Robert Baratheon

Kacy, at least answer this single question that I have heard you, yourself, ask of theists in debates many times: what evidence would it take to convince you? What evidence would it take to convince you that your social-media behavior is furthering the Progressive cause - which you now recognize you don't actually support - by parroting their talking points and circulating their propaganda videos? We know that someone who has known you for well over a decade telling you isn't enough. We know that your best friend telling you isn't enough. We know that a fair-minded forum moderator telling you isn't enough. Do you see how this is fitting the same pattern as the fundies you love to attack denying that evolution is real, against the weight of all evidence in the fossil record, or denying that medicine can cure people without God's love, which there is no way to disprove? Tell us - what evidence would convince you?

Kacy, your definition of "social justice" - that the laws be applied evenly and fairly - is really just "justice." The notion of "social justice," as used by the modern-day Progressive movement, means something extra-judicial and is actually inconsistent with your traditional notion of justice (hence the need for the new term). To take one illustrative example, "justice" would mean that all children have a chance to get into a New York City magnet school based on a standardized evaluation of math, reading, and writing. "Social justice" would mean that if the Progressive elite don't like the outcome of that examination, they should have the power to tinker with the outcome until the number of darker-colored faces in the class matches the vision they have in their mind of what it should be in a perfect society. I actually second MSK's point that you are not truly a Progressive, and that is why we find it frustrating that you have adopted so many of their talking points and social-media tactics. MSK, I like your definition of Progressivism, and I think it describes their ideology well. I've spent a lot of time engaging progressives on both conservative and progressive blogs. I argue that the defining philosophical component of progressivism is utilitarianism. Nearly every one of their actions is justified under an "ends justifying the means" rationalization. Libertarians tend to believe the opposite - that the ends never justify the means, and that due process matters very deeply. To get additional mileage out of the above example, it doesn't matter to the libertarian if the class is all-white or all-black as long as the applicants were given equal and fair opportunity - the traditional notion of justice. I come from New England, and the Progressives there will usually support any crooked politician (or union) that they feel will serve their immediate needs or get themselves in power to make the "necessary" changes to society.

So when the conversation was a red-faced, frothing Kacy as the center of attention blasting RB on what an all-bad archetype he supposedly was, Kacy had "no compunction about publicly responding." Now that this false dichotomy between the all-good Kacy and all-bad RB has been dismantled by a dose of reality, i.e., real things that actually happened, it's been quietly shifted to "I'll respond in PM's." I reiterate, how convenient for you. Don't bother, I've seen no evidence that you're ready to have a real conversation on these topics - all you've done here is insult me and demonize me, while you hypocritically complained at the same time about me insulting you. I'll just say that you're lucky many of your friends, such as SB and me to name two, gave YOU a second chance when you finally emerged from your "lost decade" of functioning alcoholism. Guess what - that wasn't such a fun period for us, and I only told you that constantly. Hey, what's step 9 of that program again? I won't be losing any sleep waiting for MY apology. We know from your posts that the Great Kacy can do no wrong!

MSK - Thank you for the welcome. I can see you run a very fine blog here. The blog, and your moderation of it, came very highly recommended from another one of your members, whose opinion I value a great deal. If Kacy is willing, I'm fully ready to put this unpleasantness behind us and stick to neutral discussion topics. But since this entire thread is little more than obvious jab at me and SB, I felt obliged to respond.

