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The Danger of Making Ruthlessness Seem Reasonable
I use a lot of dangerous drugs. Well, not me personally, but on my patients. Of course, I use dangerous drugs only when the disease I’m treating is more dangerous than the drug. In diseases that are not life-threatening, naturally I avoid dangerous drugs and try to stick with safer therapies. Chemotherapy drugs can save your life, but they can also have significant side effects. Side effects that you would not tolerate if you were treating a sinus infection. But if you have cancer, and you’re trying to avoid dying, it may make sense to take a chance on side effects – even very serious side effects. In truly desperate circumstances, there are few actions one would not consider, no matter how drastic.
That’s what always bothered me about the great leftist / progressive / socialist leaders of the 20th century: Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and so on. They saw a problem and took drastic measures to fix it. When I consider the horrifyingly drastic measures they took, I wonder, “What possible problem did they see that warranted such drastic actions? Who on earth could have possibly thought that was a good idea?” Even for those who lack sympathy for others, killing millions of people is no small thing. They claimed that they were trying to save or improve their countries for their citizens. Which some considered to be an adequate reason. Think about that. And then, think about Greta Thunberg.
There are many facets of the global warming fraud that I find concerning, but what bothers me the most about it is that its adherents claim to on a mission to save the world. Ok, so what would you not do to save the world? At that point, any action could be considered, right? Even horrible side effects are worthwhile in this case because the patient is dying and we’re desperate. So no action, no matter how drastic, is off the table.
It’s easy to chuckle when a self-important 16-year-old girl explains that the world is ending. It’s ridiculous.
Well, it may be ridiculous, but it’s not funny.
These people are dangerous. Their polarizing extremism encourages ruthless actions that would otherwise be unthinkable. Just ask a dead German Jew from 1943.
A few days ago, at a town hall on CNN, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained her concern about President Trump with the following statement: “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet. The damage that this administration has done to America, America’s a great country. We can sustain. Two terms, I don’t know.”
Not that long ago, Mrs. Pelosi would have said no such thing. She might have said, “I have serious disagreements with Mr. Trump’s policy proposals, and I don’t like where he is taking this country. I hope my fellow American citizens will choose to vote Democrat in the next election. Let me explain why I think that would be a good decision.” And she would then outline her specific disagreements with Mr. Trump, and how she would propose to do better for the American people than he would.
This is how the Republicans won the House in 1994. The “Contract with America” explained what they saw as problems, and how they intended to fix those problems. It worked – they won.
I’m not sure that approach would work now. As I often say, I hope I’m wrong about this. But American politics has changed. And more importantly, American society seems to have changed.
There are those who think that the Democrats’ repeated impeachment attempts against Mr. Trump and other extremist tactics are due to their particular dislike for Mr. Trump. I disagree. If Mitt Romney or Scott Walker were president, I suspect the Democrats would be using similarly ruthless tactics. This shift in tactics occurred before, and independent of, the inauguration of Mr. Trump.
President Trump may be a response to this new approach to American politics, but he is not the cause of it.
It seems strange that such extremism and such vicious approaches to politics occur now, in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity, here in modern America. American politics were vicious and nasty in the mid-1800s, but slavery and other issues were on the verge of tearing our country apart. One can understand how such serious disagreements about such serious issues would lead to divisive politics.
But we’re not arguing about slavery and basic human rights anymore. We’re not even arguing about foreign wars or Prohibition. We’re arguing about transsexual bathrooms. It’s hard to understand such vicious political tactics in times of peaceful prosperity like these.
I’m not sure of the cause, but I suspect it started with the extremist environmental movement. Silent Spring was published in 1962. The Population Bomb was published in 1968. The cold winters of the 1970s led many to believe that we were all about to die in the next ice age.
All of those predictions turned out to be wrong, but the potential power of such messages was hard for some politicians to ignore. Particularly politicians who had no other compelling reasons for anyone to vote for them. Al Gore is an extreme example of this phenomenon, but many others on the left are using this technique now. And when one considers the success rate of leftist policies, one can understand why they use this approach.
A leftist politician no longer has to explain why socialism has never worked anywhere else, and how exactly it will work here. That’s a tough sell. All he/she has to do is convince voters that Republicans are evil capitalists who want to get rich by destroying the world, like a James Bond villain. And then convince those voters that global catastrophe is certain unless they vote for the leftist, who cares for the environment. Skip the details, just paint the picture.
At that point, no actions, no matter how drastic or ruthless, are off the table. Confronting and shaming people in public. Chasing the families of suspected conservatives out of restaurants. Scaring the families of prominent conservatives. Arresting elderly nobodies like Roger Stone in SWAT raids in the middle of the night, with CNN along to broadcast it worldwide. It seems vicious, but hey, we’re trying to save the world here, so it’s ok. Really. Are you with us, or against us? Are you evil, or nice?
These people are dangerous.
So when I hear Nancy Pelosi say, “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet,” I don’t laugh. When I hear Greta Thunberg say, “For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer,” I don’t just roll my eyes. When I hear AOC say, “There’s no debate as to whether we should continue producing fossil fuels. There’s no debate,” I don’t wonder what she’s been smoking.
These people are dangerous. They make ruthlessness seem reasonable.
In the past, people have agreed to drastic actions simply to save their country, as they saw it. People actually voted for Adolf Hitler for little more reason than that. What if they thought they were saving the whole world? What would they not do?
