"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed." -Ayn Rand
Never thought I'd agree with Ayn Rand, how horrid. But that quote pretty much sums up the Western world and in particular the US. We live in different times from Mr. Burke, and we don't have time to evolve (slowly) from this system of the elites, by the elite, for the elites into one of the people, by the people, for the people.
Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with. -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
That corruption has certainly been and continues to be the game. But the internet, in fits and starts, is fixing it... Just as the printing press took the last great leap forward, for religion, science, government, etc.
It works that way because at each end you have blinders for your stage in life. Naivete of youth gives way to the scars of experience and overdoing the correction, pulling into one's shell and worrying only about oneself, as if that's the magical Randian cure. Neither gives the bigger picture, balanced view of life that should inform politics.
The most consistent and fundamental difference between Left and Right (certainly in the last hundred or so years) is that the Left prioritizes social functioning and power, the Right prioritizes individual functioning and power. For healthy societies, that means they are *both right*, and each should receive due respect. All the other winner-take-all BS that each side plays reflects the arts of war, not diplomacy.
The support for each side should wax and wane depending on current societal circumstances. And in fact that's exactly what happens, historically. But rather than leaving choices to the "undecideds", no voter should have qualms switching when the time is right. However, we foolishly say at one point in time, Good/Smart is winning when "our" side is on top, but Bad/Stupid is winning when it's "their" side. The only true exception is when the public is not civic-educated and informed, and so their choices are based on false awareness (on both sides).
The left/right paradigm is a deliberate trap that no one should ever fall prey to because it always devolves in an extraordinarily effective form of mind control:
----
Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas. This is why Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. The human mind is binary. Our thought process can often be boiled down into terms (often ultimatums) of – this or that – and our adversaries understand - very well - the art of this war.
They know that politicization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences.
These are extremely damaging and misfortunate exploits of human nature. Worse, these exploits are as easy to activate as flipping a light switch for the majority of the population - and they are currently being employed to their maximum effect. Excerpt from https://tritorch.com/folly
---
Two party political systems always devolve into the above. Three+ party systems do as well via coalitions. Ultimately politics is mind control, and it is no accident that political parties are formed all over the world in order to exploit this binary thinking.
"Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas."
Forget advocacy -- *teach* people not to pine for saviors of either type, and instead solve political problems, not personal problems. That's what the public sphere is about.
"Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. "
Stop worrying about *corruption* and start worrying about education. Both Left and Right parties can do equal, constructive work on the dimensions I mentioned -- social and individual. As I mentioned, that's already taking place as an "invisible hand of politics", but we don't recognize it as such.
"[P]oliticization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences."
Fully agreed. But it's dysfunctional, and wholly unnecessary. The parties have (perpetually) devolved into corruption *primarily* because our education system is (and is increasingly) inadequate to the task. Education is our real target, both home and school. And that first takes a renewed awareness of the full range of options, by we the experienced.
"Ultimately politics is mind control"
If you think this state of affairs is necessary, then I must say that's about as cynical as it gets. If we think the size and complexity of modern civ will be cured by each going it alone, we're in trouble.
""If you think this state of affairs is necessary, then I must say that's about as cynical as it gets. If we think the size and complexity of modern civ will be cured by each going it alone, we're in trouble.""
It very much is mind control for all of the reasons I mentioned. The way out is education, we agree. Mandatory classes on civics, critical thinking, logical fallacies, and the bias spectrum should be taught every year from k-12.
Limited collectivism and the rule of law are necessary for civilization to function but the moment the balance tips too far it becomes tyranny. We are here and going further down that rabbit hole all of the time.
The 'implements that preserve peace and freedom' are never unassailable and incorruptible pockets of isolated power. Rather they are easily influenced and manipulated by outside forces, or indeed, by their own natural, organic, self-emergent forces of decay.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -George Washington
These same political implements that have the power to preserve your peace and freedom, also have the power to take them away.
"It very much is mind control for all of the reasons I mentioned.
I didn't disagree. I said only that this mind control in politics - this treatment of human beings as object -- is completely unnecessary. It's sociopathic.
" 'Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.' -George Washington"
Exactly. Teach children how to become its masters. But this does not preclude people coalescing into political parties based on their perceived priorities.
"Limited collectivism and the rule of law are necessary for civilization to function but the moment the balance tips too far it becomes tyranny. We are here and going further down that rabbit hole all of the time."
