Why the Modern Left is So Dysfunctional: Base Cases vs. Edge Cases
If you’re not a software engineer, the terms “base case” and “edge case” may not be familiar to you. Yet and still, don’t be surprised if something clicks for you the second you see this tweet:
If we were coming up with a list of things wrong with the way that liberals approach the world, it would not be a short list.
Liberals are overly emotional, love being victims, are pro-censorship, insert politics into everything, are hypersensitive, incredibly shortsighted, and prone to narcissistic bouts of entitlement.
However, if you were picking one of the worst traits of liberals, because of the way it creates chaos all around them, the Left’s embrace of “edge cases” would be high on the list as well. The way we’re going to use these terms doesn’t line up perfectly with the way they’re used in coding, but conceptually, you’ll be able to see how relevant they are to modern politics. Kudos to Nick Walker who is the very first person I have ever seen categorize this in such a useful way.
Before we get into this further, let’s define base and edge cases so we’re all on the same page:
...Base cases are the simplest and most fundamental cases of a problem. Edge cases are specific, unusual cases of a problem that will cause the algorithm or system to break.
Granted, we can be certain that even the Founding Fathers believed that every policy shouldn’t be based solely on what’s best for the majority. That’s why they created America as a Representative Republic that has certain rules in place designed to protect the rights of the minority instead of just a pure democracy, which they found abhorrent.
Yet and still, for a society to thrive, the rules of that society need to be centered around doing the most good for the most people. A society that turns that principle on its head to constantly cater to minorities of the population at the expense of the majority is by default going to be an unjust, dysfunctional society.
There are countless examples of this kind of dysfunction that we can point to in modern America:
* If you give some minority groups jobs they didn’t earn by merit via Affirmative Action or DEI, by definition you must discriminate against members of more successful minority groups and more deserving non-minorities to do it.
* If you refuse to punish the guilty, by definition you’re helping them to get away with crimes against the innocent. Every Soros DA that allows a criminal to go unpunished is in effect, punishing the victim.
* If you let a man pretend to be a woman, it means you are signing off on allowing men to menace women in prisons, take their limited spots on sports teams, and share private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers with women.
* When you endorse the idea of the whole world learning some loony’s ever-changing personalized pronouns or made-up gender rather than just expecting them to adapt to the world, you are inconveniencing everyone else to do it.
* When you allow homeless people to set up tents on public sidewalks, crap in the street and do drugs without consequence, you are punishing regular citizens by making that area disgusting and dangerous to walk through.
* When you allow left-wing rioters to loot, burn, and riot at will or alternately, block the roads, you are subverting everyone else’s rights to allow them to have their tantrums.
* If you allow illegal aliens to break the law to enter the country, the costs of having them here are passed on to law-abiding Americans.
* When you waive people’s college loans, you’re asking all other taxpayers to pay for giving them a free ride they didn’t earn or deserve.
Incidentally, there are countless examples of the last sort we could go into.
As the late, great Rush Limbaugh said:
Of course, that’s exactly it.
Liberals feel sorry for a group, think it will benefit them somehow to help a group at other people’s expense, or think it’s trendy to champion that group, and suddenly, all the rules have to be changed and bent to make it easier for the “chosen ones.” Of course, not just anyone can potentially be one of these people that liberals think all the rules should be broken to help:
For example, liberals aren’t going to be turning society on its head to help taxpayers who live in conservative areas, evangelical Christians, cops, or poor, white, rural MAGA voters because they don’t like them and don’t benefit from helping them. Those are the sort of people who are supposed to throw themselves down in the mud so liberals can feel good about themselves for telling their chosen groups to walk right over them without getting their feet dirty.
Ultimately, what this does is it replaces the ideas of “merit” and societies trying to serve the needs of most people with the whims of the elite. Usually, the lame excuses for this revolve around “fairness,” but what could be less fair than abandoning merit for “They should get what they want because I feel sorry for them?” There’s no way to make everything perfectly fair or to perfectly identify merit, but it’s a much more worthwhile goal than just picking winners and losers based on feelings.
It’s far better to try to live by “nobody is above the law” than “They should be able to do whatever they want because I agree with them politically,” but the latter is where liberals are at. “Let the best man win” beats “I like the person that came in 5th better than the person that came in first, so give them the gold medal.” The moment a society moves from a cooperative endeavor that rewards excellence to, “he who is the best at pretending to be a victim wins,” it’s destined for disaster.
I always admire the way you turn my inchoate thoughts and unwieldy syntax into perfectly clear, succinct and sensible characterizations of exactly the way I see it.
Liberals, or more precisely far left progressive liberals are pathologically insecure and afflicted with such low self-esteem, that they can't stand to see anyone or any group excel, or prove to be of benefit to the majority. These poor empty loons with almost nothing to offer that benefits anyone must defend and extol their fellow loonies above all else, just so they don't feel so alone.
Exactly, and thank you, John. The narcissistic actions of progressives are beyond ridiculous because they are so destructive. To use an alternate analysis, when you burn up energy, money and suppress or punish skill and hard work, you're diverting valuable resources and preventing actual good from being done. It's the polycentricity argument; because what could and should have been done is not; instead fringe issues of dubious and limited benefit are pursued. It is a wasteful form of evil and stupidity that disgusts me, because its so needless and counter productive. Why can't people just learn to say no? I suspect demonic influence; call me a crackpot but come see me on Judgment day...