Posted on 09/13/2022 10:29:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It can be said that gaining wisdom is a process of gaining some dark insights into life.
One such insight is this: A lot of evil has been abetted by nice people.
By "nice," I am referring to the way people comport themselves in the personal realm. We refer to people as being "nice" if they are friendly to strangers, more or less honest in their dealings with others, take care of their families, support friends and are pleasant to be around. We all want nice neighbors.
To put it another way, "nice" generally refers to the micro, the personal, realm. It does not generally refer to the macro realm -- that is, to the views and values people hold about moral and social questions.
The human being is composed of two moral components -- the micro and the macro. In a truly good human being -- "good" is not the same as "nice" -- one is good in both realms. It is therefore quite possible to be nice in the micro and hold awful values for society; and it is quite possible to have excellent macro values and not be a particularly nice person.
Take communism, for example.
Communist regimes killed some 100 million people in the 20th century -- none of them combatants in war. Add to that number more than a billion devastated lives: the friends and family of the murdered, the generations deprived of elementary human rights and the countless number of innocent people imprisoned and tortured, and you have as pure an evil as is imaginable.
You might therefore think that no one who supported communism, let alone was a member of a communist party anywhere in the world, was a nice person. But you would be wrong. There were many nice people who supported communism. There were even nice people among the Westerners who provided Josef Stalin with the secrets to making an atom bomb.
The only competitor with communism for pure evil was, of course, Nazism. While the communists murdered far more people, the Nazis' systematic industrial murder of almost every Jewish man, woman and child in Europe remains the most horrific crime ever committed by a nation.
One would therefore assume, especially given the absence of moral rhetoric that characterized communist rhetoric, that there could hardly have been any nice supporters of Nazism.
But you would be wrong again. There were nice Germans who voted for Hitler and the Nazis in 1932, the last free election in Germany until after World War II. Historians are in general agreement that Germans who voted for the Nazis did so primarily for economic reasons, not because they were Jew-haters, let alone sought the murder of all of Europe's Jews. In any event, the plans to exterminate European Jewry were not even drawn up for almost another 10 years.
So, yes, there were even nice Nazis. There is a well-known example of one -- Oskar Schindler. A German industrialist who was a member of the Nazi Party, Schindler personally saved about 1,200 Jews -- Jewish workers in his factories in Nazi-occupied Poland, Bohemia and Moravia. He is the subject of the famous Steven Spielberg film, "Schindler's List."
Obviously, no communist or Nazi who participated in communist or Nazi evils was nice; each was despicable. And so were many, though not all, supporters of communism and the Nazi Party. But "nice" did not preclude abetting pure evil.
This was also true of supporters of slavery and even some slaveholders. As with communism and Nazism, there were some nice people who supported slavery and even some who owned slaves. Like communism and Nazism, the institution of slavery was evil, but not every supporter of slavery or slave owner was personally vicious. George Washington owned slaves, and he was not merely a nice man, he was a great man.
Moreover, unlike communist and Nazi evil, which were unique in history, slavery was universal and practiced throughout history. It took thousands of years for much of humanity to recognize just how evil slavery was. And people must always be judged in the context of the time and place they lived.
The reason this issue of nice people doing harm has become important to me is that I have been trying to explain how it is that millions of nice Americans support left-wing policies that are ruining, perhaps even destroying, America.
Specifically, why do millions of nice liberals support the Left? Leftism and liberalism have virtually nothing in common. Do liberals believe in all-black college dormitories; that America is a systemically racist country founded not in 1776, but in 1619; that Israel is the villain in the Middle East; that capitalism, the only economic system to lift billions of people out of poverty, should be replaced by socialism, whose moral record is horrific; that little children should be taught that "boys" and "girls" are subjective categories and that "nonbinary" is normal; or that defunding police reduces violent crime?
No, they don't. Yet millions of nice liberals support those who believe those nihilistic, anti-American, anti-human ideas.
Many on the Left are neither nice nor good. But America is being destroyed by vile doctrines supported by a lot of nice people.
Postscript:
After saying these things about nice people who support evil on my radio show, the Left declared that I think slave owners were nice people and that I support slavery.