Agreed, but limited freedom is also required. That's in fact what happens when gov sets a measured framework (appropriate laws) to *allow*, say, a "free market" to operate. Because although you allow freedom, you *also* need fairness (which is a Leftist concept, btw). Otherwise it's Mad Max warlords, which many thoughtful Leftists argue exists today in many realms.
Accordingly, some level of gov is absolutely necessary, and so the word/concept "government" need not (should not) be demonized. After all, it's (ostensibly) us, "We the People".
Too much "freedom" is license, or anarchy. What is needed is self discipline and limits, even as adults. License is just as destructive as tyranny. I think justice, unmodified, is a better term there; "fairness" implies equal outcomes,and that cannot happen, with a collection of uniquely created and endowed human beings, nor was such ever intended, hence the uniqueness. Were we intended to have "equal" outcomes, we would be "cookie cutter" beings, without variation, one from another.
And today we see few who understand civics and are quite ill-informed. We see biased agendas and feckless politicians on both sides. Greed, our constant companion.
By 1986 the saying had implausibly moved to the lips of Winston Churchill as indicated by the following excerpt from the “The Hartford Courant” of Hartford, Connecticut:[19]
Winston S. Churchill supposedly once observed that anyone who was not a liberal at 20 years of age had no heart, while anyone who was still a liberal at 40 had no head. If there’s any truth to the observation, one wonders what to make of today’s college students.
In 2013 the political scientist Corey Robin wrote an engaging article in “The Chronicle Review” that discussed the perplexity of wrongly attributed statements and used the quotation being examined here as an example of the problem.[20]
In conclusion, the earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a letter written by Anselme Batbie in 1872. Significantly, Batbie credited the remark to “Burke”, probably Edmund Burke. QI has not yet located this expression in the writings of Burke, and it is possible that Burke’s changing political behavior inspired the saying and not his words. —https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head
The programming that's going on, the wokeness, the unrelenting messages from the cabal, the confusing political mash, and the like makes me think back to Pearl S. Buck's classic novel, The Good Earth. When the main character, a farmer, gets married and they begin to generate surplus over the survival level, he drifts into town and virtually lives in an opium den. The former farmer loses touch with the relationship with nature that sustained him and brought him true wealth. In the end, he loses his fortune and is back on his land where he started.
While in western countries we live with "plenty," a lot of it now is empty and synthetic food for body and brain. We have used our surplus in order to produce that which is degenerated in nature. In our relative, historically brief period of wealth, we have become disconnected from the web of life--and instead become enmeshed in a tangle of alluring, synthetic food-like products and empty, AI quality thought-propaganda laced with lust and greed, with no grounding in healthy, life-sustaining physical principles.
We now dine on the lies of disconnection, and the result of consuming these empty food-like substances and thoughts is the inevitable: dis-ease and decline. The quest for the perfect philosophy or political program is a trap. We need to, as John Prine advised, blow up our TV's and plant a garden for mind and body. This is both literal and metaphorical homespun truth. We redeem ourselves with good honest work and relying on ourselves and our neighbors, declining the teat of government overlords.
”Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.“
I still remember sitting back and almost laughing while I realized that all my democrat friends were cheering on censorship, supporting pharmaceutical mandates, embracing critical race theory, championing war, and completely fine with the economic transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest corporations in existence. If someone had told me this would be happening ten or twenty years ago, I would have laughed in their face.
At the same time, I saw republicans voting for a man that hung out with Hollywood elites, cheated on his former wife (and wrote about it), had sex with a prostitute (probably more than one if we are not being naive), found loopholes so he didn’t have to pay taxes, and bragged about groping women, and then said republicans defended him while he shut down the country economically, suspended the constitution by declaring emergency powers, and authored Operation Warp Speed.
The world no longer makes sense.
Basically, if you’re tell a democratic that it’s for the good of the whole, and/or because it’s what good people do, they are all in. If you tell a republican it’s for freedom and/or it’s what God wants, they are all in. There’s obviously nuance in there but the pattern is pretty strong. I think corporate media has been brainwashing these thought patterns into viewers for decades so they go undetected by the person who is programmed by it. Want proof? Sit a democrat down in front of Fox News and they can see the BS. Sit a Republican down in front of CNN and they can see the BS. Put them in front of their preferred network and they can no longer see it.