Kacy, this may come as a shock to you, but you haven't exactly been a model friend to me in these 13 years we've known each other. Initially, I was puzzled by a lot of your behavior - friendly and engaged one minute, totally dismissive of me the next. I lost count of how many times you told me on the ICC I was basically an ignorant kid who had no place to comment - nice thing to tell a 16-year-old who looked up to you. It took a number of years of frustration before I realized you weren't actually interested in me or anything I had to say, only in boosting your own ego through me as a conduit. Think about it: how many times have you earnestly asked for my opinion on anything? I can't think of even one time. You wanted somebody younger and impressionable you could tutor with your objectivist/atheist ideas. That worked well for a small period, but when I quickly outgrew that relationship, you never displayed the slightest interest in relating to me on equal terms. Again, really nice. Through my writings I've contributed in part to at least three of your personal "epiphanies" and intellectual growth over the years. I won't go into these at length here because that would risk "insulting" you further according to your strange definition of that term. Never once have you given me an ounce of credit, nor have you ever taken responsibility for your own behavior in being incredibly rude, insulting, and dismissive toward me when I tried again and again to convince you of the realities you were ignoring (then later accepted as true). Much of the really bad behavior you have essentially admitted you don't even remember because you were under the influence at the time (see: epiphany #3). This moral high-ground you are now claiming is all just a manufactured component of your ego-centric persona. Take a hard look - everything you do is all about you and the attention it brings you. Your recent "creature feature" post is nothing more than an invitation to be the center of attention and talk about yourself, always on a 100% safe topic that doesn't risk any hard introspection or criticism from others. When SB and I try to talk about anything important with you, you immediately go apoplectic and rip into us on a personal level as a regressive defense mechanism. It shouldn't surprise you that he and I have many of the same frustrations with you and have reached many of the same conclusions. On this very blog, MSK has affirmed everything we've been telling you about your social media behavior for the past two years! But SB and I are both just jerks, right? So you can ignore everything we have to say. How convenient for you. And you keep repeating this inherently contradictory statement that I'm the "only" one you've ever had these issues with except for your best friend, as if that supports your position rather than undermines it. Take some responsibility for yourself and your own behavior, objectivist. I expected you to respond in precisely this way, but just know that I fully intended to make good on my end of the proposal and engage in good-faith debate in your group if you did in fact try to take the high road.

Kacy, I return to you in good faith and with a proposition for you. It is based on a number of stipulations I would be willing to accept in the course of extending you the full benefit of the doubt. The first would be that you actually welcome those with divergent viewpoints participating in this discussion group of yours. The second would be that you are actually willing to debate with me (and SB) so long as we refrain from what you have called "insulting" behavior. We obviously have very different views on what constitutes an "insult" in the context of these discussions. We further disagree on how an emotionally responsible individual should respond to being challenged in that way. In light of this disagreement on etiquette, I would be willing to tresolve the conflict, entirely on my end, by promising to refrain from any discussion of your life experiences, choices, or circumstances beyond what would be available to me from information posted within the thread itself. In other words, it would be as if we were total strangers participating in an online forum. Thus, we would be having a discussion on the merits without the possibility of any deleterious ad hominem attacks. Is this something you would be willing to accept in exchange for welcoming my participation in your group on a trial basis? Or are you too heavily invested in your demonization of me at this point to extend to me the same benefit of the doubt I would be willing to extend to you?

As someone with years of direct experience participating in Kacy's "discussion" groups, allow me to outline some of the basic ground rules so that readers here can decide whether it might be of interest to them. Kacy wishes to be seen as a critical thinker who challenges his own assumptions. He bolsters this public persona by creating "discussion" groups for others to join and paricipate in with his express permission. It is a virtual club, or padded sparring group, if you will. None of this should be confused with actual truth-seeking, which is a much messier and difficult process for the individual engaging in introspection. As a result, you are free to agree with Kacy, especially as part of a concerted mugging of right-wing popular entertainment icons; or to politely dissent on any topic that isn't directly threatening to Kacy's existing worldview and persona. What you are not free to do is analyze personal anecdotes with a critical eye, or ask for justification of something you view as inconsistent within the philosophical framework. This will be viewed as an "attack" on the group leader and will be swiftly stamped out like a lit match on the floor of a powder house. So, for example, a good topic for this discussion group would be: "Alex Jones: Tin-Foil Hatter or Cold, Calculating Profiteer?" All the usual knuckle-dragging right-wing crash-test dummies solicited by Kacy will show up with their poor grammar and non-sequiturs, get their heads summarily handed to them by the social justice league, and then slink back off until they are summoned again in defense of their false idols. All in pursuit of reaching a better undertanding, of course ("I am right and they are wrong.") Conversely, you are not welcome in this group if, such as me or SB, you would actually like to *learn* something by challenging others or having your own assumptions challenged in return.

