The Left Rejects Painful Truths

TownHall ^ | Jun 16, 2015 | Dennis Prager

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

That is a paraphrase of a statement attributed to Georges Clemenceau who stated when advised his son was a communist: “not to be a Communist at age 20 shows a want of heart to be a communist at age 40 shows a want of brains.”

[piytar]

“Jealousy, violence, warfare, crime; these are all artifacts of civilization that didn’t exist when man lived in a state of nature.”

Um, even groups of chimps (definitely living in a state of nature) exhibit jealousy, theft, and yes, war between groups...

[angryoldfatman]

The Aztecs were a civilization. Cities, farms, armies, government, the whole 9 yards. Not a band of hunter-gatherers.

So you believe that "bands of hunters-gatherers" were somehow better than any relatively civilized humans.

In that case, let us pretend, for the sake of argument, Rousseau was right and Hobbes was wrong.

It follows that a civilization built from the ground up without all of the faults of modern civilization can be practically perfect.

So Marxism is possible, right? We just need the correct initial parameters to build upon, correct? From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, yes?

[angryoldfatman]

Thanks for at least the attempt at a correct attribution of that quote.

I Googled it before posting it to make sure Churchill said it, and indeed the quote was misattributed as I stated in my post.

Here’s the page I found that attempted a tracing of the quote; it goes back to a long time ago:

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Interesting. I always thought it was Clemenceau.

[qam1]

The Aztecs were a civilization. Cities, farms, armies, government, the whole 9 yards. Not a band of hunter-gatherers.

Dumb

OK, look up the where the word Iroquois comes from. It's an Algonquin word, meaning "Eaters of men". Not exactly peaceful at one with nature there.

As for Baltimore/Detroit vs. Appalachia, the “culture” in the ghetto (worship of thuggery, babydaddys and single moms, bling, dealing drugs, gangbdespanging is cool etc.) is FUBAR.

More head in the sand silliness

Take Baldwin Hills California for example, it's the most affluent Black area in the country (Nicknamed the Black Beverly Hills) with a median income of $159,000. Yet, Despite this wealth, the crime rate is still 50% greater than the rest of the United States. (Source)

[truth_seeker]

“Why then is the crime rate in Baltimore/Detroit so high while the crime rate in West Virginia is so low even though the poverty level is the same?”

Blacks are more violent in the UK, and in South Africa as well. So it can’t just be American black culture.

Can it be lower IQs, in an era where low skilled and unskilled labor is moving overseas or being replaced by machines?

[Bluewater2015]

Jealousy, violence, warfare, crime; these are all artifacts of civilization that didn’t exist when man lived in a state of nature.”

Um, even groups of chimps (definitely living in a state of nature) exhibit jealousy, theft, and yes, war between groups...

---

Yes and so do a lot of critters. But the one thing they have that humans don’t have is blind instinct. They are born with certain ingrained behaviors. No one teaches a beaver to build a dam, or a bee to make honey. But humans are not born with programming the way “lesser” animals are.

[angryoldfatman]

They are born with certain ingrained behaviors.

So are human beings. We are not completely blank slates.

Anybody who has raised children knows this.

Environment (the generic kind, not the tree-hugger kind) has a large role in the mental and psychological make-up of a person, but innate and inherited traits do as well.

If the tabula rasa was a correct thing, Marxism would work after two or three generations... but it doesn't.

Communism would have no need of gulags. But it does.

Human nature, such as it is, provides the impetus for such things in these systems. This is why totalitarian systems are always seeking the New Man. The New Man is the human being that is devoid of human nature. He does not exist, and without divine assistance, never will.