Exactly. The only way to find out about the dirty little secrets of "your" side -- because they always exist -- is to simultaneously, constantly, and with an open mind, listen to the "other" side, too. And there are not just two sides, there are often many of them. Only then do you step out of Plato's (Dem or Rep) cave and start building a 3-D perspective of the world,
True. I accidentally red-pilled myself because I thought that if I want to advocate for something politically, I should probably understand the other/opposing viewpoints on that issue and not just listen to straw-man arguments. Bam! independent media. And lots of it from a variety of sources. It's the only way to talk about ideas instead of just getting your ego stroked.
Be warned, everyone: Substack makes it very difficult for you to know that you ALREADY subscribed to a given author/writer's material. It caused me to subscribe again (because you'll see the message "Upgrade to Paid". Then it's impossible to see in their system that you have several subscriptions to the same author/writer. I only figured it out when I saw it in my bank account. And there is no customer service to contact--only self service questions & answers. In retrospect, I realize that when I saw "Upgrade to Paid", I assumed I hadn't already subscribed, so after subscribing again, I now have several yearly subscriptions along with monthly subscriptions for various writers who I wanted to support. I'm not certain what will happen when I "cancel my subscription" (the only given option). Will both of my subscriptions disappear? Their lack of customer service tends to screw us over. Copy and paste this into other messages so hopefully they'll make their platform more user friendly.
It is easy to see. Substack tells you who you are paying for and who is free. You have to go down to the bottom of the SUVs page to stop receiving content.
The clearest understanding of the so-called political spectrum comes from taking "the world's smallest political quiz". There are several versions, but the original still serves well. Take one minute out of your day and find out where you really stand. Easily found with whatever search engine you're using.
Thanks for recalling Burke. I wonder whether the debate about the revolution in France is taught in American high schools or even universities any more. But it’s fundamental to anchoring youthful enthusiasms.
This article's subtitle says "Lack of clarity causes needless quarreling". Reading some of the comments (which I wish I hadn't), it should have said "Lack of civility causes bitter quarreling, which is bad for the quarrelers and the witnesses alike".
John, a point I would like to contribute to the discussion is that the current Leftist version of the Right is quite incorrect and a total fabrication designed to demonize and confuse. Communists and Fascists who were at war with each other in Europe (and were and are still both socialist Leftists. The true people on the Right are the Capitalists—those who believe in economic liberty and freedom of individual commerce and wealth generation. But the Left has demonized the Rightists as being "fascist or nazi-like" in order to smear those are the Left's real threat and real enemy. I recommend the book The Big Lie, Dinesh D'Souza.
The reality today is not as so much Left versus Right but Globalist vs Nationalist.
Capitalist corporations & big banks have captured political parties in the West, fomented national and global monopolies/cartels, and rigged the market to be very far from free so they're hardly your definition of Right. The amount of $ spent on corporate propagandad and its ownership of much MSM, too big to fail/allow new entrants, and inherited wealth/dynastic wealth are 100% at odds with the idea of free wealth generation
LS indeed—no end to crony corruption. But You dont kill capitalism and embrace communism because of corruption, you fix it by creating laws that chain mega corporations and the immoral impulses down. This is exactly why God gave us ten commandments to both restrain us and to live by. Man is incapable of complete freedom without law which is why libertarianism cannot work, imo. Thnk you.
Excellent article, John! It is quite clear which political party in the United States is ACTUALLY the one that wants to "rule with an iron fist" over all of us, and not allow any dissent or difference of opinion whatsoever. Yet they called their own side the "tolerant" ones. It's all fake. They LOVE being dictators.
If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain --Edmund Burke
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed." -Ayn Rand
Never thought I'd agree with Ayn Rand, how horrid. But that quote pretty much sums up the Western world and in particular the US. We live in different times from Mr. Burke, and we don't have time to evolve (slowly) from this system of the elites, by the elite, for the elites into one of the people, by the people, for the people.
Adore Ayn Rand...What exactly is SO horrid about her or her ability to cut through all the B.S. and place reality on the table?
QUITE OBSERVANT WOMAN and somebody now viewed as prophetic.
World is now filled with the 'comfortably numb' demanding no interruption.
"There are none so blind as those who refuse to see and none so stupid as those who will not learn. John Haywoodin"
Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with. -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
No wonder they demonize her so much.
That corruption has certainly been and continues to be the game. But the internet, in fits and starts, is fixing it... Just as the printing press took the last great leap forward, for religion, science, government, etc.
It works that way because at each end you have blinders for your stage in life. Naivete of youth gives way to the scars of experience and overdoing the correction, pulling into one's shell and worrying only about oneself, as if that's the magical Randian cure. Neither gives the bigger picture, balanced view of life that should inform politics.
