“Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

-Frederic Bastiat, on socialists

Kat:

You were outraged that Daniel suggested that “liberals believe humans are infinitely perfectable” and then you go and say almost the exact same thing in your last sentence.

Wow, I must have missed the memo. Thanks for letting me know what I’m supposed to believe as a liberal.

Fortunately, neither I nor any other liberal I’ve ever met believes that. People are fallible, and the evidence of that is all around us. (And by the way, your blanket assertion that liberals are communists is both laughable and insulting.) We strive to improve the flaws of society–we cherish no illusions about eliminating them.

I am a religious woman, albeit not of the same religion as you. I believe in a messiah, although not the same one as you do. I also believe that the messiah will not come unless we prove that we as humanity are trying to fix our own problems. God is extending a hand to us…but unless we reach out to take it, what good will it do? The messiah won’t perfect us unless we make the attempt to perfect ourselves first.

A. All I am saying is that no matter what level of education and awareness is achieved, there will still be some level of sexual violence. To set the compete 100% eradication of sexual violence from campus as the timeframe during which we operate under a looser standard for Catholic identity is to set a standard that is impossible to meet.

B. What we see here is an example of a fundamental liberal-conservative difference in worldview. Liberals believe humans are infinitely perfectable. Hence, they believe the end of communism is no government, communism if done right would work, and international law will keep the bad guys from misbehaving.
Conservatives, on the other hand, recognize the fallen and self-interested nature of man. Thus, we believe strongly in law-and-order, we support capitalism because it aligns incentives with self-interest, and we support a strong military to keep the bad guys at bay.

C. I still think there is a fundamental distinction between academic and awareness that too many people are missing here. If this is about student awareness of sexual violence on campus, then it should be sponsored by HAVEN or something, it should be tested under the Catholic identity standards on the North side of Wisconsin Avenue, and the debate is whether this is an appropriate vehicle for raising awareness. If this is about an academic discussion, then an academic department should sponsor it, the South side of WI Ave standards apply, and the debate is about the contours of academic freedom.

D. The shock in your voice is typical of the emotional appeal liberals make in response to logical argument. For instance, at the fall semester debate on the Wisconsin Marriage Amendment, one woman got up during the Q&A and stated her opinion that homosexuals contribute nothing to the race. Mike Tate, from Fair WI, responded by inciting an agitated emotional outcry from his supporters in the crowd. He played the emotion card, rather than taking her point intellectually and responding that marriage is (or at least ought to be) about love and committment, not about procreation and the continuation of the species.

I’m sorry. I misquoted the V-day website.

Rebuttal: Are you telling me you are against stopping violence against women?

Of course not, but there are probably 1000 better ways to make a difference.

Newspaper headline in the year 2013:

“We did it! Violence ends!”