By Victor Volsky
THE RULES OF THE GAME
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reacted to the Boston Marathon bombing thusly: “Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men...So what to do?...The best place to start is with a carbon tax.”Carbon tax a proper response to the massacre? Other than urging Mr. Friedman to take long walks and breathe a lot of fresh air, how can we explain that an ostensibly normal, intelligent person would plumb such profound depths of stupidity? How to account for the willing suspension of sanity by multitudes of high-brow intellectuals who park their common sense and reasoning ability at the door of the liberal salon and fervently espouse patently nonsensical views? What makes otherwise intelligent people voluntarily surrender their identities and goose-step in the serried ranks of the progressive army? Numerous learned studies have been devoted to the quirkiness of the totalitarian mindset. But rather than delve into the psychological complexities of this baffling phenomenon, here is a simple explanation: it’s a game.Children play their games by assigning the parts among themselves and devising rules which all players must obey no matter what. However, it is not only children who play this way. The entire liberal agenda is a gigantic game played by a set of rules that demand a mighty leap of faith from its adherents. These rules, no matter how illogical or absurd, are to be obeyed unthinkingly and unquestioningly on pain of being disqualified and anathematized. If you want to belong, toe the line or else. The choice is stark: blind obedience or ostracism; conform or get the boot in the seat of the pants. In short, a triumph of what George Orwell famously dubbed doublethink.
Here are some of the rules of the
Big Game as it is played in America
today:
|