The most consistent and fundamental difference between Left and Right (certainly in the last hundred or so years) is that the Left prioritizes social functioning and power, the Right prioritizes individual functioning and power. For healthy societies, that means they are *both right*, and each should receive due respect. All the other winner-take-all BS that each side plays reflects the arts of war, not diplomacy.
The support for each side should wax and wane depending on current societal circumstances. And in fact that's exactly what happens, historically. But rather than leaving choices to the "undecideds", no voter should have qualms switching when the time is right. However, we foolishly say at one point in time, Good/Smart is winning when "our" side is on top, but Bad/Stupid is winning when it's "their" side. The only true exception is when the public is not civic-educated and informed, and so their choices are based on false awareness (on both sides).
The left/right paradigm is a deliberate trap that no one should ever fall prey to because it always devolves in an extraordinarily effective form of mind control:
----
Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas. This is why Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. The human mind is binary. Our thought process can often be boiled down into terms (often ultimatums) of – this or that – and our adversaries understand - very well - the art of this war.
They know that politicization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences.
These are extremely damaging and misfortunate exploits of human nature. Worse, these exploits are as easy to activate as flipping a light switch for the majority of the population - and they are currently being employed to their maximum effect. Excerpt from https://tritorch.com/folly
---
Two party political systems always devolve into the above. Three+ party systems do as well via coalitions. Ultimately politics is mind control, and it is no accident that political parties are formed all over the world in order to exploit this binary thinking.
"Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas."
Forget advocacy -- *teach* people not to pine for saviors of either type, and instead solve political problems, not personal problems. That's what the public sphere is about.
"Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. "
Stop worrying about *corruption* and start worrying about education. Both Left and Right parties can do equal, constructive work on the dimensions I mentioned -- social and individual. As I mentioned, that's already taking place as an "invisible hand of politics", but we don't recognize it as such.
"[P]oliticization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences."
Fully agreed. But it's dysfunctional, and wholly unnecessary. The parties have (perpetually) devolved into corruption *primarily* because our education system is (and is increasingly) inadequate to the task. Education is our real target, both home and school. And that first takes a renewed awareness of the full range of options, by we the experienced.
"Ultimately politics is mind control"
If you think this state of affairs is necessary, then I must say that's about as cynical as it gets. If we think the size and complexity of modern civ will be cured by each going it alone, we're in trouble.
"Ultimately politics is mind control"
""If you think this state of affairs is necessary, then I must say that's about as cynical as it gets. If we think the size and complexity of modern civ will be cured by each going it alone, we're in trouble.""
It very much is mind control for all of the reasons I mentioned. The way out is education, we agree. Mandatory classes on civics, critical thinking, logical fallacies, and the bias spectrum should be taught every year from k-12.
Why are these classes no longer taught? Because political action has stripped civics from the curriculum because civics strips political action of its power. Here is how to solve it: https://tritorch.substack.com/p/apathy-is-the-fire-in-which-we-burn
Limited collectivism and the rule of law are necessary for civilization to function but the moment the balance tips too far it becomes tyranny. We are here and going further down that rabbit hole all of the time.
The 'implements that preserve peace and freedom' are never unassailable and incorruptible pockets of isolated power. Rather they are easily influenced and manipulated by outside forces, or indeed, by their own natural, organic, self-emergent forces of decay.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -George Washington
These same political implements that have the power to preserve your peace and freedom, also have the power to take them away.
"Why are these classes no longer taught? Because political action has stripped civics from the curriculum because civics strips political action of its power. Here is how to solve it: https://tritorch.substack.com/p/apathy-is-the-fire-in-which-we-burn"
Agreed.
"It very much is mind control for all of the reasons I mentioned.
I didn't disagree. I said only that this mind control in politics - this treatment of human beings as object -- is completely unnecessary. It's sociopathic.
" 'Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.' -George Washington"
Exactly. Teach children how to become its masters. But this does not preclude people coalescing into political parties based on their perceived priorities.
Ah my apologies, agreed.
"Limited collectivism and the rule of law are necessary for civilization to function but the moment the balance tips too far it becomes tyranny. We are here and going further down that rabbit hole all of the time."
Agreed, but limited freedom is also required. That's in fact what happens when gov sets a measured framework (appropriate laws) to *allow*, say, a "free market" to operate. Because although you allow freedom, you *also* need fairness (which is a Leftist concept, btw). Otherwise it's Mad Max warlords, which many thoughtful Leftists argue exists today in many realms.