I wasn't intent on psychoanalyzing Kacy, but since he felt it was necessary to accuse me of "narcissim" rather than engage my substantive posts on the thread topic, let's talk about narcissism for a moment. Kacy appears to be using "narcissist" in the vernacular sense of the word as an insult meaning "somebody with an overly high opinion of himself." We can make this assumption because he uses it in the context of a gushing torrent of other juvenile insults, even though he tells us he has "no time" for ad hominem (it appears he found the time, somehow). What a narcissist actually is, in the clinical sense, is someone who exclusively views others as they relate to the narcissist. The commonly used analogy is a narcissist views himself as the central character, and everyone else is a supporting role defined by how they affect his "story." Narcissists are totally invested in the story they have created for themselves, so when their story is challenged as conflicting with objectively reality, they respond invariably with a) rage, b) regressive defense mechanisms, and c) control behavior. The social-media group Kacy references isn't really an echo-chamber per se. That is, there are token participants who do disagree with Kacy, and they were chosen by Kacy specifically for that purpose. A more appropriate analogy is that Kacy has set up a kind of "Bum of the Month Club" for himself, where his A-team of like-minded progressives has a controlled environment for tackling the clumsiest arguments and proponents the born-again/Fox-News-conservative crowd has to offer, then patting themselves on the back as champions of compassion and reason. To take one example, there was a regular participant on Kacy's Facebook page whom I personally witnessed advocating world conquest by the United States to violently spread democracy. My response was to simply tell this invididual that his view was irresponsible and unrealistic, then ignore him. But that is precisely the kind of right-wing living caricature Kacy wants for his discussions as easy target practice in his verbal archery sessions. Kacy is the "good guy" in these discussions, and the intellectual hobos he lures to these bouts with the promise of a ham-and-egg breakfast are the "bad guys," who are present for the sole purpose of being knocked down by him. There is no genuine desire there to question his fundamental assumptions. Hence the dimwitted, stumbling uncle, whom Kacy would have us believe he tolerates out of his infinite good nature and patience, when it's readily apparent that the uncle is tolerated precisely because he poses no actual challenge to Kacy's story and wordview. What Kacy calls "insulting" was my request, as part of these social-media conversations, that Kacy examine his own story of himself, and his role in the world, in a objectively critical and intellectual manner. He was loudly asserting to others that he was a producer in the Randian sense, and he seemed to be taking great pride in achieving that elevated status. I asked Kacy to question that premise and support it in light of the available evidence. So how did Kacy respond? As we see plainly in this thread, he responded with a) rage ("disrespectful, insulting asshat"); with b) regressive defense mechanisms (splitting people into simplified all-good/all-bad archetypes based on how they affect his story (SB and I are emotionally-disturbed, dishonest "bad guys," so he can ignore our arguments); and with c) control behavior ("I'm ignoring you. You're an insignificant flea to me. Nyah nyah.") So who more closely fits the clinical definition of a narcissist? The person who is asking another for an honest appraisal of their assumptions as part of a larger philosophical discussion, or the person who is so invested in their ego-centric story that anyone who challenges it is immediately attacked and discounted through classic narcissistic-rage behavior?

I'm agnostic on the issue on whether the burgeoning socio-economic class of unemployables is fixed, or whether it is the temporary byproduct of a transitioning economy coupled with a particularly bad recession. Fast food is still hiring en masse for the moment, but SSI/SSDI/TANF/SNAP/WIC/whatever is now a much more attractive option for many, and that is an incentives problem with current public policy that should be addressed. I don't think anyone has, or can have, meaningful evidence for or against the post-scarcity hypothesis at the moment - we'll just have to wait and see how that whole thing turns out. If you believe that lower-class joblessness is the new and immutable status quo, then there is really nothing to be done besides buying off the unwashed masses with allowances to buy their dollar-menu hamburgers, smart phones, and Beats by Dr. Dre. I'm not ready to give up quite yet. My primary concern is that incentives are pointing the right way, which in this case means encouraging work, or that failing, at least some sort of societal buy-in to counter the zero-sum kleptocracy culture that has been hyperaccelerated in this country under the Obama presidency. I'm arguing for voluntary conscription (join the military - we'll give you free stuff and something to do each day) as a less bad alternative to the big SSI/SSDI fraud, which brushes these individuals out of sight and into a deep, dark dependency cycle that they have no incentive or ability to ever emerge from. I perhaps differ from many libertarians in accepting partial solutions and incremental improvement as appropriate goals short of a complete overhaul of the system.

