The Left Rejects Painful Truths

TownHall ^ | Jun 16, 2015 | Dennis Prager

[ThanhPhero]

At the core of left-wing thought is a rejection of painful realities, the rejection of what the French call les faits de la vie: the facts of life. Conservatives, on the other hand, are all too aware of these painful realities of life and base many of their positions on them.

One such example was the subject of my first column on Left-Right differences: whether people are basically good. When liberals blame violent crime in America on poverty, one reason they do is that liberal beliefs since the Enlightenment have posited that human nature is good. Therefore, when people do truly bad things to other people, liberals believe that some outside force -- usually poverty, racism and/or unemployment -- must be responsible, not human nature.

[Paladin2]

Jihad is not the answer.

[Dilbert San Diego]

When liberals blame violent crime in America on poverty, one reason they do is that liberal beliefs since the Enlightenment have posited that human nature is good. Therefore, when people do truly bad things to other people, liberals believe that some outside force — usually poverty, racism and/or unemployment — must be responsible, not human nature.

---

Since it is considered racist to blame black culture, ghetto culture, gang culture, the baby mama culture for problems of blacks in the inner city, the liberals have to place blame for crime and other problems elsewhere. We’re not allowed to say that ghetto culture is a toxic brew of bad behaviors and bad attitudes.

[equaviator]

That’s why they divorce themselves from reality and in a lot of cases, their country and each other....even their heredity!

[Bluewater2015]

Is there really such a thing as “human nature”, though? Sure, sexual preference might be hard-wired, but other than that? People are essentially blank slates at birth; it’s their culture, upbringing and circumstances of life that make them what they are. Jealousy, violence, warfare, crime; these are all artifacts of civilization that didn’t exist when man lived in a state of nature—not that I’m advocating a return to hunter-gathering. That really would be a cure worse than the disease!

[MrB]

The questions of the nature of Man and the nature of God
are what separate liberal humanists from conservatives operating on Christian assumptions.

This choice was given WAY early on with the assurance -
“you will be as gods, knowing [deciding] good and evil”

“_you_ will be God” is the basis of humanism, liberalism, and is their answer to the two essential questions of reality.

[chajin]

One such example was the subject of my first column on Left-Right differences: whether people are basically good. When liberals blame violent crime in America on poverty, one reason they do is that liberal beliefs since the Enlightenment have posited that human nature is good. Therefore, when people do truly bad things to other people, liberals believe that some outside force -- usually poverty, racism and/or unemployment -- must be responsible, not human nature.

It must be the combination of the media and public school education, but when I ask this question in my classes, virtually all students assume that most people are good, or at least good enough to be considered good. The only students who argue for inherent non-goodness are the Christian students--and most of them, it soon becomes evident, argue it, not because they actually believe it, but because they've been taught to believe it. What they don't realize is that admitting that one is a sinner incapable of saving oneself is the most liberating of actions, because it frees one to accept God's grace and then work hard at becoming morally improved, knowing that God will "cover" all our failings.

[I want the USA back]

Leftism is the denial of human nature.

[El Cid]

Is there really such a thing as “human nature”, though?

The Bible has the answer: 'yes'.
There is none righteous, no not one. Corrupt from the womb. When our first parents sinned (believing Satan over God), this sin nature was passed on to their offspring - the entire human race. Born as slaves to sin, and only set free by the Grace of God and work of the Holy Spirit to become slaves of Christ - a Master whose yoke is easy, and burden is light. A Master who has bought us by His precious blood.

[angryoldfatman]

Is there really such a thing as “human nature”, though?

Yes.


People are essentially blank slates at birth; it’s their culture, upbringing and circumstances of life that make them what they are.

Ah, the tabula rasa, the favorite fallback of every liberal. This is the root of the very philosophy attributed to liberals in the article.

If every person is a blank slate, then good or evil is a function of society, not of individuals. Anybody can be a Rembrandt, a Beethoven, or a Hitler. No inherent traits necessary.


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

You and Rousseau (and every other Rousseauian) are dead wrong. Sorry. The noble savage never existed.

[Bluewater2015]

“If every person is a blank slate, then good or evil is a function of society, not of individuals. Anybody can be a Rembrandt, a Beethoven, or a Hitler. No inherent traits necessary.”

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You’re mistaking talent (artistic, musical or political) for good and evil.

