Told you so. NJ needs to apologize.
The left does indeed foment hate.
https://www.city-journal.org/what-lies-at-the-heart-of-national-division
That our divisions have their origins largely on the left has nothing to do with the number of righteous people on either side. It’s simply a question of cultural power. The Left dominates the news industry, Hollywood, the academy, social media, big tech, and the minds of corporate leaders. Leftism commands all the heights that shape our culture, except the besieged and dwindling redoubt of reality.
Because socialism is the Left’s ultimate goal and because socialism is immoral and can’t be rightly argued for, the leftist shapers of culture peddle hatred and division instead.
Socialism is immoral because it rests on a benign fantasy that masks a malignant truth. The fantasy is that a nation’s production, distribution, and wealth can be entrusted to a benevolent state dedicated to the common good. There is no such state. There are only people with power. Long centuries of constitutional restraints have schooled these naked apes in the habits of decency. But as the restraints weaken, the habits fall away. Not sometimes—always. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Socialism, which centralizes power, leads to oppression and human misery. Like the t-shirt says, you can vote your way in, but you have to shoot your way out.
The results of socialism’s immorality have been lived out again and again—in the murderous Soviet slave state, in the homicidal tyrannies of Communist China, in Cuba, and in various other South American, African, and Asian debacles. Even in the far milder social democracies of Europe and Scandinavia, many of the destructive outcomes of top-down economies have been papered over by the fact that America’s capitalist wealth has provided the nations there with much of their defense, not to mention their technical, energy, and medical innovation. Even so, parts of both Europe and Scandinavia have dialed back their social largesse with positive results.
Because of socialism’s repeated failures, the supporters of this bad idea are left without arguments. Instead, they have retreated into “critical theory,” insult, and violence. Critical theory, generally speaking, is the dishonest strategy of relentlessly criticizing the flaws and history of freedom and capitalism in the hope that listeners will conclude that solutions must come from a more powerful central government. Insult silences reasoned arguments with name-calling. If you disagree, you’re racist, sexist, phobic, or otherwise hateful and must be shunned and canceled. Violence comes in the form of riots (“mostly peaceful demonstrations,” in corporate media-speak), Maoist street thuggery (“anti-fascism”), and the hobbling of the police, which ensures spiraling crime (“racial justice”).
The left does indeed foment hate.
https://www.city-journal.org/what-lies-at-the-heart-of-national-division
That our divisions have their origins largely on the left has nothing to do with the number of righteous people on either side. It’s simply a question of cultural power. The Left dominates the news industry, Hollywood, the academy, social media, big tech, and the minds of corporate leaders. Leftism commands all the heights that shape our culture, except the besieged and dwindling redoubt of reality.
Because socialism is the Left’s ultimate goal and because socialism is immoral and can’t be rightly argued for, the leftist shapers of culture peddle hatred and division instead.
Socialism is immoral because it rests on a benign fantasy that masks a malignant truth. The fantasy is that a nation’s production, distribution, and wealth can be entrusted to a benevolent state dedicated to the common good. There is no such state. There are only people with power. Long centuries of constitutional restraints have schooled these naked apes in the habits of decency. But as the restraints weaken, the habits fall away. Not sometimes—always. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Socialism, which centralizes power, leads to oppression and human misery. Like the t-shirt says, you can vote your way in, but you have to shoot your way out.
The results of socialism’s immorality have been lived out again and again—in the murderous Soviet slave state, in the homicidal tyrannies of Communist China, in Cuba, and in various other South American, African, and Asian debacles. Even in the far milder social democracies of Europe and Scandinavia, many of the destructive outcomes of top-down economies have been papered over by the fact that America’s capitalist wealth has provided the nations there with much of their defense, not to mention their technical, energy, and medical innovation. Even so, parts of both Europe and Scandinavia have dialed back their social largesse with positive results.
Because of socialism’s repeated failures, the supporters of this bad idea are left without arguments. Instead, they have retreated into “critical theory,” insult, and violence. Critical theory, generally speaking, is the dishonest strategy of relentlessly criticizing the flaws and history of freedom and capitalism in the hope that listeners will conclude that solutions must come from a more powerful central government. Insult silences reasoned arguments with name-calling. If you disagree, you’re racist, sexist, phobic, or otherwise hateful and must be shunned and canceled. Violence comes in the form of riots (“mostly peaceful demonstrations,” in corporate media-speak), Maoist street thuggery (“anti-fascism”), and the hobbling of the police, which ensures spiraling crime (“racial justice”).