Since this discussion has turned on the topics of truth-seeking, good-faith investigation, and objectivist principles in our lives, I would like to respond to some specific items to make a broader philosophical point and perhaps defend myself a bit in the process. Kacy claims that I accidentally "outed" myself and was somehow concealing my identity in order to engage in bad-faith discussion. This is what Kacy has chosen to be true because it is the intellectually convenient position that allows him to discount me at the outset (more on that in a moment). As those supporting objectivist principles, let's examine the plain evidence instead: 1) By choice, I have my actual name listed in my profile - known to Kacy. 2) By choice, I have my actual place of residence listed in my profile - also known to Kacy 3) By choice, I selected a moniker from the same book series that is plastered all over my Facebook page - also known to Kacy (but probably forgotten by him). The rational and objective conclusion Kacy should have reached from all this is that I *wanted* him to be aware of my identity but was choosing to remain anonymous for purposes of wider audiences. Notice how this differs from the iimmediately dismissive and accusatory conclusion he chose to reach instead. Kacy then stated that he will not, under any circumstances, respond to my posts. No matter what insights I may bring, what legitimate points I may raise, he is categorically refusing to even consider them as having any worth. He claims this is due to some fundamental fault with me, but we see it plainly displayed as a pattern in this very thread: e.g., Beck does a few things Kacy finds offensive, so Kacy resorts to ridicule and discounts Beck as a repugnant person, in totality, refusing to consider any of his ideas or methods in furtherance of limited government. This is one of the fundamental differences between progressive utilitarianism and objectivist truth-seeking; when progressives become offended by a viewpoint, they view that as equivalent to being *wrong,* then personalize and radicalize the messenger (Alinsky's Rules for Radicals) to shut down discussion on the merits. An earnest truth-seeker should instead examine why the message bothers him so much and what that tells him about himself. So to take this perfect example, we have numerous individuals here telling Kacy - in unison - that his behavior is harming the cause of limited government he claims to support. But against the weight of this evidence, Kacy instead assumes there is something *wrong* with each of these people and that he could not possibly be guilty of what they are pointing out (look at how he writes off me and SB at the outset). In the interest of full disclosure, the central reason Kacy finds me so offensive is that he was regularly holding himself out to others as living according to objectivist principles of individualism and self-reliance, i.e., a producer, a modern-day Howard Roark. I asked Kacy to take a moment to examine whether this was objectively true in light of the evidence, namely that Kacy has chosen to be a lifer in the U.S. military, draws a government allowance, goes where the government tells him to go, and spends a significant amount of energy encouraging others to drop out of the market economy and sign their life away to the military as he did. A word of explanation - I don't think there is necessarily wrong with this path he has chosen, but I was asking Kacy to simply check his premises against the weight of the available evidence. Rather than engage in discussion, Kacy responded in true progressive fashion by labeling me as guilty of bad-faith, calling me a worthless individual, then publicly refusing to ever consider anything I said again. In case you think I was simply attacking Kacy out of meanspiritedness, another word of explanation: I was at the same time pointing out my own government employment and explaining to him how I reconcile that reality with my own philosophies, asking him to do the same.

As Michael points out, there is a pattern in Kacy's posts that is injurious to good-faith debate, and that those of us earnestly seeking truth find frustrating. Kacy uses false dichotomies to reinforce an us-versus-them framework of convenience that largely tracks with liberal/conserative lines perpetuated by the same popular entertainers he claims to find repugnant. It is often helpful to make us-versus-them distinctions when outlining legitimate philosophical differences between opposing ideologies - assuming they are based in evidence and objective reality. One such meaningful distinction is between those who wish to expand dependence upon the state and those who wish to reduce it. The difference is that Kacy's dichotomies are based almost entirely upon the intellectually bankrupt red-team/blue-team framework of popular entertainment (along with sweeping generalizations about each "side") and his lumping of socially acceptable targets, such as Beck, into one category or the other is based on his own mental laziness rather than any actual evidence in the public record. To take one example, Kacy defends his nearly exclusive attacks on "right-leaning" libertarian/conservative pundits as follows: "I'd rather be impoverished than imprisoned. I like vices being legal." There is little actual evidence that Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, or the rest of his favored punching bags actually want people imprisoned on a mass scale or seek to outlaw all vices. Quite the contrary, in fact. But that is the popular caricature of right-leaning pundits that Kacy has decided to be true, not based on any actual evidence, but based entirely out of his own desire to be part of what he calls the "right side of history" alongside his carefully cultivated social-media echo-chamber of progressives, enablers, and revisionist historians.

