Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Progressives Don’t Like Poor People. They Just Hate Rich People.
First, my apologies. Like many of my physician colleagues, I’m struggling a bit with burnout. So, hopefully unlike many of my colleagues, I spend my Friday and Saturday nights drinking myself into oblivion. It helps, for a while – it really does. I feel better. Until the next morning. Thank God for bourbon. And coffee. All mostly harmless, except for my esteemed friends on Ricochet. You have to listen to my drunken ruminations. Sorry. Speaking of which:
I find it incredible that anyone can complain about modern medicine’s inefficiencies, complexity, and lack of personal touch – and then that person suggests that things would improve if only the government was more involved. My friends that can say such things without giggling are generally not fools. I don’t get it. Will concierge medicine be outlawed? Now that would help poor inner city lesbian single mothers! How can we make our military more effective? By staffing it with trans-gendered unionized government employees! How can we increase the GDP? By increasing regulations and alternative energy usage! How can we improve our system of higher education? By outlawing independent thought! How can we help unskilled workers enter the labor market? By banning jobs that produce less than $15 per hour!
I could go on and on, given enough bourbon. You probably could, too.
But I find the root motivations of such things endlessly fascinating. Progressives claim to be motivated by concern for the downtrodden and a desire to restore “true American ideals.” But most, if not nearly all, of their policies accomplish to opposite of their stated goals. Are they all stupid? No. So what gives?
I really think that most progressive policies are designed not to help the poor, but to punish the rich, and are based on nothing more idealistic than simple jealousy. They’re designed not to help anyone, but to hurt someone. Someone specific.
I think this is why progressives hate Trump so much. On the other hand, why do they love Kennedys? Mysterious are the ways of progressives.
Studying progressives since the 1960s, I wonder if anyone has a more – ahem – charitable view? Please enlighten me. Perhaps this will all make sense when I achieve an adequate serum concentration of bourbon…
Published in General
I am arguing that all this is working exactly as it was intended to. Or at least close. I think this s#&@ storm was intentional – stick it to those people who did better than me! I really hope I’m wrong.
It’s sickening, really. Who is more important in our society than Doctors, such as yourself, that give life saving counsel for ourselves and loved ones? In my day Doctors always received the highest respect, as they were known to be the smartest and hardest working and best educated amongst us. In the hierarchy of monetary compensation it was always natural to understand they should be at the top so as to encourage our smartest and best to enter that endeavor. Leave it to those liberal/progressives you asked about to screw up what was once a remarkable achievement of our country.
It’s tempting, but I don’t agree with the thesis of the OP. I think that Leftists are motivated by care for the poor and disadvantaged. Their principal narrative, however, is that poverty or misfortune necessarily implies that someone is at fault. I think that this is because they are both: (1) historically ignorant, and therefore they do not understand that poverty and suffering is the norm, and (2) utopian and anti-Christian, and therefore they do not understand human frailty and wickedness and the generally harsh nature of reality.
By the way, I don’t like using the word “Progressive” for Leftists. It’s too propagandistic, as if everyone opposed to them is opposed to progress. Liberal is worse, but Progressive is still bad. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a better descriptive term for the Left.
Thus, a Leftist’s care for the poor leads them to look for a scapegoat, and assign blame to the rich. It is ironic that a group whose rhetoric is so strongly opposed to scapegoating practices it so strongly.
I think that this is due to the fundamentally Communist basis of Leftist thought. Socialism had two major divisions, the Nazis and the Communists. The Nazis elevated the nation (in theory), and scapegoated foreigners and especially racial minorities in Germany. The Communists elevate the poor (in theory), and scapegoat the rich.
I think that most Leftists don’t understand that there is an alternative, non-Marxist viewpoint. This explains their insistence that American Conservatives are Fascists or Nazis.
It is true that Leftist policies don’t work, which means that even when in power, they don’t actually help the poor. But hope springs eternal, and they always have the arguments that: (1) their policies were thwarted by the opposition (as the Republican Congress election in 2010 stopped much of Obama’s agenda, or the Castro regime in Cuba was harmed by US opposition), or (2) their policies were improperly implemented by flawed leaders (like Stalin; they believe that the USSR would really have been a worker’s paradise if only Trotsky had won the power struggle).
I do not think that these ideas can be lightly dismissed. If I remember correctly, Christopher Hitchens believed to the end that Stalin had perverted socialism, and that things would have gone well under Trotsky. I cite Hitchens because, while I believe that he was dreadfully and tragically wrong about Communism and Christianity, the central issues of our time, I found him to be a brilliant mind and an extraordinarily gifted rhetorician. Further, I did not get the impression that Hitchens was motivated by hate for the rich.
I think that it is a mistake to try to explain away Leftism as a combination of stupidity and mindless hate. I do not think that this argument will be effective, because the undecided are bound to encounter highly intelligent Leftists of apparent good will.