One of the most popular left-wing podcasts, "The Young Turks," spoke about me above the chyron: "Pro-Slavery Prager: Religious radio host argues slave owners were nice people."
And the left-wing English publication, The Independent, headlined, "Far-right radio host Dennis Prager sparks outrage by saying there were 'undoubtedly many nice slaveholders.'"
Intellectual honesty and morally sophisticated thought are not hallmarks of the Left.
“Nice people” who give cash to drug addicted panhandlers and hold up traffic really irritate me.
The English word nice is from Middle English nyce, nice, nys, from Old French nice, niche, nisce (”simple, foolish, ignorant”) ultimately from the Latin nescius meaning, ‘ignorant, unaware’. Modern speakers seem to use the word as a synonym for good. But the qualities of a ‘nice person’ are often quiet, meek or pitiable.
Prayer should’ve seen that coming and qualified his comments as he gave the original broadcast.
Nice people who say they don’t like that trump is mean don’t answer the question ’well, to whom is he mean? Are they people who destroy our country?’
Yup. Perpetuating the problem. There was a girl in front of a deli yesterday who was obviously on something. Some guy came out and asked if she was hungry. She said no. Then he handed her a wad of cash "for something to eat if she gets hungry." Yeah. That's going to go for food.
I may be able to translate this to something I’ve observed in the south.
The difference between “nice” and “kind”.
Southerners are nice. They are not kind.
Coming from the north east, particularly Pennsylvania to Arkansas I’ve discovered some of the worst people I’ve ever interacted with are southerners.
In business? I’ll never do business with a Texan. Never again. Oklahomans are all terrible families with a lot of abuse. Missourian people seem to love petty crime and arkansans are all sexually deviant. I have nasty observations on the north east too.
Southerners will be really kind to you until they exhibit some sort of upper hand. Then all bets are off.
Flame away. I stand by what I say.
That’s a pertinent question isn’t it.
One of those people suggested people on the right need to
be shot. I doubt there will be any big outcry over that
comment.
Nope. Back to full time trashing of Trump who has never
said anything like that.
This is war.
Not everyone supporting those waging war against our country knows we are at war. That makes them useful idiots.
Or as Prager says "nice useful idiots."
I debate whether so called ‘nice people’ are really nice??
‘Nice people’ destroyed Rhodesia and South Africa and are in the process of doing it here.
But they are hallmarks of nice people. There is a huge difference between being nice and being pleasant.
First, however, I want to make a broader statement about wisdom. An example of wisdom is putting a candy bar in your pocket before beginning a long, uncertain journey. Compassion is giving that candy bar to a hungry stranger that you chance to meet on that journey. By this example, you may come to know that the degree of compassion that you are able to express is often limited by your wisdom. Thus studying facts, then pondering them to obtain a clear understanding and finally wisdom, are not ends in themselves; they are aids to help you grow your soul sufficiently large to make you worthy of everything God offers. Those who have faith seek wisdom to achieve that goal. That is faithful wisdom.
Communism, for example, is faithless wisdom at best.
I read an interview long ago where a california panhandler was making six digits. That was very early 1990’s, and the end of my handing money over in public.
“Nice” people are cowards when standing up to the left. And that is understandable since who wants to be dragged through the courts and lose everything – which is what the left will do. These people aren’t stupid and will go along to get along. People have a lot to personally lose... and think that losing the country is for other people to worry about. It’s selfish, cowardlike and based on wealthy and prosperous that allow people to own things, but look what brought us here. Lack of a belief in God. Now everyone is only accountable to themselves... there is nothing above them.
Panhandling on freeway ramps seemed to start in the early 1990s. At the time, a local rag conducted an interview with a panhandler. He was taking in around $500.00 a day tax free.
This was in Phoenix, AZ.
Andy and Barney describing Mary Grace:
https://youtu.be/yVwh8ui41eg
A saying we have in Missouri~”You’ns are painting with a pretty broad brush there”
That is about $150K a year if he take weekends and holidays off. I live in a college town and I don't think most panhandlers have the skill sets to make the big bucks. Many I've seen over the years have obvious mental, drug and/or alcohol problems.
Yeah, i am just saying no to all that.
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