[Andy_B]

There's something I've been noticing a LOT lately, whenever I read the comments sections of articles on sites like Buzzfeed, huffpost, gawker, etc.

It almost seems like leftism itself is slowly transforming into a new version of old school conservative Christian rabble-rousing, with all the attendent vices of scapegoating, witch hunting, and so on.

Just look at the NYT comments section reaction to the Dylan Farrow article. Literally every commentator praising her for her "bravery" while totally lacking any evidence.

Look at any piece involving rape... Tons of commentators screaming about wanting to kill the suspect, castrate him or whatever.

I was recently reading this piece about what death row inmates had to eat for their last meals. Somebody started a comments thread about how they should have to eat human shit, and like EVERYBODY responded by saying some variant of "damn right!" When one dude actually came out and said "well they're already being killed isn't that enough" everyone responded by saying "IMAGINE IF IT WAS YOUR FAMILY THAT WAS KILLED DERPA DER." Like that's straight out of the small town bible belt pitchfork wielding witch-hunter playbook.

It's funny, you know, I predicted all this stuff a few years ago... That, as the PC police gained more power they would become more and more like what they supposedly "opposed." Now, look at the left in 2014: anti-prostitution, tough on crime (well at least if the crime is rape), pro-war in a lot of cases... What's it going to look like in another 10 years? Will these leftist have found some 'progressive' excuse to segregate black people and stone gays to death? Wouldn't surprise me.

[scorpion]

Progressive ideology functions as a secular religion. It provides a sort of moral framework in the absence of belief in God or traditional Christianity. These people who go on social justice crusades and loudly proclaim their progressive bona fides whenever possible are like the biblical Pharisees, more interested in appearing self-righteous than in doing any actual good for other people. The whole thing has the air of religion because it literally IS a religion, except in place of God you have the notion of "equality" and "social justice" which is being worshipped and having sacrifices made to it. For example, this is why progressives think nothing of trying to ruin the life of a person they judge to be out of line with progressive orthodoxy. Because in their minds, such a person is literally evil, and by destroying them the progressive is simply making a sacrifice to their God, "social justice".

[The Beast1]

Agreed, leftism is its own religion one that i do not have any qualms about calling people on their feet for it.

The best part is when they resort to insults. That's awesome because then it means you can resort to 1950s shaming tactics which work MAGNITUDES more than ,"jerk, creep, misogynist" will ever do.

[DJ-Matt]

Relevant:

[megatron]

(02-19-2014 12:30 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

There's something I've been noticing a LOT lately, whenever I read the comments sections of articles on sites like Buzzfeed, huffpost, gawker, etc.

It almost seems like leftism itself is slowly transforming into a new version of old school conservative Christian rabble-rousing, with all the attendent vices of scapegoating, witch hunting, and so on.

Just look at the NYT comments section reaction to the Dylan Farrow article. Literally every commentator praising her for her "bravery" while totally lacking any evidence.

Look at any piece involving rape... Tons of commentators screaming about wanting to kill the suspect, castrate him or whatever.

I was recently reading this piece about what death row inmates had to eat for their last meals. Somebody started a comments thread about how they should have to eat human shit, and like EVERYBODY responded by saying some variant of "damn right!" When one dude actually came out and said "well they're already being killed isn't that enough" everyone responded by saying "IMAGINE IF IT WAS YOUR FAMILY THAT WAS KILLED DERPA DER." Like that's straight out of the small town bible belt pitchfork wielding witch-hunter playbook.

It's funny, you know, I predicted all this stuff a few years ago... That, as the PC police gained more power they would become more and more like what they supposedly "opposed." Now, look at the left in 2014: anti-prostitution, tough on crime (well at least if the crime is rape), pro-war in a lot of cases... What's it going to look like in another 10 years? Will these leftist have found some 'progressive' excuse to segregate black people and stone gays to death? Wouldn't surprise me.

Besides what another poster said about liberalism being a secular religion, I have no idea how any of this ties in with Christianity. Where in Judaism/Christianity does it say that women don't lie? The Bible has tons of examples of women being whores and liars.