[TexasFreeper2009]

I am starting to think the left its as dumb at it seems to us.

When we conservatives look at what the left has done to the fabric of civilization we are shocked and cant understand why liberals cant see the damage they have wrought.

but... it has started to occur to me recently that they DO know and it was their plan all along.

huh? you say. Why would liberals want to destroy civilization!?

Here's the kicker.. they dont. They want to remake civilization to their liking.

But... you say... they are not building a new society... they are just breaking everything!

ah!!

but that's the plan!

Think about it... how do you CHANGE someone? how does the army create soldiers? how do tyrants get their imprisoned victims to sympathize with them? how basically do you brainwash someone?

You first start by... DESTROYING them.

Then AFTER you have broken them... you REBUILD them to your liking.

I have come to the conclusion that this is what the left is engaged in.

They are in the final stages of breaking/destroying society at which point they will start to rebuild it to their liking.

[angryoldfatman]

You’re mistaking talent (artistic, musical or political) for good and evil.

Another fallback, this time to pedantry.

Fine, substitute Jonas Salk, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, or any other person thought of as universally good.

Hitler had talent too, mainly as an orator, but also as a painter. His upbringing was no different than countless other Austrians or Germans of the time period, which shatters the entire Rousseauian tabula rasa.

[MrB]

Man in his “natural state” is actually
MORE LIKELY
to exhibit fallen tendencies

because of the lack of civilized restraint.

[MrB]

Leftism is simply believing the lie told in Genesis 3.

[Bluewater2015]

“Hitler had talent too, mainly as an orator, but also as a painter. His upbringing was no different than countless other Austrians or Germans of the time period, which shatters the entire Rousseauian tabula rasa.”

---

Hitler’s political talents were top notch, too. You don’t take over a major European nation and conquer much of Western Europe without such talents. But anyhow, Hitler, and everyone else who matured in his time and place (late 19th-post WWI Europe) had innumerable unique experiences that shaped them. Just saying people happened to grow up in the same time and didn’t become dictator of Germany is painting with a very broad brush. I guess I’m being pedantic again, though.

[qam1]

People are essentially blank slates at birth; it’s their culture, upbringing and circumstances of life that make them what they are.

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?

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

On what planet??

[angryoldfatman]

Why would liberals want to destroy civilization!? Here's the kicker.. they dont. They want to remake civilization to their liking.

But... you say... they are not building a new society... they are just breaking everything!

ah!!

but that's the plan!


Welcome to the party, pal. ;-)

There are essentially 2 tiers of leftism: the rank-and-file, and the elite.
We encounter the rank-and-file every day. They think particular thoughts because they've been fed feel-good propaganda by the elites. They are confused, deceived, and slow-witted because of their cognitive dissonance - the holding of multiple contradictory philosophies in their minds.

The elites are exactly what you've described and stumbled upon.

They want a Marxist utopia, a heaven here and now; as John Lennon put it, a brotherhood of Man.

They figured out in WWI that Marx was wrong about violent revolution. It didn't happen where they wanted it to happen, in the First World countries of Western Europe.

So they reformulated their revolution along the lines detailed by Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist who identified the three First World barriers to Marxism: family, patriotism, and (in particular) Christianity.

These three barriers are the ones that have been under attack since the 1930s, thanks to Gramsci's "long march through the institutions". That march is almost at an end now, sadly. Only occasionally has it had setbacks, but the Marxists are nothing if not persistent.

[angryoldfatman]

Just saying people happened to grow up in the same time and didn’t become dictator of Germany is painting with a very broad brush. I guess I’m being pedantic again, though.

You're just denying that Rousseau got it wrong, because you like his ideas.

The first thing a conservative does is look past feelings and emotions and focus on empirical reality. That usually causes the break in liberal philosophies and leads a person to conservative thought.

This is why, in my opinion, the quote misattributed to Churchill works so well:

If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart, but if you aren’t a middle-aged conservative, you have no head.

[Bluewater2015]

The Aztecs were a civilization. Cities, farms, armies, government, the whole 9 yards. Not a band of hunter-gatherers. As for Baltimore/Detroit vs. Appalachia, the “culture” in the ghetto (worship of thuggery, babydaddys and single moms, bling, dealing drugs, gangbanging is cool etc.) is FUBAR.