re: #287 LeftyRambles2413 (HappyWarrior)

They’re not trying to make sense. Not making sense is the point. Prager and people like him long for a system in which they have vaguely-defined intellectual and socio-political “authority” that people don’t question, such that both “what is right” and “what is true” are not properties of a structured thought, but is handed down. One of the big things Prager pushes is lack of gratitude, and what he means by it is…deference to authority figures; specifically never getting angry or questioning their motives.

Ultimately he’s going to complain about any standard that suggests HE and his fellow authoritarians should limit how they can behave, because that’s an inversion of the natural order in which they are axiomatic Right (moral) and Right (correct).

Which is why the right is festooned with quacks and pseudointellectual buskers; because the very premise of “listen uncritically to your betters” is a petri dish for people who can pull of superficial performance of authority: looking right, speaking well, making people feel comfortable.

As always, there is less than meets the eye to these folks. There’s a bolus of strong emotional impressions that they’re either scared to say aloud—simply announcing “I am one of the better kinds of people and you should submit” won’t get the desired results—or live so deeply in lack of self-awareness that they don’t notice how they change out all the pieces of their ideology.