Pro-war? Only 6% of histories wars were over religion. Most of these were fought by crazy, primitive muslims. The Spanish inquisition killed around 200 people over a period of 2 centuries. And guess what it's purpose was: to deal with crazy Muslims in Spain. Communism (anti-religious athiests) killed around 100 million in a span of 50 years. So your argument is horseshit.

[Luvianka]

Anglo Saxon Liberalism = Christianity + Big Government

[Flint]

Replace leftist/progressive with conservatism, manosphere, feminism or libertarianism and the religion-like character you describe would be the same. Institutionalized ideologies in the shape of political parties, (social) media, rallies, and economic systems sooner or later take on religious attributes. Holy books (Communist Manifesto, Atlas Shrugged, Mystery Method), cult-like leaders (Lenin, Obama, Ron Paul, Simone de Beauvoir), a clear distinction between good and evil (working class/bourgeoisie, free markets/planned economy, feminist/misogynist, red pill/blue pill), you name it. In that respect Jezebel, Tea Party Movement, Obama lovers and RVF are not that different and I don't see why the hardcore progressives you mentioned are any more delusional than people who believe that free markets and traditional role models from the 1950s will solve all our problems.

Some guys babble a lot about being "red pill" yet resort to ridiculous conspiracy theories as a replacement for rational discourse. There is this thread "Female cop shoots teen for holding Wii controller". What purpose does this serve? Who would give two shits about the kid if the cop were a guy? Why is this anecdotal evidence bullshit any better than "rape culture"-apologists?

[DeWitt]

Murray Rothbard has written some on the Christian roots of the progressives, he specifically identifies postmillenial pietism as the root. Then they abandoned God and uplifted themselves as holier than Jesus.

http://mises.org/daily/2225#2

Quote:

"It was clear to these new Protestants that the Kingdom of God on Earth could only be established by government, which was required to bolster the salvation of individuals by stamping out occasions for sin."

[xpatplayer]

(02-19-2014 12:30 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

There's something I've been noticing a LOT lately, whenever I read the comments sections of articles on sites like Buzzfeed, huffpost, gawker, etc.

It almost seems like leftism itself is slowly transforming into a new version of old school conservative Christian rabble-rousing, with all the attendent vices of scapegoating, witch hunting, and so on.

Just look at the NYT comments section reaction to the Dylan Farrow article. Literally every commentator praising her for her "bravery" while totally lacking any evidence.

Look at any piece involving rape... Tons of commentators screaming about wanting to kill the suspect, castrate him or whatever.

I was recently reading this piece about what death row inmates had to eat for their last meals. Somebody started a comments thread about how they should have to eat human shit, and like EVERYBODY responded by saying some variant of "damn right!" When one dude actually came out and said "well they're already being killed isn't that enough" everyone responded by saying "IMAGINE IF IT WAS YOUR FAMILY THAT WAS KILLED DERPA DER." Like that's straight out of the small town bible belt pitchfork wielding witch-hunter playbook.

It's funny, you know, I predicted all this stuff a few years ago... That, as the PC police gained more power they would become more and more like what they supposedly "opposed." Now, look at the left in 2014: anti-prostitution, tough on crime (well at least if the crime is rape), pro-war in a lot of cases... What's it going to look like in another 10 years? Will these leftist have found some 'progressive' excuse to segregate black people and stone gays to death? Wouldn't surprise me.

Agree with almost everything you said. Thing is, this is like Christianity, but not traditional Christianity. Its more like Protestantism in the United States and the Catholic Church since the 1960s, where Biblical values are replaced with what the followers 'feel' is right. Look at any Orthodox Church and you will find that this is not the case there.

Progressivism is not leftism. I'm no fan of leftism but leftism is and ideology while progressivism is like a religion. At least while most religions are based on moral, traditional values, progressivism is based on propaganda and delusion. It is dedicated to eradicating any other form of belief, and to a ideological purity.

