July 3, 2005
Worse Than Nazis
In last writing I promised to explain to non-liberals why we are worse than Nazis.
A proper and rigorous analysis of a thing includes first defining that thing. In this case, the word "Nazi". But, being a liberal, I’ll just skip over that part. In fact, a proper and rigorous analysis misses the point of liberalism completely.
An objectivist says "everything is what it is". "A thing cannot be what it is not". And "a thing cannot be true and false at the same time". But much like Newton was surpassed by Einstein, liberalism is not bound by the old rules. In the universe of the liberal everything is not necessarily what it is. Words needn’t mean what they mean. A thing can be what it is not. A thing can be true and false at the same time.
Anyone who has debated one of us knows the frustration of conclusively proving a point only to see it immediately dismissed. Puzzling as it may be to those not blessed with liberal powers the explanation is actually quite simple. Due to the principle that a thing can be true and false at the same time, what’s true for others doesn’t have to be true for us. It’s not that we don’t hear you. It’s just that the truth of your argument, because it’s both true and false, doesn’t put points in our score book.
Let us turn now to the factor of emotion. Specifically, the pain we feel for others is just as painful to us regardless whatever pain may or may not have been inflicted on them. Whether someone at Guantanamo Bay, or anywhere, has been mistreated is irrelevant. The emotion we feel is the same regardless of the validity of the stimuli. You try to understand reality through objective criteria. We don’t need to. We know reality when we feel it.
Also essential to our belief system is collectivism. We tend to see groups as entities and not merely a collection of individuals. This explains how I can feel responsible for soldiers, whom I obviously have no control over, torturing people in far away places. "We" are the federal government. "We" are the military. "We" are bad. Therefore, I am bad.
I know by now some of you have steam coming out of your ears because you’re thinking Americans don’t torture prisoners. You’re asking "where is the evidence?" But to ask this question ignores "a thing can be true and false at the same time". Thus, we’re torturing people whether we are or aren’t.
But Ed, how can you say making prisoners get naked or getting a Quran wet or failing to adjust the air conditioning properly is anywhere near as bad as what the Nazis did? Easy. We use a thing called ‘moral relativity’. Since a thing isn’t necessarily what it is, it can be equal to what it is not. Let’s look at a real life example. Suppose I hit you because I’m mean. Suppose you hit me in an effort to stop me from hitting you. Since we both performed the act of hitting another person we are equally bad. In short, the frequency or severity of bad acts, nor by whom they were committed, is considered relevant. Bad is bad. Therefore anyone who commits a bad act is just as bad as someone committing more and/or worse acts. So it only takes one bad act to be on par with the worst of humanity. In fact (and this is seen as backwards to the non-liberal) the more moral the person, or society, the higher standard of behavior they must be held to.
So let’s review. One: since a thing can be true and false prisoners are being tortured whether they are or aren’t. Two: since we are a collective we are responsible for the torture. Three: if we’ve tortured as much as a single human being we are just as bad as those who have done worse. And four: others are not enlightened as us so we must be held to a higher standard.
So there you have it. We’re worse than Nazis. Hey, I don’t make this stuff up. I just report it.
- Ed Powell