A Logical Truth: Three Fallacies of Liberal Thought

Nine days ago, I posted a question for all my readers, in hopes of using their answers to illustrate a point. I received a total of twelve responses in among 47 comments, and Seanny will be glad to know that the point of my question was not to make an argument for gun ownership (I’ll leave that to Grizzly Mama...)

Here’s the breakdown of my responses:

• I received 2 responses from individuals with a Liberal history, 9 responses from individuals with a Conservative history, and 1 response from someone with a more or less apathetic history.

• Conservatives unanimously voted to take some sort of action against the criminal, either warning him before blowing his brains out, or shooting first and asking questions later.

• The apathetic individual joined the Conservatives in favoring swift, and if necessary, lethal action.

• The two Liberals, however, were divided. One Liberal (the younger and more moderate of the two) joined the Conservatives without hesitation, while our friend Toad concluded that swift, lethal action would be a very bad idea.

What do these (admittedly rudimentary) statistics reveal? Well, as Toad astutely observed, they do a fine job of illustrating “the difference between the liberal and conservative mind.” This difference lies at the heart of our respective worldviews, and helps determine all of our actions.

We can pin down the difference I speak of by examining the reasons behind the answers my question received. As Seanny McShawn noted, there was only one logical answer to my question; some action must be taken to save the woman and children. This was the reasoning behind the answers given by the Conservatives, Clive, and Swede. Toad’s response, however, revealed a very different kind of logic.

Toad’s response was first that there are too many possibilities for us to assume the most probable scenario, that a thug has killed a family man and is prepared to do the same to his family. This logic was followed by the claim that to help would simply be too dangerous, as it could be an elaborate trap. The final bit of justification that he offered is that any evil that could be done would have been done already. These are all fairly typical Liberal stances; they are not universal, but Liberal leadership has shown that these considerations come well before any consideration for the lives of the victims of the crime. I will illustrate this point later.

Allow me to clarify now that this post is not intended to be an attack on Toad. He was simply the most forthcoming with his answers, and provided the example that I needed. I’m glad he participated and provided us with honest answers.

Let us now deal with the three fallacies of Liberal Thought, which Toad provided us with in his argument:

(1) There are just too many possibilities... This is the First Fallacy of Liberal Thought. It is the idea that we simply can’t be certain of who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy in a situation, or of anything else for that matter, so it’s best for us to just sit on our hands. Rather than believing what is obvious, this fallacy forces adherents of Liberalism to fear what might be more than they fear what is apparent.

It is unclear what causes this fallacy. Its roots could lie in Postmodernism, the idea that because of the random nature of the universe, Truth is unknowable in any situation. In other words, there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to know all the facts about a given situation, and therefore any swift action would be irresponsible. This philosophy is irrational, however, because it ignores all laws of probability, and would rather allow evil to happen than believe the logic that says evil will happen.

The First Fallacy of Liberal Thought may also be a simple cop-out; perhaps its adherents are too lazy, too cowardly, or too selfish to deal with any evil that does not directly affect them. I cannot say, because any one of these motivations (or Postmodernism) could lead someone to avoid engaging an apparent evil. No matter the motivation, however, there is no justification for the First Fallacy. Laziness, cowardice and narcissism could never justify it, and Postmodernism would be an irrational justification as well, so the idea that “there are just too many possibilities” can, in most cases, be laid to rest.

(2) It would just be too dangerous (or costly) to get involved... This is the Second Fallacy of Liberal Thought. It is the idea that, no matter how noble the cause, no good work should be done for another if it involves an element of risk. “Always look out for Number One” is another way of phrasing this philosophy, which places more value on the life of the would-be helper than that of the victim. It allows the potential savior to avoid risking his life to prevent the almost-certain death of another.

This fallacy can sometimes be combined with the First Fallacy, which produces an argument like the one Toad presented. Essentially, such an argument states that “We can’t know everything about this situation; there could be some danger we don’t know about yet, so it’s best not to get involved.” Either way, this fallacy has little basis in logic.

The Second Fallacy, like the First Fallacy, could be an excuse for laziness or cowardice. If taken at face value, however, such an argument is a blatant admission of narcissism, which is easily established as a fault. After all, what possible justification can one have for not taking a chance at death to save another from certain death? To fail to save a life on impulse is one thing, but it is quite another to live according to this Fallacy of Liberalism, having your mind made up that in most cases, risk of personal injury outweighs the value of another human life.

