Posted on 09/10/2019 6:38:59 AM PDT by Heartlander
Our age loves scientific equations. Here’s one you weren’t taught at college but which affects you as much as the law of gravity:
GI – W = E
Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).
You weren’t taught this rule at college because the modern university believes only science has rules. “Rules of life” is another term for wisdom, and there is no wisdom — or even pursuit of wisdom — at our universities.
Life has rules just like the natural sciences do. Examples include:
Ingratitude makes happiness impossible.
Corrupt people think everyone else is as corrupt as they are.
Human nature is not basically good.
Feelings are far less important than actions.
Most men need a woman to mature. Most women need a man to mature.
The list is long. And the more life rules people know and live by the better people they’ll be — the better the world will be.
There is a reason Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life has sold millions of copies, mostly to young people. It is the same reason PragerU has a billion views a year, mostly among people under 35. Many young people are sensing they have been cheated by the adults that have taught them, for example, to pursue self-esteem rather than self-control — a “rule” guaranteed to lead to moral and professional failure.
But one rule almost no one was taught, that explains most organized evil and the left in particular, from the Bolsheviks to Mao to Castro to Chávez to your everyday leftist in New York or Iowa: Good intentions without wisdom leads to evil.
Communism, the greatest mass murder ideology in history, was for almost all its rank-and-file supporters rooted in their desire to do good. (This was rarely true for its leaders, whose greatest desire was power.)
The many millions of people all over the world who supported communism did not think they were supporting unprecedented levels of mass murder and torture or an equally unprecedented deprivation of the most fundamental human rights of a substantial percentage of humanity. They thought they were moral, building a beautiful future for humanity — eliminating inequality, enabling people to work as hard or as little as they wanted, providing their fellow citizens “free” education and “free” health care. They were convinced that the moral arc of history was bending in their direction and that they were good because their motives were good.
That’s why leftists have such moral contempt for those who differ with them. Because those on the left are so good, only bad human beings could possibly oppose them. That is the position of virtually every editor and columnist at The New York Times.
The problem with communists and with leftists who don’t consider themselves communists is not that none of them mean well. It’s that they lack wisdom. There are wise and foolish liberals, wise and foolish conservatives; but all leftists are fools. Every one of the Democrats running for president is a fool. This is not, however, a description of their totality as a human being. Fools may be personally kind and generous, may be loyal friends and devoted spouses, and of course, they may be well-intentioned. But in terms of making the world worse, there is little difference between a well-meaning fool and an evil human being. Tens of millions of well-intentioned Westerners supported Stalin. The Westerners who supplied Stalin the secrets to the atom bomb were not motivated by evil. They were simply fools. But few evil people did as much to hurt the world as they did.
They are fools partly because they believe good intentions are all that matter. Therefore, they never ask perhaps the most important moral question one can ask: What will happen if my policy is enacted? Leftist supporters of communism never asked.
Democrats who push the country-bankrupting Green New Deal provide a contemporary example. They not only deny the economy- and society-crushing consequences of the Green New Deal, they deny any price will be paid. Every home, office, hospital, school and business will be forced to stop using fossil fuels, yet only good will come from that. Giving that amount of coercive power to the state is of no consequence to leftists. In their make-believe world, no one will suffer. On the contrary, America will become richer, and millions of jobs will be created while we destroy our economy. Poor Africans trying to electrify their countries will be told not to — yet they, too, will somehow become rich using only wind and sun.
If the Green New Deal is enacted, the American economy will tank — and with it, much of the rest of the world. Tyrannies like China and Iran will be emboldened, as will dictatorships like Russia.
On every issue in which the left differs from conservatives (and often from liberals), they are fools. They push for a Palestinian state although even Israelis on the left know this would mean a Hamas-Hezbollah state on the Israeli border. But they know they mean well.
They routinely label the beacon of freedom on Earth racist, misogynistic, homophobic, imperialistic, genocidal; cheapen the label “Nazi”; promote all-black dorms and graduations; promote preteen boys’ performing drag shows; tell young women career is more important to happiness than marriage; believe a country can remain a distinct nation with open borders; condemn parents who try to reassure their 3-year-old son that he is a boy; and ruin the university, the arts, late-night comedy, pro football and religion.
