I like the idea of a status ladder. It would be fairly easy to create a database that represents the status matrix, and then a web site to query the database on any possible political issue and return the change in status. I could then enter any political question that I was unsure about, and it would return the politcally correct answer. I would never have to think for myself ever again. How wonderful!

This is so obviously on the mark! What you have done is taken an idea that many people understood to be true in isolated circumstances (e.g. anti-americanism=envy of america) and shown how uniformly and generally it applies. I think you have made a brilliant point! It should be widely propagated.

It seems to me that modern leftism is now largely divorced from economics and has evolved into simple status envy.

Sharkansky's algorythm.....pun intended.

as for SA (or ZA using the tld)... that's some really nasty sh*t... the boers are a very scary bunch of people, not very liberal as a whole (in the adam smith sense of the word)

Apartheid should have been smacked around, for one cause they supported the nazis (insurrection and such), subverted the english population and discriminated against them (massive inferiority complex), and were generally socialist and regulatory idiots. The only good thing about them was that they were fighting Nelson, who is a complete communist nutbar that somehow managed the transition very, very well! Nelson's recentt comments on Zimbabwe, Iraq, etc are just evil... maybe he's listening to Winnie again

so please don't disparage the attacks against SA Apartheid, but the questioning of the absence of serious protest on related subjects is excellent!

This is the relevant passage from the Bernard Lewis article that I mentioned last night:

"The massacre of seven hundred to eight hundred Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila [in 1982] was carried out by Lebanese militiamen, led by a Lebanese commander who subsequently became a minister in the Syrian-sponsored Lebanese government, and it was seen as a reprisal for the assassination of the Lebanese President Bashir Gemayyel. Ariel Sharon, who at the time commanded the Israeli forces in Lebanon, was reprimanded by an Israeli commission of inquiry for not having foreseen and prevented the massacre, and was forced to resign from his position as Minister of Defense. It is understandable that the Palestinians and other Arabs should lay sole blame for the massacre on Sharon. What is puzzling is that Europeans and Americans should do the same. Some even wanted to try Sharon for crimes against humanity before a tribunal in Europe. No such suggestion was made regarding either Saddam Hussein or Hafiz al-Assad, who slaughtered tens of thousands of their compatriots. It is easy to understand the bitterness of those who see the implication here. It was as if the militia who had carried out the deed were animals, not accountable by the same human standards as the Israelis."

Here's the whole article:

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/011119fa_FACT2

This is another way to describe the age-old concept of class warfare. The Achilles heel of this concept (at least one of them) is the assumption that one class of individual is inherently at war with another. The logical conclusion is that the "enemy" classes much be completely eliminated, either by getting members of the "enemy" classes to join one or more of the "allied" classes, or - as Communists and the proto-Communist French Revolution did - by physically destroying the members of those classes.

A relative few Far Leftists, Theodore Kaczynski and Johnny Muhammad being two exceptions, prefer to fight the perceived war through genocide. Many within the nonviolent majority will still excuse genocidal tactics when such are used against their enemies. South African apartheid therefore attracts greater emotion than does the Soviet gulag, even though the latter was astronomically more murderous.

The Left often supports the use of racketeering - affirmative action quotas, hate crime, hate speech crime, forced "multicultural" indoctrination, redistributionist tax policies, etc. - as a legitimate weapon in the War on Class. These people are divided int two camps. Some simply want to be able to beat up on the "wrong" classes from here to eternity. Others want to use such coercive programs for force people to convert to the "right" classes.

Oh, there's one part of the status ladder that the author forgot: all other life forms vs. humanity. The Pleistocene Liberation Organization's answer to this problem is a) vast reductions in the human population through birth control and a ban on malaria-destroying DDT, and b) an environmental apartheid program under which human access to most of the Earth is prohibited, effectively placing all people on reservations.

I'm guessing you've read Impro by Keith Johnstone.

This is so good . I can't wait to send this to some brain dead status bigots and get their reaction. Of course you realize this means the left is completely without principle if the theory holds .Wait a minute.....I just proved it to be true. Rick Johnson

Above post reminds me of something I heard back in the early 90s about getting a job.

A female was a positive;
Disabled a big plus;
Black a plus;
Same with Hispanic, as long as they used a Hispanic surname;
Oriental was a half-plus;
Alternative sexual practice was a huge plus;

Of course this is just for government and huge public (ie. extortionable) companies.

