Prager on the differences between left and right
[Hat tip: commenter “Artfldgr.”]
Columnist Dennis Prager is a changer, although his change happened many moons ago—he says that Carter is the last Democrat he voted for:
Obviously, I underwent an intellectual change. And it wasn’t easy. Becoming a Republican was emotionally and psychologically like converting to another religion.
In fact, when I first voted Republican I felt as if I had abandoned the Jewish people. To be a Jew meant being a Democrat. It was that simple. It was — and remains — that fundamental to many American Jews’ identity.
Therefore, it took a lot of thought to undergo this conversion. I had to understand both liberalism and conservatism. Indeed, I have spent a lifetime in a quest to do so.
Changers have the advantage of having looked at life (and politics, and history) from both sides now, as in the Joni Mitchell song. Prager is planning a series of columns explaining some of the fundamental differences between left and right as he sees them.
Should be worth reading.
I never understood that “people are basically good” vs. “people are basically bad” thing myself. It seems impossible to prove either proposition. And how basic is “basically.” Down deep a Hitler or a Stalin might be “basically” good, but his actions (which are what counts) would be so overwhelmingly evil that a rational response to him would have to be the same as it would be if he were basically bad. And I don’t see where either proposition can be used to justify statism. If people are basically good, there’s no need to lord it over them. If people are basically evil, why invest some of them with unlimited power?
Bilwick:
Excellent points.
I think perhaps that liberal statists would argue that big government is needed to foster the conditions that will help people realize their good nature, and also that because people are basically good, then do-goody type people with good intentions forming a big government will be doing good things.
If only Stalin knew.
Neo,
“Both Sides Now” could be your theme song. (Mine too.) I watched Joni sing it. She may be a liberal but I don’t care. I love her. I’m sad to hear she is ailing.
I read Prager’s column this morning. I do think he has the gist of the difference in how philosophically the two sides view humanity. To the faculty I work with, there’s no such thing as a bad person, unless they are talking about a conservative…imagine that! For them, any defined underclass person is automatically a saint who just needs help. I even heard one faculty person say that black people are “Lightbringers” and that they have an inherent gentle nature. Tell that to the residents of Central Africa. I quoted Mark Twain’s comment that “Idiocy and corruption know no political, cultural, or ethnic boundaries” The rejoinder, was of course, Twain was a racist.
Been reading/listening to Dennis Prager since 1990, about 8 or so years after he started broadcasting on radio. Upon reading his column this morning, I posted several comments and found it interesting that many others missed his point entirely. Very sad.
I love that Dennis started this conversation.
What nearly all the expositions on the differences between left and right do is skim the surface, and frankly it is tiresome. Remove from the calculations the great middle, the masses having no beliefs nor caring to have any – being swept up in a corrupt consumerism – and what is left? The difference, for whatever the litany of details, is existential. The chasm between the two sides (North and South, Calvinist/Puritan/Transcendentalist and Christian Cavalier, commercial/industrial and agrarian, Progressive and Traditionalist, at odds from the beginning of the Republic are now at each other’s throats. The one side, the Left had made it apparent sometime ago that the Right was a moral affront to their self-righteousness; and for it, also on the wrong side of history — History’s progress being immanent. What option had the Right but to defend their very being — and not just in the public-square?
The two Americas are antithetical antagonists and the Left, since the advent of Obama, sees blood in the water. The great divide, had it been contained merely to the US, would have been bad enough but the contempt pervades Western civilization. So the relevant question is not what are the differences between Left and Right but what is it they share. It’s hatred – each of the other. And hatred is neither corner nor capstone. Nor is it a foundation. It is over.
George Pal,
“It’s hatred — each of the other.”
I don’t hate the Left…I do think they are misguided, illogical, etc. However, they DO hate me (i.e. the right). The hate is palpable, vicious, and internalized. Just try engaging one in a rational debate and watch the hate blossom in full glory.
Bilwick:
“If people are basically good, there’s no need to lord it over them. If people are basically evil, why invest some of them with unlimited power?”
Exactly. It really is just that simple.
I would remind you that Rebbi Prager takes pains to point out that he’s not talking about e.g. your lefty-lib sister or brother in law. He’s talking about “the Left”.
i.e. the Hamburg School,Gramsci, Alinsky etc.
The hard core IOW.