But they mean well.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in April 2018, is The Rational Bible, a commentary on the book of Exodus. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
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......young people have been cheated, taught to pursue self-esteem rather than self-control — inevitably leads to moral and professional failure.....
Mass shooters and incomprehensible murders and crimes show they've been taught there are no limits to their behavior.
Prager does a good job here.
Many lefists are simply trying to escape any personal responsibility for anything.
Anyhoo.
those on the left are so good, only bad human beings could possibly oppose them
The evil in America that is currently destroying us from within is narcissism. The reasons are complex and too numerous for a single post, but Americans are largely suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder.
Women don't want to bother with children so they murder them. Men don't want to be bothered with women or children, so when his current squeeze gets knocked up he splits. Politicians don't want to put forth the effort to get rich in an ethical way (by actually working for it), so they go into politics for the bribes and graft and corruption.
Etc.
It goes back to the religion of humanism and when it replaced Christianity in America. Christ shows us true happiness comes from losing oneself in a Cause greater than oneself.
Humanism, a religion from Satan, tells us there is no greater need or power or authority than one's own desires. He's been using that lie ever since he told Eve she would become like God if she would only sin.
Selfishness is what's destroying us.
This is cute but I disagree. Intrinsically, misguided good intentions are not evil at all, even without wisdom.
Yes, fools are pawns of evil, unwittingly duped and indoctrinated into the machinations of the wicked and clever.
So I think this in correct in finding how fools, even those who ascend to great power, are the key to evil outcomes.
Personally, I think many of these leftists are a contradiction of their own cognitive dissonances. They hold people in general with great contempt, and specifically with malice at times, but they justify their hatred in couched ideologies that rationalize such as a necessity. This is personal, and it is war, to these people, but they know they cannot raise up a banner of hate and destruction, for they may be fools and dupes, but they are not stupid. They didn’t get as far as they have by showing their true colors.
If I had counter with an equation on the fly, I would make something like this;
E = (A*S)/C
The amount of evil that is openly displayed is equal to the amount of personal [A] antipathy multiplied by the social/cultural [S] support for hate, divided by perceived [C] consequences or judgement for evil acts
The lle is the weapon used most often by the criminal.
That and a serious degrading of community interaction, as well as the war on religion. It's a toxic brew, advanced by the left.
Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).
Also envy + hatred of the good for being the good + desire to destroy the good = evil
Amen.
The left is indifferent to results.
― Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Exodus
"Wisdom: People attain wisdom in large part by remembering what happened in the past. No generation can attain wisdom without studying and remembering the past. None of those who believed in the 1960's aphorism, ‘Never trust anyone over thirty,’ became a wise person. Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world amount to nothing. Intending to do good without having wisdom is like intending to fly an airplane with no knowledge of airplanes or the laws of aerodynamics. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil."
― Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Exodus
"And good intentions? These scared him the most: people with good intentions tended not to question themselves. And people who didn't question themselves, in the scientific world and beyond, were the ones to watch out for."
― Shanthi Sekaran, Lucky Boy
"A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result."
― Thomas Edison
"The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. One the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill."
― Albert Camus, The Plague
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Milton Friedman
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. Mencken
Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.
Daniel Webster
Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.
Milton Friedman
It is important to direct our intelligence with good intentions. Without intelligence, we cannot accomplish very much. Without good intentions, the way we exercise of our intelligence may have destructive results.
Dalai Lama
...and, finally, the grandest quote of all concerning good intentions:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
“Many lefists are simply trying to escape any personal responsibility for anything.”
Worse than that. Their feelings tell them they are right. To admit they are wrong destroys their entire existence. They cannot admit to an error here, therefore you must be destroyed.
Pretty spot on by Prager.
I would add lack of humility as a key fault of the left.
Yeah, there are appeals for funds to maintain PragerU, but it truly is a worthwhile endeavor which is having amazing success with the number of site visits which have grown to well over 2 billion since it was founded just a few years ago.
Seriously, you should check it out. The search engine for the video topics is excellent and, as I noted, each video is only 5 minutes and packed with information to grab the attention of young people.
Cheers! & regards, G
bkmk
*Bookmark*
Kipling called these rules, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
“Good Intentions (GI) minus Wisdom (W) leads to Evil (E).”
Or, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Bookmark
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