At various times, I’ve rolled out my rule about interpreting statements by liberals regarding non-liberals. That rule is the title of this post and it goes like this. Take whatever they say, assume the opposite and you will get close to the truth. When liberals said the Tea Party was “AstroTurf” and liberal groups were genuine grassroots, you would flip it around to mean their gang was a rent-a-mob and the weirdos in the 17th century outfits were regular folks pissed off and making some noise. That was in fact the case. The Left has well funded “volunteer” operations to bus in protesters when needed. Often they are paid by their union, like we saw in Wisconsin with the teacher unions. It is a form of projections, for the most part, but in politics it is a way to shift the focus away from whatever crooked stuff their doing. One of the oldest tricks in politics is to falsely accuse your opponent of something. That way the story is about him denying it, not about you.

A great example of this comes from a post by Steve Sailer. For as long as I’ve been alive, there have been theories about why there is a left and right in American politics. All of these theories claim the mantel of science and all of them come from the Left. Non-liberals simply accept the fact that people hold different opinions and philosophical outlooks. Liberals are always looking to prove they are not crazy. The formula goes like this. They assign to themselves qualities they wish they possessed, but don’t. “Open minded” always makes the list along with “smart” and “unconventional.” Who would not want to be a smart, open minded guy who is a little off-beat? Gosh that sounds just like the protagonist of every cool TV show and movie!

Then they usually assign some bad qualities to the mythical right-winger or conservative. I’ll note that liberals have a long list of words for non-liberal. You never hear liberals talk about the differences between libertarians and paleo-cons or neo-cons and paloes. To the liberal, they are part of the undifferentiated other on the other side of the wall. In some cases, they avoid this ploy and instead rely on their cartoon version of the conservative, which is usually a blend of the 1950′s sitcom dad and a prison guard. That’s what we see here. The conservative is highly disciplined, socially connected and pragmatic. That’s pretty much Ward Cleaver in a nutshell.

Once the basic descriptions are established, they lard it up with pseudo-science and rotten statistics. In a prior age, they would have psychiatrists put their stamp of approval on it. Today, the fake nerd is all the rage on the left so they conjure up a few characters from stats heavy social sciences. “82.5% of people with a standard deviation of….” Almost always a little digging finds that Doctor Nick Riviera relied on a handful of grad students he paid to answer some questions. But, he was kind enough to lard it up with jargon so the lefty can claim it is science.

Now, let’s look at the list of qualities that are allegedly liberal. Liberals are the most dogmatic people with very narrow opinions on just about everything. Open minded is, unsurprisingly, the exact opposite of a liberal. They think that by embracing things that normal people don’t like, that makes them open minded. In fact, it is the opposite. Liberals wall off a wide range of options for themselves because they are considered taboo or conventional. The fact that they tend to dress alike and repeat the same things should be a clue. Similarly, they never engage in unconventional thought, if that means non-liberal thought. When was the last time a liberal surprised you with a non-liberal opinion on something? When was the last time the NYTimes was unpredictable? Liberalism may be a fringe religion, but it has its conventions and relentlessly lashes the adherents so they conform.

The third one on the list is one of my favorites. Put a liberal in a room full of non-liberals and they become a shrinking violet. Reverse the roles and the liberals will harangue the non-liberal like a group of Crips attacking a Chinese delivery guy. Liberals congregate like all herd animals. They seek protection in numbers. It is why they are over represented in politics, soft-sciences and journalism. These are activities best done in groups. They are also high conformity activities which appeals to the hive mind. Activities like sports and soldiering have few liberals as they are not consensus driven. Success is easily measured and individual competition is integral to the activity. A rootless loner can be a great soldier, but a lousy English professor.

There you have an expanded definition of the Opposite Rule of Liberalism.