Physicsguy,
I’m tempted to say your non-hatred is anecdotal and does not represent the Right. Perhaps you are of too sweet a disposition. I am not, nor I think, is any Right-minded, Right-thinking man. Perhaps you are not moved to hate because of the close proximity of hate and violence. One can hate without doing violence. Note, one of the Left’s favorite denunciations was ‘reactionary’ and such is the Right’s hatred — a reaction – I’ll not abide any man who will not abide me.
The fundamental difference between the American left and right is how each reconcile the two moral axioms: individual dignity and intrinsic value. In principle, the American right is right. In principle, the American left is wrong. In practice, each has its desirable and disagreeable aspects.
That said, beyond principles, which either confirm character or reveal ulterior motives, there is a need to affirm an outlook in practice. The Democrats have something to offer, even something noteworthy. However, since their principles cannot be reconciled with their practice, it must be understood that they have ulterior motives. The Republicans also have something to offer. Notably their principles, which must be presumed to represent a class character. It is the exceptional corruption that needs to be addressed on the right. It is the fundamental corruption, often veiled by good intentions, even good practices, that must be addressed on the left.
American conservatism has neither a collective nor individual outlook. It is essentially a hybridization of classical liberalism and Judaeo-Christian philosophy. The former favors individual dignity, while the latter is an explicit acknowledgement of intrinsic value (i.e. The Declaration of Independence: “all men are created”, and The Constitution: Posterity). It is the simulated (i.e. unprincipled) respect of the former and support of the latter which creates an illusion of empathy attributed to progressive liberalism. This is despite their principled denigration of individual dignity (e.g. class diversity) and debasement of human life (e.g. pro-choice/abortion).
Defining hate by the standards of the Left’s obedient zombie tantrums, is to become misguided. That is not true hate.
And what pray tell, does the Democrats offer as desirable to human livestock?
Lets see..
Bernie Sanders thinks we should have a centralized control economy cause 23 brands of antipersperant is too many… A very old communist trope that one brand is more efficient than many, the idea being that those who dont fit that brand, just are S.O.O.L
its OBVIOUS that Sanders never changed, despite most of his family being exterminated by socialists, but i guess he thinks communist socialism is different than german socialism, which of course both would be different than US socialism… [sigh]
then you have prager, who will be telling his conversion story. the nice thing is that i finally found a line of reasoning that may make Neo happy as to the subtype of conversions she wishes to understand. The old ones who converted and who gained immensly and lost a lot in doing so – seem to be boring and not at all what is being looked for than the lesser average person in the form of elites who seem more average despite being the same elite type that benefits greatly and who decides on some level to forgoe it.
and here it is..
progressivism is about conversion in increments a la fabianism, and or incrementalism. the people who are on the left, in the average category have limits which do not go as far as the leaders to incrementalize the outcome, slicing the baloney/salami.
so in truth, what happens is that they believe in a move to the left to a certain point, and so, find progressives seem to support them. so they side to move that little bit to the left, but the truth is that the progressives want to go to Z, not N which i am using to symbolize the spectrum of movement.
so its a case of leading the masses with each converstion jumping off the train and becoming opposition and converts when the progressives and others move past the point where they found the move acceptable.
ie. they thought that by supporting them they would get N, but they went past N to R, now they are woken up, upset, and feel betrayed as they never wanted to go to R, they wanted it to stop at N… and so the crowd marches on, and at each letter, the older ones who thought moving so far but no farther drop off and have these conversion moments.
they were for it until they were against it… they didnt mind a bit of socialism, but now the people they supported went to far…
thats the common conversion, a person who accepts the argument and helps them move, but then feels they have gone too far, too wacko, too whatever, and then wants to roll back the changes.
this is why its an easy process to start, and why it takes so long as the people they use up to N drop off, and they need people acclimated to the level of N (young) to then move to R… then they drop off..
at some point, like now, the political doesnt need them any more as the items they selected to get support were picked to be Gliechshaltung. that is, ratchet forward, but without some negative action that violates some earlier established point, they are helpless to stop or reverse or even change the course.
but then again, like scaffolding, they are no longer needed and are discarded. they fall from the grace of the belonging to the isolation of the apostate rejected by their clan.