Accordingly, some level of gov is absolutely necessary, and so the word/concept "government" need not (should not) be demonized. After all, it's (ostensibly) us, "We the People".
Too much "freedom" is license, or anarchy. What is needed is self discipline and limits, even as adults. License is just as destructive as tyranny. I think justice, unmodified, is a better term there; "fairness" implies equal outcomes,and that cannot happen, with a collection of uniquely created and endowed human beings, nor was such ever intended, hence the uniqueness. Were we intended to have "equal" outcomes, we would be "cookie cutter" beings, without variation, one from another.
And today we see few who understand civics and are quite ill-informed. We see biased agendas and feckless politicians on both sides. Greed, our constant companion.
Actually, Winston Churchill said that.
Not according to the Quote Investigator:
---
By 1986 the saying had implausibly moved to the lips of Winston Churchill as indicated by the following excerpt from the “The Hartford Courant” of Hartford, Connecticut:[19]
Winston S. Churchill supposedly once observed that anyone who was not a liberal at 20 years of age had no heart, while anyone who was still a liberal at 40 had no head. If there’s any truth to the observation, one wonders what to make of today’s college students.
In 2013 the political scientist Corey Robin wrote an engaging article in “The Chronicle Review” that discussed the perplexity of wrongly attributed statements and used the quotation being examined here as an example of the problem.[20]
In conclusion, the earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a letter written by Anselme Batbie in 1872. Significantly, Batbie credited the remark to “Burke”, probably Edmund Burke. QI has not yet located this expression in the writings of Burke, and it is possible that Burke’s changing political behavior inspired the saying and not his words. —https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head
Edmund Burke - Those who have been intoxicated with power…can never willingly abandon it.
The only cure is a public hanging.
The programming that's going on, the wokeness, the unrelenting messages from the cabal, the confusing political mash, and the like makes me think back to Pearl S. Buck's classic novel, The Good Earth. When the main character, a farmer, gets married and they begin to generate surplus over the survival level, he drifts into town and virtually lives in an opium den. The former farmer loses touch with the relationship with nature that sustained him and brought him true wealth. In the end, he loses his fortune and is back on his land where he started.
While in western countries we live with "plenty," a lot of it now is empty and synthetic food for body and brain. We have used our surplus in order to produce that which is degenerated in nature. In our relative, historically brief period of wealth, we have become disconnected from the web of life--and instead become enmeshed in a tangle of alluring, synthetic food-like products and empty, AI quality thought-propaganda laced with lust and greed, with no grounding in healthy, life-sustaining physical principles.
We now dine on the lies of disconnection, and the result of consuming these empty food-like substances and thoughts is the inevitable: dis-ease and decline. The quest for the perfect philosophy or political program is a trap. We need to, as John Prine advised, blow up our TV's and plant a garden for mind and body. This is both literal and metaphorical homespun truth. We redeem ourselves with good honest work and relying on ourselves and our neighbors, declining the teat of government overlords.
”Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.“
Isaiah 55:1-2 ESV
The Marxist professors? Perhaps that explains why college campuses have become one giant dumpster fire.
Marxist professors are definitely a main reason for the college campus dumpster fire...as are English departments: https://projectluminas.substack.com/p/ncte-and-the-doublespeak-award-professionalized
The spectrum is not left vs. right. It's government authoritarianism vs. personal freedom.
I still remember sitting back and almost laughing while I realized that all my democrat friends were cheering on censorship, supporting pharmaceutical mandates, embracing critical race theory, championing war, and completely fine with the economic transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest corporations in existence. If someone had told me this would be happening ten or twenty years ago, I would have laughed in their face.
At the same time, I saw republicans voting for a man that hung out with Hollywood elites, cheated on his former wife (and wrote about it), had sex with a prostitute (probably more than one if we are not being naive), found loopholes so he didn’t have to pay taxes, and bragged about groping women, and then said republicans defended him while he shut down the country economically, suspended the constitution by declaring emergency powers, and authored Operation Warp Speed.
The world no longer makes sense.
Basically, if you’re tell a democratic that it’s for the good of the whole, and/or because it’s what good people do, they are all in. If you tell a republican it’s for freedom and/or it’s what God wants, they are all in. There’s obviously nuance in there but the pattern is pretty strong. I think corporate media has been brainwashing these thought patterns into viewers for decades so they go undetected by the person who is programmed by it. Want proof? Sit a democrat down in front of Fox News and they can see the BS. Sit a Republican down in front of CNN and they can see the BS. Put them in front of their preferred network and they can no longer see it.
