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'Does It Do Good?' vs. 'Does It Feel Good?' Left-Right Differences: Part III
Townhall.com ^ | June 9, 2015 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 06/09/2015 7:13:11 AM PDT by Kaslin

A fundamental difference between the left and right concerns how each assesses public policies. The right asks, "Does it do good?" The left asks a different question.

One example is the minimum wage. In 1987, The New York Times editorialized against any minimum wage. The title of the editorial said it all -- "The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00."

"There's a virtual consensus among economists," wrote the Times editorial, "that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market . ... More important, it would increase unemployment. ... The idea of using a minimum wage to overcome poverty is old, honorable -- and fundamentally flawed."

Why did The New York Times editorialize against the minimum wage? Because it asked the conservative question: "Does it do good?"

But 27 years later, The New York Times editorial page wrote the very opposite of what it had written in 1987, and called for a major increase in the minimum wage. In that time, the page had moved further left and was now preoccupied not with what does good -- but with income inequality, which feels bad. It lamented the fact that a low hourly minimum wage had not "softened the hearts of its opponents" -- Republicans and their supporters.

As second example is affirmative action. Study after study -- and, even more important, common sense and facts -- have shown the deleterious effects that race-based affirmative action have had on black students. Lowering college admissions standards for black applicants has ensured at least two awful results.

One is that more black students fail to graduate college -- because they have too often been admitted to a college that demands more academic rigor than they were prepared for. Rather than attend a school that matches their skills, a school where they might thrive, they fail at a school where they are over-matched.

The other result is that many, if not most, black students feel a dark cloud hanging over them. They suspect that other students wonder whether they, the black students, were admitted into the college on merit or because standards were lowered.

It would seem that the last question supporters of race-based affirmative action ask is, "Does it do good?"

A third example is pacifism and other forms of "peace activism."

The left has a soft spot for pacifism -- the belief that killing another human being is always immoral. Not all leftists are pacifists, but pacifism emanates from the Left, and just about all leftists support "peace activism," "peace studies" and whatever else contains the word "peace."

The right, on the other hand, while just as desirous of peace as the left -- what conservative parent wants their child to die in battle? -- knows that pacifism and most "peace activists" increase the chances of war, not peace.

Nothing guarantees the triumph of evil like refusing to fight it. Great evil is therefore never defeated by peace activists, but by superior military might. The Allied victory in World War II is an obvious example. American military might likewise contained and ultimately ended Soviet Communism.

Supporters of pacifism, peace studies, American nuclear disarmament, American military withdrawal from countries in which it has fought -- Iraq is the most recent example -- do not ask, "Does it do good?'

Did the withdrawal of America from Iraq do good? Of course not. It only led to the rise of Islamic State with its mass murder and torture.

So, then, if in assessing what public policies to pursue, conservatives ask "Does it do good?" what question do liberals ask?

The answer is, "Does it make people -- including myself -- feel good?"

Why do liberals support a higher minimum wage if doesn't do good? Because it makes the recipients of the higher wage feel good (even if other workers lose their jobs when restaurants and other businesses that cannot afford the higher wage close down) and it makes liberals feel good about themselves: We liberals, unlike conservatives, have soft hearts.

Why do liberals support race-based affirmative action? For the same reasons. It makes the recipients feel good when they are admitted to more prestigious colleges. And it makes liberals feel good about themselves for appearing to right the wrongs of historical racism.

The same holds true for left-wing peace activism: Supporting "peace" rather than the military makes liberals feel good about themselves.

Perhaps the best example is the self-esteem movement. It has had an almost wholly negative effect on a generation of Americans raised to have high self-esteem without having earned it. They then suffer from narcissism and an incapacity to deal with life's inevitable setbacks. But self-esteem feels good.

And feelings -- not reason -- is what liberalism is largely about. Reason asks: "Does it do good?" Liberalism asks, "Does it feel good?"


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: dennisprager; leftism; liberalism; prager; progressivism

1 posted on 06/09/2015 7:13:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

If you ask a liberal why its so important to support Bruce Jenner, they can’t really come up with a coherent reason.

When it comes down to it they really support Jenner because it makes them feel good that they think they’re supporting someone’s rights and if you don’t support Jenner its because you’re bad and don’t support freedom.