their choices then become to change and act upon that, a moral position of self definition, or to sublimiate their desire to the group, abandon their line in the sand, and “throw away those little glasses”, drink the bristol cream, and dive into the pool “to swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh”
the point here is that they did not support someone who was going to the same destination, the confused a stop along the way and being picked up as a hitchhiker as far as they were going was the same thing! so when the bus, goes past their stop, they scream WTF.
like a patron on a bus, they then start to notice every iconic thing along the ride just as a person does when they missed their stop and go on to the next one. they are now trying to make up for the lack of being alert that made them miss the stop in the first place. they also start to realize that where they wanted to go was not the destination, but just a stop along the way, and that this bus, is going to carry everyone on it way past any kind of REASONABLE (homage to huxley and his “reasonable man” pose), end.
This is the reason why the left jumbles things, they ultimately know that if they can get you to miss the stop, you will support them for a small while longer than if you knew what stop you were at! this is why they supress the things that would get people to wake up and say, where the heck is this bus going and how to i get off.
when they get off, well, they are way past the place they wanted to be, they have no friends as the bus drivers were not friends but using them, and the people they knew that never got on, or got off earlier than they, are no where to be seen as the bus ran over them many stops ago.
this is the most common change story that repeats over and over – and to me is the most boring version of it. it takes no actual discover, waking up, in any real sense, any more than when you accidently buy the wrong product at the store, diet vs regular, and see that what you thought you wanted wasnt what you got.
its my error that i thought neo wanted the most interesting and thoughtful converts not the boring people who thought they were buying brand X on sale and got Brand Y and cant return it and feel lost.
to me the more interesting converts are the ones who know where the bus was going, or what brand they were getting, and were driving the bus and decided to change… unlike the others who just wake up to the idea that what they supported is not what they supported… these wake up to what i supported and wanted and was a part of and benefited greatly from, is something evil and i have been a key part in that, and then feel that repentance is necessary to try to undo the things they did – even if that is just their confessions, comments, etc… or their converstion from red to counter revolutionary.
the idea that once you get old enough you realize where things are going and have more ability to see and influence that path for yourself is a natural ability that is no different than someone realizingt hat they havent saved enough for retirement and they have not much life left before that time.. (and so, must work work work till they die…ergo my, im waiting to die as nothing i can do will change the bus route any more)
prager is interesting, and writes well, and so his explanation will be entertaining on some level, but ultimately, its the boring story of i thought that this was going here, but it wasnt, and so i found i was on the wrong bus, and got off… and here is my trials and tribulations being dropped off in a place i dont know having to start over on some level missing the people who i sang with on the bus… so much fun like going to day camp!!! lets sing… 2, 4, 6, 8, its the drop off passengers we hate…
to me… i find it infinitely interesting to study the people who were not tricked, who went in with eyes open and with full knowlege and desire… (at least more so than a person missing their stop by accident and distracting lack of attention).
why would the top ranking general of the military convert, have his family killed or tortured, get a price on his head potentially being assasinated to tell us he got off the bus? [Vladimir Rezun (Viktor Suvorov)]
why would the head of soviet propaganda decide to tell the world that socialism is a crock of crap and he should know? [yakovlev)
we talk more about Snowden than we talk about his equivalents that came way befor him!!!!!!!!!
ie. why did snowden basically end up a defector on some level? what instigated his actions?
why did Ion Mihai Pacepa and Matei Pavel Haiducu leave the Russian Securitate???
heck… you would think that Neo, with her love of ballet, would have taken some time to go through the list of defectors and their stories
Mikhail Baryshnikov [he even made movies and such to clue you in on the system and what happens when you leave and how your erased – one in particular with G Hines]
Sulamith Messerer [her sister was purged so late in life she left russia for the west]
Nora Kovach [hungarian that was taking a tour and jumped off with her husband.. prager doesnt have to leave his language, family, money, belongings, friends, and more in an instant to make his change, but they had to to make theirs]
Istvan Rabovsky [jumped with Noral and her husband on the same tour]
Natalia Makarova [left russia, won a tony award]
Alexander Godunov [defected at jfk, became an actor, ended up in the die hard series]
Rudolf Nureyev [defected, got off the leftist bus in paris]
Leonid Kozlov [jumped with his wife Valentina Kozlova]
Valentina Kozlova [jumped with her husband Leonid Kozlov]
all are ballet performers, and some are some of the greatest that ever lived… there was no guarantees for them… but they jumped – and made a much mroe serious jump than prager has to… our country has not reached the level where jumping off the bus would get you killed…
why not discuss the defection of George Balanchine?
there is a long list of chess masters as well..