Saul Alinsky.The impeachment charade is not a joke. Neither are climate protests, or boycotting businesses suspected of being insufficiently leftist, or economic sanctions against businesses in states that don’t enact your preferred policies regarding transsexual bathrooms. It may seem ridiculous, but it’s not funny.
This is scary stuff. And I don’t see a solution. This is just the way the left does politics now. It wasn’t just Hillary Clinton who learned a lot from Saul Alinsky. The Democrat party has decided that such ruthless tactics are reasonable. I suspect that things will get much worse before they get better.
I really hope I’m wrong about all this…
Published in General
Sorry I’ve been a little out of touch on this thread. I’ve been working a lot this week.
Also, I really didn’t expect this type of response. 50 likes before it hit the main feed. Over 70 now, and it just hit Free Republic, Instapundit and a few other sites.
It would appear that I’m not the only one who’s a little concerned about the no-holds-barred tactics of the modern left.
Thanks to everyone for their comments. I’ll try to respond to some of them after work.
Man, this work thing really gets in the way of my social media activity…
Possibly the Dem’s 2020 campaign slogan will be: “It’s the Methane, Stupid.”
http://ricochet.com/704489/the-hype-of-global-climate-change-reporting-east-siberian-sea-now-boils-w-methane/
Your final sentence “There is something in humanity that doesn’t care about humanity but cares about the humanity in their head” is one spot on statement.
The Left’s ideals are wonderful. But to implement those goals perfectly would require a major overhaul of individual human beings. And that overhaul is where things get very very scary.
I don’t agree. At all. Their ideas are evil. When people stopping accepting their premises that central planning, redistribution of wealth, and other means of enslaving and robbing people are laudable, only then will we be able to defeat them in the arena of ideas and philosophy. If we keep agreeing to their evil premises then we will always lose to them. Once you agree it is right to do those things, then the argument is reduced to how much you redistribute. You’ll always lose that one.
She said ideals. You said ideas.
Potato, tomato. Let’s call the whole thing off. Whatever word might be deemed appropriate, we meant the same meaning.
Maybe you did mean the same thing, and maybe you didn’t. But you used different words that ordinarily have different meanings and different connotations.
Okay, I’ll try again.
I don’t agree. At all. Their ideas and their ideals are evil. When people stopping accepting their premises that central planning, redistribution of wealth, and other means of enslaving and robbing people are laudable, only then will we be able to defeat them in the arena of ideas, ideals, and philosophy. If we keep agreeing to their evil premises then we will always lose to them. Once you agree it is right to do those things, then the argument is reduced to how much you redistribute. You’ll always lose that one.
I would suggest that the ideals from which their plans derive aren’t evil per se – ‘everyone should have enough/no one should undergo severe hardship’ are things we agree with at a gut level.
It is the policies one puts in place that are graded morally.
We believe that parents should strive and when they don’t, we will eventually take their children before we let them literally starve or otherwise die from neglect. We will encourage (to the point of tax breaks) people to donate to and care for the poor and damaged, and we will use our police to arrest and house people who might otherwise die of exposure when the weather becomes deadly.
I’m good with seizing neglected children, not taxing charitable organizations, and using the force of law to prevent homeless from dying, but these solutions are messy, ethically dubious, and of limited utility.
Don’t get me wrong – the kinds of socialist ‘solutions’ the left would offer are far and away worse and I do realize that for a lot of people on the left there is a corollary ‘no one should have too much/no one should have it too good’ ideal that informs their solutions.
I yet disagree. Their “ideal” that everyone should have enough is evil and presumes that others are obliged to make it so.
I’m all for helping people that I like or wish to help, but that is not the same as saying society should have a goal of everyone having enough. That is a by-product of prosperity, but that result is incidental. For there to be a fair and just society, people must be free, and that includes the freedom to not have enough.
Skyler, the situation is that people on the Left mainly talk about their ideals. They blather on about free stuff for everybody – Don’t Worry, just be Happy… Who will pay for the free stuff? Why, no one but the government pays. (And the rich guys should pay, only a problem exists in that the “rich guys” situation is never defined.)
I lived in Marin for 2 decades. I only met maybe 3 liberal people who thought they were rich. I knew folks worth 2 million bucks: they thought they were not in the rich category because their more successful relatives had 5 million. I knew people worth 5 million who thought that the guy with 12 million was rich. If they were liberals, they thought only the Bill Gates of the world should be taxed – not them.
Very few people talk about implementation. It’s the nefarious rich guy who will pay – not you or me, and certainly not Mr and Mrs Marin with the five million dollars. So the government will pay for it all, and maybe Bill Gates can be billed. If you try to explain that should tax rates on the upper class be raised back to 1960 levels, Bill Gates will become a citizen of some other place, they look at you like you are talking about little green men from Mars.
You and I know that how the proposed socialism will work out. But they don’t wanna really think about petty details, because their glorious ideals are so glorious.
They blather on about diversity & re-distribution of wealth. The people doing this have never met a payroll. They love an idea of a $ 15 an hour minimum wage, with no concept that it means fewer businesses will manage to employ anyone.
I was told once that concerns about Open Borders were groundless – an influx of many more warm bodies would not affect the economy at any level, because once it’s decreed that jobs would carry a $ 15 a hr minimum wage, no one would be poor. If I had debated the issue, to their way of thinking, I would have just come across as a heartless fascist who hated the poor.
“Greater love hath no man than this; to lay down other people’s money for his designated charity choices.”