If you ask conservatives like myself why I don’t support Jenner I’ll tell you that I do support Jenner but enabling his mental illness is not being supportive. Hoping he gets the psychological help he so clearly needs is far more supportive in my eyes. Encouraging and promoting mental illness is damaging to society as a whole.


2 posted on 06/09/2015 7:21:27 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: Kaslin

Suppressing our urges is what makes us human.Succumbing to them is what makes us inhuman.


3 posted on 06/09/2015 7:23:37 AM PDT by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: cripplecreek
Your post is worth a “harumph” if you know what I mean?
4 posted on 06/09/2015 7:26:48 AM PDT by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: Kaslin

Most just ask “Do it git me free stuff?”


5 posted on 06/09/2015 7:28:57 AM PDT by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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To: Kaslin

Asking a conservative’s opinion: “What do you think about that?”

Asking a liberal’s opinion: “How does that make you feel?”

Simple.


6 posted on 06/09/2015 7:38:32 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
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To: Kaslin

Any minimum wage law is textbook fascism.

Being against fascism, I’m against ANY minimum wage law.


7 posted on 06/09/2015 7:57:12 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Kaslin

Everything the Leftists promote destroys Virtue in people.....and useless idiots are the only ones who “feel” good about it. The Marxists are evil and hate people and want to control everyone and kill the useless eaters, like the Marxists George Bernard Shaw or Billy Ayers or John Maynard Kaynes.

Marxism will destroy Right Reason in all children (the Fichte 1810 “happy slaves” society of people who believe irrational things like “snow is black” or boys are girls) have to make Reality totally incoherent and remove Natural Laws (and destroy the Natural Family—all biological connections where Reality (Truth) can be embedded)-—where young children can NEVER make SENSE of the World.

Artificial screens, institutions (public school) gives the Leftists the power to insert ALL ideas in your children and embed ALL emotions and control ALL emotions and desires. (They have been doing that since the 20s but parents too often interfere with their programming and have to be eliminated). Research Edward Bernays.

All “senses” will perceive EXACTLY what the Marxist Utopians want little children to “think”: there are no biological connections-—all human beings belong to the STATE to control and direct and determine thoughts, proper emotions, etc.

The concepts that created the Age of Reason will be eliminated from the masses. The self-directed, autonomous worldview will become one of total dependence-—Inca mentality-—total submission—total slavery-—just little cogs in the wheel, totally controlled by elites/oligarchy. Back to the “Might makes Right” paganism of old. No Individual Natural Rights from God-—and that Worldview which took thousands of years to cultivate in the masses-—can’t exist.

We are getting there. They destroyed the term “marriage” and male and female and wife and husband and mother and father already... They have the SCHOOLS already indoctrinating children into unnatural, irrational concepts-—like families come in all sizes and shapes and Daddy has a Roommate, etc.

When you control Words or Limit Concepts in children-—you destroy their ability to be critical thinkers. That is why PC exists-—to destroy Right Reason and to destroy Natural Law (Science) so that the Leftists can REMAKE man in their OWN image (completely kill off God)——literally remove God and Science (only the Rational God—pagan gods, ok—the Designer of Natural Law goes-—the basis of our Constitution....to destroy Individualism for the collective. The result will be “group thinkers’ who are incapable of having a logical mind (emotions control everything). They will be incapable of the ideology of a Adam Smith, George Washington, Lincoln Jefferson, Adams——they will be minds like the Afghani tribal boys-—or like the Incas (only worse since Inca children knew how reproduction worked).

Wisdom is discerning Good and Evil (Cicero who believed in Universal Truth). Leftists throw out Truth, God, and Right Reason-—and they have to force that worldview in YOUR children and if your children are in the “public schools” and watch the Leftists movies, etc.....they will “think” exactly like those who are programming them....like little tribal harem boys of Afghanistan where Up is Down, Vice is Virtue, etc.

And they will “feel” good about having relations with the males, goats and boys. All behaviors and emotions are LEARNED and HABITUATED by the repeated experiences in the environment. Remove mother and father-—and we promote an irrational hell where human beings will be totally dehumanized and dumb as stumps.


8 posted on 06/09/2015 8:29:22 AM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: savagesusie

Mao’s China.


9 posted on 08/20/2015 11:22:22 AM PDT by donna (Pray for Revival.)
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