The author is indisputably correct on the substantive points. It is becoming widely recognized that SSI/SSDI is in fact just the newest welfare system sweeping otherwise-unemployable individuals under the proverbial rug and paying them for their acquiescence in the process. A technical point - SSI/SSDI recipients don't pay a wide variety of payroll taxes and all of their medical expenses are covered by the state. Therefore, they aren't living on quite as meager a take-home allowance as he makes them out to be. He spends a sentence or two at the end of the article discussing the inefficiencies of the SSI/SSDI-welfare model and the massive bureaucracies and cottage industries necessary to maintain it. Though I don't particularly like the idea of an enormous standing army, I will point out that military service is, and has historically been, a far superior method of dealing with such otherwise-unemployable individuals. Though neither system results in anything tangible being produced, the military-welfare model at least encouraged individuals to stay physically fit, mentally alert, and engaged in respectable society; also preparing them with life skills for the possibility of returning to the market economy in the future. The SSI/SSDI-welfare model is a much more invidious variation in redistributionism, encouraging sloth, seclusion, deceit, and mental and physical breakdown resulting in skyrocketing medical costs (again, paid entirely by the state). I don't view the situation as quite as hopeless or inevitable as the author. He sees the number of such undesirables as fixed and unchanging, a given in a "post-scarcity" society. I see individuals as more malleable and swayed by public policy. Basic economics tells us that if we subsidize an activity, we get more of it.

The challenges extend far beyond federal debt, which is actually public debt, owed by you and me, our children, and our children's children. Utilitarians, such as progressives, are quick to accept collectivist redistribution as a price that must be paid to stave off violence against us from the lower classes. The immediate problem, even within this framework - and as always happens in collectivist systems - is that the "price" we must pay has been increasing at an exponential rate as more and more become dependent upon the self-perpetuating political spoils system that feeds and incentivises them. One need only examine what has developed with SSDI over the past 15 years: recipients have more than doubled in both real and percentage terms, now over 10 million Americans. A trivial number of these individuals are actually so disabled they can't perform meaningful work, yet all are now living off of quite-generous government checks for the rest of their lives while producing nothing in return. It is the expanding administrative state and its progressive enthusiasts that have expanded this system of producers and takers to an alarming degree over the past decade. Kacy's laser-like focus on the religious, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck and the like is misplaced at best and destructive at worst. He is free to disagree with religious views or conspiracy theories, and as such, they pose little real threat to him or his standard of living. Conversely, he is not free to "disagree" to hand over an ever-increasing portion of his income to the state, or to live under the mandates and restrictions of socialized insurance and health care. He is not free to live in a society which passes roughly 40,000 new federal, state, and municipal laws every year, all of which he is "on notice" for and must be in compliance. Whatever else Alex Jones may believe, he is an opponent of this systematic encroachment on our individualism. If we are going to publicly ridicule and shame these entertainers - who are in no way intended for Kacy's audience in the first place - then we should focus on those pundits who are actively promoting expansion of the administrative and welfare state rather than opposing it, even if they do so from a religious standpoint that Kacy happens to find distasteful.

Several years ago, I was listening to a segment of Free Talk Live when the topic of conspiracy theories arose in the discussion. After weighing the issues, the hosts told the caller, "There are many ways to come to the ideas of liberty. It's a different path for everyone. If Alex Jones brought you to the ideas of liberty, then he has served a useful purpose." (I am paraphrasing.) One word in the title of this thread is particularly fitting: "war." There is an ideological war being waged in our society between competing collectivist and individualist philosophies. It is the critical economic, political, and social conflict of our time. Progressives and their intellectual allies are doing real, measurable damage to our public and private cultural institutions. They are busily - and quite successfully - electing to all levels of government politicians who view markets as tools of oppression to be eradicated in the name of "social justice," replaced with their own warped designs and central economic planning. We don't always like our allies. We don't always approve of their methods. But if they bring men and banners to our cause, we should be welcoming their contributions instead of ridiculing the horse they rode in on.