night at home watching TV (I will not pretend to have been reading philosophy on such wasted occasions).
Secondly, but more importantly, I hereby renounce my past association with the ‘me first’ branch of political philosophy. True enough, I recently classed myself as ‘libertarian’ on Facebook, and, true enough, just today I ordered a slew of books on amazon which are written from a libertarian/conservative perspective, but a conversation with someone from the trade union tradition of politics has substantially altered my thinking, principally by driving home a key fact: liberals (in the American sense), trade unionists, and lefties in general, are the ‘good guys’.
Think about it for a moment, and it becomes almost too obvious. The left is out to help the less fortunate (in the sense that they were born into less fortunate circumstances)/the hard working labourer/those who do not conform to society’s prescriptions. The right is out to allow the rich to horde their largely undeserved wealth, to enable large corporations to run amok in the economy, and to permit social conservatives to enforce their hopelessly out-dated ideologies upon everyone else. This is a brutal simplification, true, but it captures the nature of the disagreement (save for the argument that liberal economic policies, in the long run, tend to improve the lot of everyone, an argument best left for another day).
Second to this, can anybody name good, friendly, compassionate human beings from the conservative tradition? David Cameron springs to mind, but it’s hard to tell how much of his projected persona is driven by sincerity, and how much is driven by sheer political opportunism. Apart from him, few if any (read none), spring to mind. While it is certainly true that the left is overloaded with sanctimonious wankers (Bob Geldof and Bono perhaps being the most blatant), for the most part lefties seem of distinctly higher moral calibre than conservatives. Conversations (brief as they were, given my friend’s penchant for nodding off while I explained my position) in China with Shane Ormond, as decent and honourable a human being as one could hope to meet, and this evening’s conversation with Shane Cumins (or ‘Aussie Shane’) have only driven home what I already, deep down, suspected/knew; left ftw, right ftl.
Maybe I’ll see things differently in the morning, but right now this is how I feel. Over and out, comrade.
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9 Responses to “Paradigm Shift(s)”
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One of us! One of us!
Unless it’s a clever ploy by the conservatives… Cian, are you a mole? Answer honestly!
The biggest revelation since ’soylent green is people’
Well it’s good to see reason wins out. Next thing we know though you’ll become a priest and listen to good music.
Jesus, how drunk were you?
And what’s your current position on the matter, being all sober and dandy?
Well, “a rising tide lifts all boats” … On the other hand, much of what I said still stands. I think I’ll remain undecided for the moment and simply approach matters of political philosophy with a more open mind in future.
its about time you started making sense. shame i didnt go clubbing too. works sucks the cock. Its just another extension of the rights, multi faceted cock machine that demands to be sucked.
“multi faceted cock machine that demands to be sucked.”
What the hell do you work as?
“multi faceted cock machine that demands to be sucked.”
lol instant supermeme!
phlebotomist by day.