In a previous post, I wrote about how the left is no longer the left - but why should anyone care what they think, or label themselves as?
It's important to make the distinction between the "old" and the "new" left because at their time, the old left was rational, and the majority of the current people actually agree with the views of the old left - even if they are a bit misguided.
If you told most people that everyone has to be responsible only for themselves and the "society" should not intervene if they get in trouble, they would not agree with you - at all!
Where the old left, and the average person of today are misguided, was confusing the society with the state. That's not important for the point here though.
The point here is two-fold:
1. The new crazy left is using the facade of the old rational left to manipulate people and to derail any sensible debates.
2. Trying to argue purely libertarian viewpoints lands to deaf ears for most people, but these points remain equally valid to those "deaf" people - a different approach is required.
With any intellectual integrity, it has to be recognized that all of the even potentially valid points of the old left died with the Soviet Union. Even in, let's say early 1970s, these discussion would have been quite different, and purely theoretical - with liberty-minded people in the minority against an army of intellectuals.
Now, 50 years later, we know for a fact that the general leftist direction for societies is simply doomed. Previously that was clear only to some through theory. Now it's clear both in theory and practice, with indisputable historical evidence.
The problem is that when the USSR died, the ideology of the left didn't die with it - they were forced to re-invent themselves.
Now we're in a situation where the new left has hijacked the rational image and some talking points of the old left.
Even though all of it has now been proven to be invalid, it is still very useful for them in sowing discord. It's an intellectual weapon to divide people according to old battle lines that in reality have ceased to exist long ago.
That doesn't stop them from trying, often successfully, in exploiting the tribal nature of people and in doing so, painting themselves as the vanguards of all that is good and holy - even though all they are now able to advocate for is violent control of their fellow human beings.
We need to see through this charade and call the new left as what they are - pure advocates of state coercion through violence!
They have absolutely no policy goals that can be reached without the threat of violent intervention in the affairs of free people acting voluntarily between themselves.
There's nothing good or holy in that!
That remains true even if all of their stated end goals might first sound like something everyone would want. But if violence and coercion is the requirement to get there, then we should get there in some other way.
We need to recognize and call out this requirement of violence behind everything that they demand!
Just pointing this out at the beginning of every debate completely disarms their primary attack: painting everyone who is against their policies, as cold, selfish sociopaths who would only critize anything the left wants because "they are bad, and the left is good".
When you point out that in this false dichotomy, the "good ones" are actually demanding violence, their mask drops.
I've yet to encounter a leftie that can really argue against this in any way, or even wants to do so.
Many of them actually PREFER violence as the answer - they've just been really good at hiding this fact!
When you point this out, you will not REFORM the leftie - you REVEAL them.
None of this will change the mind of the extremist, but it will do something much more important - it reveals the new left as what they are to EVERYONE ELSE.
Then, after the hijacking of "all that is good and holy" by the violent coercionists can be ended, a new question can be asked among reasonable people:
How do we provide all of those good things to people, without resorting to violence?
That's a much better conversation to have!
