For a brief second in time, objective truth emerged from Joe Biden’s lips the other day. He declared that the current faltering economy “belongs to us, not Bush.”
Does this make Joe Biden a terrorist? After all, it’s the same thing the Tea Party claims. And according to Joe Biden, the Tea Party is made up of terrorists.
The issue is more than sarcasm and politics here. It’s deeper than that. It goes to the heart of what liberalism and socialism are about. Liberalism and socialism flow from the ideology of subjectivism. Subjectivism is the idea that truth lies in the feelings of the feeler, in the construction of reality by the perceiver. Karl Marx is full of subjectivism, as are the articles, books and polemics of all the heroes of the liberal and socialist movement since Marx.
Subjectivism explains why Joe Biden and other liberals feel that people opposed to liberalism, seemingly on principle, are terrorists. To a liberal, the truth is what he feels it to be. As a result, when somebody comes up with strong statements hostile to liberalism, the liberal experiences this as a threat. It’s more than a false belief, “Somebody disagrees with me, and that’s a catastrophe.” This is a false belief that anyone, conservative, liberal, or anything else could experience — in a context in or out of politics and philosophy. But to a genuine subjectivist, as all professional political liberals are by definition, opposition and dissension threaten their whole view of reality.
According to psychiatry and psychology, there’s a personality called the “borderline personality.” A borderline personality is somebody who holds the ideology of subjectivism, and is mortally threatened by any opposition or dissension to what his or her emotions claim to be true. “I feel it, therefore it’s true.” This is true of many psychologically troubled people who are not borderline. What makes the borderline distinct is that the borderline is righteous and committed to his or her subjectivism. And if you stand in the way of any of the borderline’s feelings –watch out! Spouses, parents, children and other significant others of the borderline personality suffer greatly because they’re dealing with a person who’s almost constantly angry and righteous. Years ago, a woman (a borderline) came to my office. She declared, “Your policy of requiring 48 hours notice for a cancelled appointment makes me uncomfortable. That doesn’t feel right to me. I don’t accept it.” She made this statement calmly, and as a matter of self-evident fact. I replied with equal calmness, “Then unfortunately we cannot work together. This is my policy to make, and of course it’s yours to accept or reject. But I’m not changing it, and I’m not changing it just for you.” To put it mildly, she left in a huff, threatening to have this incident put in my “permanent record.” I never quite figured out what she meant by that, but I don’t really care.
The liberals who dominate our government, media and intellectual establishment are mostly borderline personalities, at least in the context of their politics. (I include most Republican politicians in this group, by the way.) This is why they are threatened in the extreme with any form of dissension. They scream against the George Bushes of the world, not because George W. Bush offered any principled opposition — he was with them on the welfare state, the bailout, and much else — but merely because he’s partisan opposition. The Tea Party sends liberals and socialists into something beyond a rage, because the Tea Party, while contradictory and imperfect, represents an attitude of principled opposition not only to all things Obama, but to all things Bush, McCain and Romney. Rick Perry, while no spokesman for the Tea Party given his idiotic views on matters such as immigration, in-state tuition, and using government coercion to raise children, sends liberals into a mind-numbing rage when he dares to suggest that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, which it is (only much worse). Socialism is based on a gigantic lie, a lie whose evidence is all around us in the form of a worsening economy. But in the minds and hearts of liberals, socialism is The Truth. The Truth is out there, as that 1990s television series “The X Files” used to proclaim. Actually, when applied to liberal subjectivists, a better expression is, “The Truth is in here.”
Borderline personalities go through life perpetually angry because people question “their truth.” Unlike other irrational people, they feel entitled to the acceptance of “their truth” by others, and become angry when they don’t get it. This leads to the manipulation, deceit and intimidation they foist on those around them, at every turn. Ask anyone who knows, or is related to a borderline personality, and they’ll tell you. As for examples of manipulation, deceit and intimidation in the world of politics and government, you need only turn on the news.
Joe Biden is nothing more than an insignificant form of comic relief — a modern day Court Jester — in the current decline of the American economy and republic. But when he accused opponents of being terrorists, he knew of what he spoke. To a liberal or a socialist, if you disagree with them, you ARE a terrorist. They feel it to be an act of injustice — even an act of force — to suggest that none of their views conform with reality, with facts, or rationality. This is why liberal socialists are the political equivalent of borderline personalities.