Fear, Islam and the Left

Watched that 7.30 Report story on Geert Wilders last night. It was terribly biased, of course. They gave a lot of prominence to some lunar leftie activists, as if they were representative to the wider population.

The little poppets were hilarious. There were shots of them drafting their placards for a demo against the Dutch politician. Being the dutiful collectivists they were, they even had to do this by committee:

HAYDEN COOPER: Ahead of the Wilders arrival in an unassuming Melbourne courtyard on Saturday afternoon, a small group of activists met to plot their protest.

ACTIVIST II: Maybe something like "Refugees are welcome, fascists are not," or, "Refugees are welcome, Geert Wilders is not," or something along those lines.

Gawd. Those poor people. They were so worried about misrepresenting the group's identity, they couldn't even come up with their own stupid slogans!

As anyone who's had anything to do with lefties knows only too well, they are terrified of being ostracised. Those who dominate such tribes know this, and use it to get what they want.

Think of what happens to scabs on the picket line, or the fate of Labor "rats". In a leftie dominated joint like Artsville, everyone is utterly terrified of transgressing the dreary PC dogmas relating to sexual identity, gender politics, climate change, and Islam to name a few. 

And I think this pervasive fear they feel is why the Left is so sympathetic to Islam (combined with that primitive belief that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", of course).

As Wilders says about Islam:

In the Islamic world, I was always struck by two things. I was impressed by the kindness and helpfulness of many people. But there was also their fear. Islamic societies are ruled by terror. Muslims are good people, but they live under the yoke of Islamic sharia. If they leave Islam, or even just mildly criticise it, they sign their own death verdict.

Contrary to what many Westerners think, Islam, rather than a religion, is a totalitarian political ideology. It is an ideology because it aims for an Islamic state and wants to impose sharia on all of us. It is totalitarian because it is not voluntary: once you are in, you cannot get out. Unlike genuine religions, Islam also makes demands on non-Muslims. We, too, are marked for death if we criticise it.

You could use a lot of those phrases to describe politically correct leftism. Sure, you're not gonna get your head cut off live on the internet for making some off colour gay joke at a plonk-sodden fringe festival shindig. But doing so could result in you being marked as One Who Does Not Obey, and mean that you'd suffer severely both personally and professionally.

Lefties know fear. They get fear. They are comfortable with fear. So it's easy to understand why they find what Wilders has to say so threatening. He wants societies that are free from fear, after all. 

Zero sum games and growing pies

Some general thoughts about lefties and their belief system: One key ingredient in their daft world view is that of the zero sum game. They think there's a set amount of everything in society -- particularly money. So if you have a substantial amount of it you must have stolen it from another person or group.

They see the economy as a pie of finite size. Their job, then, is to make sure the slices are redistributed fairly. (Well, that's what they tell themselves and others but they're usually trying to grab and guzzle as many pieces as possible on the sly.) 

Conservatives say that while fairness is desirable it's more important to grow the pie. And individuals can have bigger slices if they work hard, are entrepreneurial, etc. Of course lefties hate that because they can't get their tiny minds around the idea of creating wealth. They interpret the exhortation to grow the pie as encouraging the haves to grab pie slices from the hands of the have-nots. 

But anyone who has done any real observation and thinking can see how retarded this concept is. Yes, capitalism is destructive. But it's also amazingly creative. And it's the latter force which keeps winning out. It's like a big ugly machine that keeps chugging along.

It's business that funds government through tax, after all. It's not the other way around. 

Speaking of government. There actually is a zero sum game in this sector. Money is handed out to recipients from a set yearly amount in the form of departmental funding, grants, welfare, etc. As we all know, government is what lefties are most attracted to. And they sure do demand more than their equal share of that particular pie. They are nicking it from more deserving people.

Take the arts, for instance. Anyone in that field knows damn well that if you want to "succeed" (get paid for your work) you have to suck up to the Left. Doesn't matter how crap you are at what you do. You just have to strike the politically correct pose and the money is sure to come. (There'll be much more of it if you have some well placed mates, too.)

Conservatives, on the other hand, are considered the enemy by the bureaucratic powers that be. So if you are one of these eeevil people and you have some insightful, original arty idea that you've worked your clacker off developing, you'll almost certainly get diddly squat from the relevant funding bodies. (Er, unless you lie to them about its nature when applying, of course. But you can only do that once or twice. And Tories are less likely to do that anyway. Unlike so many lefties, they believe that the truth exists and should be respected.)

Sure, conservatives rarely ask for money in the first place. They're more likely to try and turn a buck with their projects, or at least work on their own dime. Still, some are on the bones of their arses and have arty projects with little market value. But what are the odds that such plans will get any funding? Very close to nil.

Imagine a play based on the life of Tony Abbott, in which he's shown to be a decent bloke who respects women. Think that'd get any support from the Australia Council? 

So, there's a huge irony here. The Left sees a zero sum game where it doesn't exist, and accuses its ideological enemies of theft. Yet in a field where it does actually exist, they shamelessly grab their unfair share.

Just goes to show that lefties are not just inconsistent with the application of their ideology. They're often grotesquely hypocritical as well. 

ABC's ratings drop due to rise of the right-wing blogosphere?

Just on this recent plunge in the ratings of several ABC shows -- most notably Insiders, which lost 14% of its viewers recently:  It's a pretty noteworthy drop, which makes me wonder what the main cause is. Of course the luvvies are saying that it's got a lot to do with the fact that people are preferring to watch the content on the ABC's other channels or iView. But I think it's much more than that.

It seems to me that even the ABC's traditional audience is starting to tire of the obvious and relentless bias in so many of its shows. And that's because they're finally considering other points of view.

In the past, there was a real lack of outlets with views different to the left-leaning ABC. Sure, the commercial mainstream media organizations were a bit closer to the centre, but they were still "soft left". Even the papers that the Left loves to demonize as conservative, like The Australian, included a range of opinions, much as they do now. The only overtly conservative, right-wing opinions could be found on commercial talkback radio (which was, and remains, concentrated in Sydney) and a few small circulation magazines, the most notable being Quadrant. 

In the last ten years or so we've had the rise of the blogosphere, where anyone who wanted to have a growl about politics was able to do so. While blogs are written from all perspectives, those from the right of the political spectrum have done extremely well. Part of the reason for that was because they were the most passionate and rebellious.

So the dreary PC perspective of the ABC has really had a shake up. Countless people who hadn't considered conservative viewpoints, or were just too scared to express them, were invigorated by the rise of the blogosphere. And this new found irreverence has bled into the wider culture, so that even tragic ABC-watching luvvies have started to think in new ways about the issues of the day.

This process has been magnified by the huge explosion in social media use. While Twitter is dominated by lefties in this country, RWDB tweeps are slowly gaining on them. And I think that on Facebook they actually have the upper hand over the Left. Just type the word Gillard into the Facebook search box and you'll see just how many pages there are devoted to sledging our PM.

Basically, all these factors are combining to increase conservative "mind share" in Australia. As a result, the relentless narrow-mindedness of those behind ABC shows like Insiders is now obvious to a greater number of viewers than ever before. And that's why so many of them are switching off.

What do you think? Is this the main cause or are other factors involved?