Frankly, I'm surprised at the anti-Islam hate in America. I don't know much about the whole concept of violent Jihad but know that while an overwhelmingly large majority of Muslims don't have fundamentalist tendencies and don't care what you do or think (unless its really bad), a large majority, if not all, of progressives are crazies who don't want you to be "transphobic" and will call for your head (and dick) if you disagree with their views. Think about that. They hate adherents of the world's second largest religion for the actions and beliefs of a small minority but have no problem with a vile and toxic ideology that is destroying America and Europe.

[Vroom]

The doctrine of any given religion might not be entirely logical, but it certainly fulfils some sort of human need. The fact that religious thought is one of the Human universals shows that no matter how secular we try to be, the human sentiment that underpins religion will always sublimate into something else. As previous commentors have noted, In the west, the gradual erosion of our christian traditions coincided with a gradual rise in a new form of faith - Equality.

Faith is all it can be called, because it doesn't stand upto any sort of logical or scientific scrutiny, yet people still passionately believe and will defend it to the death.

[Feisbook Control]

Read some Moldbug (and the reactosphere generally) for the puritanical roots of progressivism/leftism. Start with this as the first of a seven part series. It's a mind blowing series of essays (as his work always is).

Also, I vaguely remember a Nietzsche quote where he said something along the lines of English socialists basically being Christians without God. I couldn't find the quote. Here's another Nietzsche quote though:

Quote:

"Socialism is the phantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism. ... However, it goes further than anything in the past because it aims at the formal destruction of the individual … who … can be used to improve communities by an expedient organ of government."

xpatplayer: You need to look into the actual history of Islam then, if you think it's mostly fun and games. You need to look at the Muslim conquests, as well as the devastating effects of Islam on Europe in late antiquity right through to very recently, even in areas not directly under their control. You do know that Muslims invaded France more than three and a half centuries before the First Crusade, right? They took slaves from as far away as Iceland, amongst other things, and it was really only the USMC that finally put an end to the slave trade of Westerners at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Slavery was practised in many Muslim nations until only a few decades ago, and still exists in an informal manner in many today. It's an intolerant, antisocial, anti-civilisational doctrine founded in blood that has made a nuisance of itself wherever it has gone.

It is possible to think that both progressivism and Islam are scourges upon mankind.

[Wutang]

An interesting idea I've seen brandied about but I haven't taken extensive look into (though I do want to in the future) is how leftism in the US is an off-shoot of New England Puritanism. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many WASPs, especially those living in the northeast region of the country tend to have leftist/SWPL sympathies.

There was a guy in another forum I used to regularly frequent that mentioned a book that describes this. Here is the link along with some choice quotes. Look for the post by roly_poly_puppy:

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/thread/1...ay/?page=1

"I consider myself somewhat left leaning, but it's almost impossible to discuss this historical influence with my fellow left wingers. If I say to them, "You know that American progressivism is the memetic offspring of North-Eastern American puritanism and you can trace the same ideas and themes all the way back to the heretical sects of the Protestant reformation?"

"It's also made me see that when the right wing of American politics calls the left "Anti-American" the left's behavior really isn't Anti-American per se. American progressivism is ULTRA American, in the sense they want America to live up to it's original Puritanical values. It's also the most successful non-theistic Christian sect on the planet at the moment, if you want a real mindfuck, ask yourself how many of these progressives are also *atheists* and generally disdain their more neanderthal-esque evangelical cousins on the right and wish they'd be thrown out of politics. In a sense they are prosecuting right wing Christians because of the remnants of their crazed puritanical religion that has turned secular, more than for any atheistic reasons. It's more crazy than any fictional story someone could come up with. "

[Wutang]

Something I wrote on another thread that touched on this topic:

Something that both the Puritans of old and their modern secular counterparts have: veneration of sacred cows/ideas that simply cannot be questioned or denied and even the hint of doing either will instantly draw down the wrath of these people. The only thing that has changed is what the cows are. Before it was immutable religious ideas, these days it is ideas about gender, race, and sexuality. What makes these modern Puritans more hypocritical is they like to cast themselves as open minded and progressive without realizing that just like the "inpure" masses, they also are humans and have their own biases and sacred cows. These Puritans may not burn people on the stake anymore but they still use public shaming as a way to enforce their will in society.