(3) Any evil that could be done would have been done already... This is the Third Fallacy of Liberal Thought, which is defeated by the First Fallacy. How is it possible that there are so many possibilities as to the cause of this evil, but only one possibility as to when any resulting evil will be committed? If we can’t immediately know everything about a situation, then how can we assume that no more harm will come from it?

The only possible cause for such an assumption to be made up-front is that it is convenient. Someone doesn’t want to get involved, so he convinces himself that it’s all over and he would only be risking his own skin if he stepped in. Obviously, this fallacy is rooted solely in narcissism (not to mention self-delusion), without a bit of logic.

These three fallacies are evident in much of Liberal philosophy, but show up most notably in cases involving foreign affairs. Consider the Rwandan Genocide, where Clinton, Blair, Chirac and Annan failed to do anything except save the white foreigners who were trapped in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. The UN, with its American and Western European military force, was perfectly capable of ending the genocide, being better armed and trained than the Interhamwe, who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Tutsi Rwandans. However, the UN and all the Western powers neglected to do anything to stop the slaughter.

In their apathy towards the plight of the Rwandans, the Liberal-led Western powers succumbed to a sort of national narcissism, called ethnocentrism. Even though they were better armed and trained, as was the person in the scenario I posed nine days ago, they decided it would be too dangerous or too costly to protect the weak. They knew no one else could stop the genocide. They knew that if they didn’t help, the genocide would continue. They knew who the offending party was, and STILL, they didn’t step in. As the Clinton presidency and the rest of the UN allowed the First, Second, and possibly Third Fallacies of Liberal Thought to guide their foreign policy, more than 800,000 people were being senselessly killed.

The same could be said of the War in Iraq: There is a legitimate argument to be made against the War, but it is not an argument that Liberals will make (I will address it in a later post). Instead, most Liberals will refer to the war in terms of one or more of the Three Fallacies.

They may say the war is for oil, or that we had no way of knowing whether or not Saddam still had WMDs, which is to succumb to the First Fallacy, ignoring what is obvious in favor of a conspiracy theory.

They may also say the war is simply too costly in terms of lives or money, which requires belief in the Second Fallacy; in other words, they are saying that the victim group just isn’t worth risking our lives or money for. Ethnocentrism at its finest.

Finally, the Libs may say that Saddam had definitely disposed of his weapons and would not seek or use more, which is an example of the Third Fallacy. According to true Liberalism, however, we couldn’t know WHAT he would have done, and logically, his history of genocide does not in any way prove that he would not commit genocide again.

These are not the only examples of the Three Fallacies of Liberalism being put into action, but they are two of the more recognizable ones. They illustrate for us the mistakes that have been repeated throughout the history of modern Liberalism, from the ceding of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union all the way to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. These mistakes even continue to be made, and what’s more, they are still defended by many Liberals in the United States and around the world.

It is time that both Conservatives and Liberals alike began to recognize these Three Fallacies of Liberal Thought. Any intellectually honest person will agree that they are fallacies. Any intellectually honest person will agree that they are based out of narcissism, which is the common bond running through all of them. Any intellectually honest person will conclude that a philosophy founded on narcissism can never be legitimate.

Therefore, could it be that Liberalism should be renamed? Is it really the philosophy of narcissism, the Philosophy of the Self? It seems that way. With three narcissistic fallacies to govern the interactions of all true adherents of this philosophy, there seems to be no other way to describe it. When the individuals who claim Liberalism as their own philosophy determine their actions based on what they can positively know (according to them, nothing), how much harm could possibly come to them (according to them, too much), and how much evil they could prevent for the future (according to them, none), there is no word to describe them, except narcissistic.

It’s time to start calling the Liberals on their lapses in logic. The Three Fallacies which have propped up Liberalism thus far need not go unchallenged, and should be attacked at every opportunity. Narcissism has never been a strong basis for a philosophy, and it is a horrible foundation for foreign policy; this has been proven by the modern Liberal movement time and again, and now is the time to call the Liberals on the shortcomings of their philosophy. If we want to end world hunger, genocide, oppression and poverty, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of narcissism, whether we call it by its name or seek to conceal the ugly truth behind it in terms like “Liberalism.”

For after all does not a narcissist by any other name govern as poorly?