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Is this Epiphany Sunday?
“If people are basically good, then they can also be left to their own devices. They may even be allowed to run their own affairs. If however they are basically rotten, then a system is needed that will force goodness on them. And this system’s own goodness will be protected by strict conformity to an ideology that is also inherently good. Those who run the system can only be chosen from the ranks of the faithful adherents of that ideology.”
Currently reading A Conflict of Visions by Dr. Thomas Sowell. He also posits a basic dichotomy about the view of the inherent goodness of people but he argues that conservatives don’t believe in the inherent goodness of man. Quite the opposite, they believe man is tragically flawed and always will be. According to Dr. Sowell, conservatives believe that men just naturally seek their own interest first and might extend that interest to others but it is very rare and people should not depend on the majority acting for the common interest. The argument against centralized power in a governing elite is that no person or small group of people has the wisdom and foresight sufficient to control complex human relations in such a way as to bring about beneficial results and avoid unintended bad results. Hence, the conservative distrusts concentration of power. Liberals, on the other hand, believe that while most people right now may be selfish and stupid, with the right “incentives”, the enlightened, already-progressed elites can bring them along the evolutionary path to social nirvana, as defined by that elite, of course. Obama has said he is seeking a “more perfect union.”
Thus far, (I am about halfway through the book) Dr. Sowell is even-handed in its discussion of the two conflicting visions of the nature of man. The conflict really isn’t whether man is good or evil but how to define and control the evil. Do we do so by granting as much freedom as possible with consequences mediated by social forces including religion, community and tradition or by a powerful governing elite which claims the right to define good and evil, often on an ad hoc basis?
BFL
Daniel Greenfield is nearly a genius. He’s one of the best writers I read on the internet. I always take the time to read every word of what he writes.
Not too often I see a statement by the Sultan I disagree with - mainly because of the insane dichotomy in the "minds" of the Left. They consider the average Conservative to be bad and the average despot to be good. They try to curb a Free People by limiting/stepping on our Freedoms and then expect us to understand why we shouldn't crush the really evil people - in fact they insist on supporting the evil regimes with money and arms. They miss the evil in their own thoughts and attribute evil to anyone who stands in the way of their tyranny.
I find it Biblical in that Jesus told us that there would be an increasing trend of calling good bad and bad good.
If people are mostly bad, then the place for them is in a prison and the entire country needs to be one big prison complete with millions of armed guards, countless administrators and rules, where every man, woman and child must account for everything that they do to someone. The state becomes a prison and the prison becomes the state.
That sums it up very well, indeed.
Curiously, leftists of every stripe and kind, (whether they call themselves Marxists, communists, fascists, progressives, or whatever all else,) don't prove humanity is untrustworthy, but do clearly demonstrate they're never to be trusted. Ultimately, their motives are a psychopathic compulsion to control other people, an insatiable craving to avenge themselves upon successful people, and blind hatred of normal people.
The very fact the vast majority of us aren't like them is proof positive humanity isn't mostly bad.
Actually the author gets it wrong at the start.
In a bizarre way, leftists imagine that all people are basically good. But from this they extrapolate that if all people are basically good, then a government of the people will also be good, so the more government, the better. Because it is good, and it *cares*.
Imagining that all people are bad is a concept of libertarianism. If most people are generally bad, you do not want to be interfered with by them. In no way do you want to be dependent on them, or extend them trust that they will invariably betray. Government is not to be trusted at all, except for a few, really big things.
The founding fathers spent a great deal of time philosophically hashing this out, and for the most part concluded that people as a whole are neither good nor bad, but are *weak*. And this leads to some very interesting conclusions.
To start with, they assumed that the written law will always tempt people to avoid it with loopholes. So not to expect much from the written law. But the alternative is to create a balance of power between competing groups of people. So it is not crafty and weak people vs. text, but weak and crafty people vs. other weak and crafty people.
So the constitution is a masterwork of numerous checks and balances at all levels. The three branches of government, the federal government vs. the state governments, who elects and appoints who, the small states vs. the large states.
The one big mistake they made was that, while they created a framework of slow and steady, balanced growth, they did not foresee a need, just as important, for a slow and steady, balanced pruning mechanism to prevent overgrowth.
And unfortunately, being weak people, it is hard for us to resist the increasing promises of largesse that government makes, that it cannot deliver. Eventually, perhaps, the pendulum will swing in favor of those libertarians who neither trust government nor its promises, nor do they trust their fellow man unless they personally know them.
“The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
--Frederick Douglass
“There are only two races of men: the decent and the indecent.”
—Viktor Frankl, survivor, Nazi concentration camps
Excellent
Meth will go on being cooked, regardless of how often Joe Q. Public is forced to show his photo ID at the pharmacy. Schools will go on being shot up no matter how many assault rifle bans are passed.
ping