Liberals have been led astray by an ideology that just doesn’t work, and they haven’t seen through its many flawed premises. For some, enlightenment begins after they gain life experience. Until then, they’re encumbered by some odd beliefs, including the following ones I’ve heard.
Money grows on trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDHLCJpnjG0
One of my former girlfriends told me that the government should loan a million dollars to anyone who wants to start their own business. This would get around the problem of banks capriciously deciding who qualifies for a loan. Since having to create viable business plans is an unreasonable burden, the government simply could rubber stamp all applicants and cut them a check for a cool mill. Yes, she was dead serious.
I have my misgivings about banksters, to say the least. Even so, they’re certainly correct to reject loans that are unlikely to get repaid. After all, they’ve gotten their fingers burnt over risky loans before. What sense, then, does it make for the government to start tossing out millions like confetti?
I asked, “What if someone fritters it all away instead and can’t pay it back?” She didn’t think it was a big deal. So I pointed out that for the government to lend everyone a million dollars, the only way to raise the money would be to tax everyone a million dollars. Then what’s the point? Nevertheless, she wasn’t deterred from this big idea.
The fundamental error
The government doesn’t create wealth; it taxes it. For that reason, whenever the government spends money, it should be for a very good reason, which frequently it isn’t. All too many liberals believe the government is a limitless wellspring of money. Because of fiat currency and the Federal Reserve, it kind of is, except that creates debt rather than wealth. Swiping that unlimited credit card ad infinitum brings consequences.
It’s a mentality similar to leftist revolutionaries who don’t understand how wealth is created and maintained. They see it as a big pile of treasure that someone else has and they don’t. They consider this unjust, and the solution is to steal it. When they run out of people to loot, the result is places like North Korea, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
Richard Nixon sets it straight
We are not spending the Federal Government’s money, we are spending the taxpayer’s money, and it must be spent in a way which guarantees his money’s worth and yields the fullest possible benefit to the people being helped.
Burn it all down
Saul Alinsky, grandfather of the community agitators
A public school teacher with SJW-like tendencies told me that whenever there’s a problem in society, the solution is to tear down the system. Reform isn’t enough. I was going to argue that if you set out to destroy something, you first should ensure that whatever takes its place will be better. However, she beat me to it, going on that it doesn’t matter if the results are worse than the starting point. What?
The fundamental error
If you take one step forward and three steps back, then you were better off leaving well enough alone. Sometimes reform is necessary and proper, but it must be carefully considered and have a realistic plan leading to constructive results. Not all change is progress.
This “burn everything down and magically paradise will emerge” mentality is a common theme. We’ve seen this with the Jacobins (France), the Bolsheviks (Russia), cultural Marxism (our society), the Cloward-Piven Plan (the welfare state), the feminists (the family), and the list goes on. Half-baked leftist schemes have a terrible track record. When they set out to torch everything, then Year Zero begins with a pile of ashes.
Richard Nixon sets it straight
One of the most startling gaps in the Communist theory is the lack of any clear notion of how a Communist economy would be organized. In the writings of the great founders of communism there is virtually nothing on this subject. This gap was not an oversight, but was in fact a necessary consequence of the general theory of communism. […]
Operating then, in this vacuum of guidance left behind by their prophets, how did the founders of the Soviet Union proceed to organize their new economy? The answer is that they applied as faithfully as they could the teachings of their masters. Since those teachings were essentially negative, their actions had to have the same quality.
Human nature can be altered easily
One of the primary means they use to try to change human nature
One of my friends conducts group debates via email which includes a millennial Bernie Sanders supporter. A debate over global warming somehow morphed into a discussion over what future society should be like. The kid stated that we’ll have to change human nature to eliminate greed completely. From the way he wrote about this, he considered it to be as easy as passing a speed limit law.
It doesn’t work this way. For example, Christianity has preached against excesses of greed from the beginning, likewise Islam and major Eastern religions. They significantly discouraged avarice along with other vices, but in thousands of years they haven’t eradicated them from the human mind. For that matter, they’re all nominally religions of peace, but it doesn’t always work that way.
Good luck on getting ideology to do more than sermons of hellfire and brimstone did! I thought of pointing out the futility, but he seemed impervious to reason.
The fundamental error
Leftists—from moderate liberals all the way to flaming Maoists—have great faith that human nature can be remade into whatever suits their purposes. They believe it’s completely created by society. Culture does matter a lot (which is why they should quit screwing it up), but you can’t engineer society like reprogramming a computer. That doesn’t work.
Still, they cause a lot of damage attempting this. Worse for them, these absurd social engineering efforts create smoldering resentments by coercing people to act against their nature. The sudden collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe should’ve warned them. For example, if the Swedes arise against their dispossession, there will be hell to pay. The same is true elsewhere in Europe; it’s only a matter of time before many criminally irresponsible politicians and their cronies find themselves in deep shit.
Richard Nixon sets it straight
In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.
The media is objective and independent
Around Trump’s inauguration, one of my liberal friends (who does have some redeeming qualities) breathlessly told me that most magazines and newspapers were going to use the word “resist” in their headlines.
I mentioned how much collusion that would require. Then I asked if it bothered her that the media outlets were in cahoots with each other and had so little ideological variation. Sure, you’d expect some leftist periodicals, but why so few with other viewpoints? She just continued with how great the “resist” headlines would be. Again I brought up the issue of balance, but I might as well have been talking to a wall.
This seems to have been a half-baked idea; only a few publications followed through with “resist” headlines. Still, liberals should be concerned about a vast ideological imbalance in the press, even if it’s in their favor.
The fundamental error
If voters are to make informed decisions, they must get accurate information. This doesn’t happen if the news is one-sided partisan propaganda. Consider the following:
- Obama’s Deep State had the whole country under surveillance: no big deal.
- Hillary’s staffers erased thousands of emails: no big deal.
- Nixon’s team bugged two rooms and erased a few minutes of tape: the press went berserk.
I say they owe Tricky Dick an apology.
Richard Nixon sets it straight
The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.
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Read More: 12 Reasons Why Liberals And Progressives Will Always Be Losers
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