Posted on 10/20/2015 7:51:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
If you want to understand today's Democratic Party, a word search of the Democrats' debate last week provides a pretty clear picture.
Here is how many times key words were spoken:
Wall Street: 23
Tax: 20
Inequality: 9
Wealthy: 7
Now, compare the number of times other national concerns were mentioned:
ISIS: 4
Terror/ists/ism: 2
Defense: 2
Military (excluding Jim Webb): 1
Freedom: 1
Debt (national): 0
Liberty: 0
Strength: 0
Armed forces: 0
Islamist/Islamic: 0
Material inequality is the predominant concern of the Democratic Party. Indeed, material inequality has been the predominant concern of the left since Karl Marx.
This raises two questions:
How important is material inequality?
And if it is not that important, why does it preoccupy the left-wing mind?
The answer to the first question is: It depends.
It depends, first of all, on the economic status of the poorer members of the society. If the bottom percentile society has its basic material needs met, then the existence of a big gap between its members and the wealthiest members of the society is not a moral problem.
But if the members of the bottom rung of society are in such an impoverished state that their basic material needs are not met, and yet there is a supremely wealthy class in the same society, then the suffering of its poorest class renders that society's inequality a moral problem.
And what most matters in both cases is whether the wealthiest class has attained its wealth honestly or corruptly. If the wealthy have attained their wealth morally and legally, then the income gap is not a moral problem.
In a free society, wealth is not a pie -- meaning that when a slice of pie is removed, there is less of the pie remaining. And the poorer members of society have the ability to improve their economic lot. Through hard work, self-discipline, marriage and education -- and with some degree of good luck -- the poor can join the middle class and even the wealthy class.
The latter is generally the case in America. Unlike in most societies, for most Americans being poor is not a fate. The only time being poor becomes permanent is when noneconomic factors render it so. These factors include not having a father in one's life, growing up with no family or social emphasis on education, women having children without a man, and men having children without committing to the mother of those children.
The left, with its materialist view of life, refuses to concede these nonmaterial producers of poverty and that changing behavior is therefore the only way to raise the majority of the poor out of their poverty. Of course, when bad luck -- such as chronic illness or being the victim of a violent crime -- is the reason for one's impoverished condition, societal help is a moral imperative.
Instead, the left believes that the focus of attention must be on reducing the wealth of the wealthy -- again, as if the wealth is a pie. Thus, the left demands a redistribution of wealth in society -- taking money (that was honestly earned) from those who are wealthier and giving that money to the poor. But all that does most of the time is prolong the poverty of the poor, as they are not only not forced to engage in productive behavior, they are actually paid to continue whatever unproductive behaviors they are engaged in.
All this should be obvious to anyone with common sense. But incorrect ideology always distorts common sense.
So, why is the left preoccupied with inequality in a society in which most poor people have the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty?
Because of its class-based materialist ideology.
Because seeing some people own luxury vehicles, multiple homes and even private jets while others live in small apartments feels wrong to the left -- and leftism is based on feelings.
Because it prefers that the state, not the individual citizen, has as much wealth as possible.
And because when you don't fight real evils (Communism during the Colds War, and now Islamism, Russian expansion, Syria's use of chemical weapons), you fight nonevils. And material inequality is nonevil.
How many times was global warming mentioned? Haven’t they said that this “climate change” is the biggest threat to mankind, and that climate change is actually a national security issue??
And, what about the war on women? Are we still debating whether states can ban contraception and how the Sandra Flukes of the world will get birth control pills????
Exploit envy and greed.
Make yourself rich and everyone else poor.
Climb to the top of the mountain and then out the ladder so no one else can follow.
That is the left.
They don’t do anything that is not poll-tested and Focus Group approved.
If they are using those words it’s because a large number of our fellow citizens (God help us) actually feels that way.
The liberal “equality Procrustean Bed”. In Greek mythology Procrustes (the first known “progressive”?) was a bandit who forced his victims to fit his iron bed. Those too tall were cut off to fit, too short were stretched to fit… such is liberalism and their destructive view of “equality”. In both cases the result is agony for the “beneficiary”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes
they have not choice, without “inequality” of some kind, they’d be Republicans
The left fails to understand that you can’t have everything and nobody owes you anything the dirty little secret about freedom is that you are on your own.
Not that moral issues are themselves paramount, they simply make excellent propaganda. There are those on the Left who do feel a moral outrage that the distribution of material property is uneven across their society, which is a more or less harmless fantasy. It is when that moral outrage leads to the conviction that it is up to them to put it right by force that the thing becomes harmful. More of them, though, and this is particularly true at the level of debate to which we're treated on television, more of them are simply interested in the power, cloaked in whatever piety they can conjure at the moment. Hillary isn't the only one, she's just the most transparent one.
In their first year the Pilgrims tried socialism/communism and damn near died of starvation. When they reverted to a more free wheeling enterprise baased approach they began to prosper.
Always comparing yourself to other people is a sure formula for unhappiness. Envy and jealousy are sins. They are the Dems highest virtues.
It is broader than material inequality. Libtards are obsessed with suffering, hardship, and need in general, which they consider to be unjust, rather than an inevitable part of the human condition and experience.Next, they are obsessed with the grandiose delusion that nearly all suffering and injustice can be eliminated by positive rights and entitlements, even if they violate natural rights and require the use of force.
I'd like to see a group of "poor" people go to one of the various and fabulously wealthy Hollyweird lib estates and try and gain entry to ask for scraps of food.
If they got over the electric fence, they'd either get torn apart by the dobermans or shot by the security guards.
The other is basically compulsion driven: Compassion Or Compulsion?.
The one thing that Egalitarianism never is among intelligent folk, is idealistic or altruistic.
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