Exactly. The only way to find out about the dirty little secrets of "your" side -- because they always exist -- is to simultaneously, constantly, and with an open mind, listen to the "other" side, too. And there are not just two sides, there are often many of them. Only then do you step out of Plato's (Dem or Rep) cave and start building a 3-D perspective of the world,
True. I accidentally red-pilled myself because I thought that if I want to advocate for something politically, I should probably understand the other/opposing viewpoints on that issue and not just listen to straw-man arguments. Bam! independent media. And lots of it from a variety of sources. It's the only way to talk about ideas instead of just getting your ego stroked.
Be warned, everyone: Substack makes it very difficult for you to know that you ALREADY subscribed to a given author/writer's material. It caused me to subscribe again (because you'll see the message "Upgrade to Paid". Then it's impossible to see in their system that you have several subscriptions to the same author/writer. I only figured it out when I saw it in my bank account. And there is no customer service to contact--only self service questions & answers. In retrospect, I realize that when I saw "Upgrade to Paid", I assumed I hadn't already subscribed, so after subscribing again, I now have several yearly subscriptions along with monthly subscriptions for various writers who I wanted to support. I'm not certain what will happen when I "cancel my subscription" (the only given option). Will both of my subscriptions disappear? Their lack of customer service tends to screw us over. Copy and paste this into other messages so hopefully they'll make their platform more user friendly.
Odd... In those little boxes in my paid subscriptions I see "subscribed" or "upgrade to" whatever the next level is.
It is easy to see. Substack tells you who you are paying for and who is free. You have to go down to the bottom of the SUVs page to stop receiving content.
subs page
I am sure the writers I subscribe to have a bright PAID message clearly included in my article.
many leaders of ideologies are not desiring Truth; they desire their will which leads to absolute
power and control. This is the road to tyranny.
barbara
The Washington State Constitution invites citizens to periodically return to first principles and this morning's essay is a good place to start.
I worry more about Jefferson's notion that we need periodic revolutions to clean out the swamp.
First principles, in this case would that be defining left as violent revolutionary and right as gradualism?
I passed...
The clearest understanding of the so-called political spectrum comes from taking "the world's smallest political quiz". There are several versions, but the original still serves well. Take one minute out of your day and find out where you really stand. Easily found with whatever search engine you're using.
Thanks for recalling Burke. I wonder whether the debate about the revolution in France is taught in American high schools or even universities any more. But it’s fundamental to anchoring youthful enthusiasms.
This article's subtitle says "Lack of clarity causes needless quarreling". Reading some of the comments (which I wish I hadn't), it should have said "Lack of civility causes bitter quarreling, which is bad for the quarrelers and the witnesses alike".
The spectrum runs from liberty to tyranny not some ill defined right to left. Once that is understood political discussions are well founded.
John, a point I would like to contribute to the discussion is that the current Leftist version of the Right is quite incorrect and a total fabrication designed to demonize and confuse. Communists and Fascists who were at war with each other in Europe (and were and are still both socialist Leftists. The true people on the Right are the Capitalists—those who believe in economic liberty and freedom of individual commerce and wealth generation. But the Left has demonized the Rightists as being "fascist or nazi-like" in order to smear those are the Left's real threat and real enemy. I recommend the book The Big Lie, Dinesh D'Souza.
The reality today is not as so much Left versus Right but Globalist vs Nationalist.
Capitalist corporations & big banks have captured political parties in the West, fomented national and global monopolies/cartels, and rigged the market to be very far from free so they're hardly your definition of Right. The amount of $ spent on corporate propagandad and its ownership of much MSM, too big to fail/allow new entrants, and inherited wealth/dynastic wealth are 100% at odds with the idea of free wealth generation
LS indeed—no end to crony corruption. But You dont kill capitalism and embrace communism because of corruption, you fix it by creating laws that chain mega corporations and the immoral impulses down. This is exactly why God gave us ten commandments to both restrain us and to live by. Man is incapable of complete freedom without law which is why libertarianism cannot work, imo. Thnk you.
Excellent article, John! It is quite clear which political party in the United States is ACTUALLY the one that wants to "rule with an iron fist" over all of us, and not allow any dissent or difference of opinion whatsoever. Yet they called their own side the "tolerant" ones. It's all fake. They LOVE being dictators.
We are on the same side! Survival!!