The Boomer Bible, Swarthmorons 35:5-13:

5 For any question you may wish to inquire into,
6 Just look for the Others in the vicinity of your question,
7 And develop your positions and arguments accordingly,
8 Without thinking about it at all.
9 And if one set of Others comes into conflict with another set of Others,
10 Rest assured that right is always on the side of the Others who are less white,
11 Less male,
12 Less western,
13 And less advanced technologically.

I remember years ago explaining to a friend why the Left was supporting Anita Hill over Clarence Thomas. I used the idea of "PC Points." Thomas was allotted a number for being a black man, while Hill got bonus points for being both black and a woman. Thomas was also, of course, penalized for being a conservative.

I think the PC Point concept worked, but your ladder idea might be more elegant.

Interesting observation Ken, as far as it goes. But why do you think Thomas was nominated in the first place? Could his race have had anything to do with it? Further: why is GWB so interested in appointing a Hispanic justice to the Supreme Court?

--

Stefan, I enjoyed your post, even as someone of left-center ilk, because it contains a grain of truth - but unfortunately it's a classic example of a grain of truth hamstrung by hyperbole. "Think of all the examples of public issues or controversies and how most lefties respond. They all fit into this framework. Every single one."

Really? Hmmm, let's pick a really hot public controversy... say, abortion. Certainly "fetus" is lower on the Sharky totem pole than "woman." With which do leftists cast their lot?

Likewise: "[S]o much of what the left believes in is essentially, well, comedy."

Again, really? Is it not true that women are paid less than men for the same work, or that the ultra-rich have access to certain things (say, gov't favors) that the rest of us lack? Are you not aware that it's tougher for black Americans to get medical care than it is for white Americans? If this is "comedy" to you then you're missing a hell of a drama out here in the real world.

Now I'm not trying to pick a fight. You're literate, so I'll assume you're merely being slanderous in asserting that "[s]o many on the left identify with Saddam more than they do with Bush." So many? I could as easily (and with the same degree of intellectual honesty) argue that "so many" on the right advocate a return to slavery in this country. You're obviously going to great lengths in the interest of advancing your point.

Acting on the basis of group membership is a bipartisan affair: conservatives consistently demonize all things "liberal," regardless of the nuances of the particular situation, and that was going on long before 9/11. You're doing it now. It turns out the big tent has a rather large, rather selective bouncer at the door. VIP status granted to those with off-shore tax shelters.

As to the uselessness of demographics in diagnosing societal trends: I assume you'll be coming out against racial profiling.

I suspect one reason that a Certain Sort of Leftist goes on about Sharon but ignores the Phalangists is that they simply don't know anything about it other than what they read on Electronic Intifada, or what they heard others going on about. The "received wisdom" is that "Sharon is a babykilling fascist war criminal". At that point, many people aren't going to bother to see if the RW is correct, let alone investigate what actually happened or why.

(Note please that I do limit this to a subset of the self-identified left, though it seems a large one. Perhaps because the better sorts of leftist aren't so loud and obnoxious about it... maybe they should speak up more. Also note that there are Certain Sorts of Rightist as well, and they probably have similar weaknesses. It seems to me, however, that more of the Rest of the Right speaks out against their idiocy.)

(PS. tgt: You still believe that old NOW canard about women making less doing the same work? Maybe within 5%. Once the data are adjusted for job experience, the Horrible And Awful Wage Gap That Proves Patriarchy Keeps Women Down... goes away. If you ignore things like actual job experience and just go by age-of-employee, you get an apparent gap. Something to do with those women who do take time off to start families, it's said.)

tgt: You say, "I could as easily (and with the same degree of intellectual honesty) argue that "so many" on the right advocate a return to slavery in this country." Really? Who in particular on the "right" has said or done anything that would suggest this is remotely true?

On the other hand, I recall two Democrat congressmen taking a little trip to Baghdad a few months ago. That seems to me to justify to some degree the statement "[s]o many on the left identify with Saddam more than they do with Bush."

It would be so great if Condi Rice ran for President in 2008. Leftists' brains would hurt from trying to figure out what the party line should be on a female, black, and, er, attractive spinster Republican.

hurrain:

Well, to keep this fair I'll leave Trent Lott's recent meltdown out of it.

At the time, I was referring to stuff like this. A small excerpt:

Many groups defend slavery, as well. "No apologies for slavery should be made," is the way that Hill puts it. "Christians who owned slaves in the South were on firm scriptural ground," League members Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson add in their pamphlet, Southern Slavery: As it Was. Or, as LOS member and Washington Times national reporter Robert Stacy McCain says in an essay posted on the League’s main site, slavery was "generally" characterized by "cordial and affectionate relations" between white and black Southerners.

Now that's obviously not a majority view, but it's one held by some who call themselves conservatives.