Viktor Korchnoi,Lev Alburt,Romanas Arlauskas,Fedir Bohatyrchuk,Leho Laurine,Bela Berger,Jerzy Lewi,Géza Fé¼ster,Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov,Mihai Suba
what you will find is that the categories of defectors has to do with the jobs and things that allowed them to be outside the border for a while, or take a tour, or represent their countries in another country, and so have the opportunity to jump…
so the list is full of dancers, choreographers, chess masters, those in sports, those in sciences that may attend a conference, etc.
the hard ones in this group are the ones whose jobs were to be key leaders of areas of the KGB, FSB, NKVD, GRU, OGPU, STASI, Securitate, etc.
Prager will earn money from his change and his articles about it… what did these defectors earn besides freedom?
we have had a UN Undersecretary General defect, we have had ambassador defect, several bioweapons engineers, Deputy minister of Justice, etc
heck.. STALINS daughter defected and died a cheese head in wisconsin… Svetlana Alliluyeva
She defected to the United States via New Delhi, India. She denounced her father Joseph Stalin’s regime, though she softened her criticism of him in the 1980s
and we listen to people here who defect from the cause and have some social issues and no real information about things other than, hey! i woke up…
we could have listened to them warn us, but why do that? why learn something useful when there is something more entertaining for the shopping mall culture?
thats a more important question!!!
why focus on famous nobodies who wake up to their complicity, and have minor issues post change (comparatively), and ignore the people who risked their lives, died, and so on to tell us whats being done to us?
ultimately studying prager is navel gazing…
but how about these 11 quotes?
[and given obama and clinton dealing with them, what does it mean in terms of them running the US?]
[ok, so it was the Ukraine not poland… but then again, it was said over 20 years ago]
[prager has not yet grasped what he was a part of and may never grasp or admit that he was a part of it… the its not my fault i didnt know – ignorance as defense. but you dont learn from ignroance much, do you? or studying them, as they dont know nuttin’]
[not like knowing this in the 80s was important, eh? today we dont even talk or discuss that they did this, defectors told us, and we spend most of the time discussing the disinformation that is not real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
[better to help them and discuss the lie that it is, and help it work, than study them and not help them. right? are you going to get off the bus and stop helping them by discussing their disnformation as if it wasnt that? how many here discuss lies as if it was truth cause they dont care about the truth, they care about the lie they believe in and will defend (while living in ahouse of mirros they dont even know theya re in)]
[maybe thats why i cant wake anyone up to the fact they are pretending lies are the truth as the roots go deep and they dont care to know they have been tricked. better to go on with the lie and feel ok, than address the lie and have to reform your ideas]
[does anyone commenting on the vietnam war, hanoi jane, the feminists walking across the DMZ, etc… includ ARES? of course not. why discuss facts when the lies are now the facts?]
a HUGE Amount of the problems, issues and beliefs were from the Kremlin.. who has no managed to keepo their nuclear weapons violating a 28 year old treaty from day one, get the US to give up its protections, get the leader to ask israel to give up their nukes, are about to fight china in a war over japanese islands, is about to fight russia over nato and baltics, has communists in office in the US from blaso and his cuban honeymoon, to Obama/Ayers/ etc who were born out of the “Ares” games and more
anyone care to discuss the truth?
i am getting bored of discussing the lies, disinformation, and bs..
after all, if you think you can get out of the mental prison that has been created and you live in by eating the food they give your mind without knowing what is real and what is fake, you will get out… NEVER…
How to turn a liberal hipster into a capitalist tyrant in one evening
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/24/turn-a-liberal-hipster-into-global-capitalist-world-factory
Ymarsakar:
Secular opiates, including: debt (presented as wealth), pleasure, and leisure; and dissociation of risk (e.g. sacrificial rites, immigration amnesty, pro-choice or selective principles, etc.). They offer minority men and women an opportunity to become the leaders they left behind. They offer unscrupulous capitalists an opportunity to exploit the environment and labor through shifting, importing, and obfuscation. They compensate for the consequences of their converged migration and immigration policies through financing and redistributive change (e.g. welfare). They offer national insurance with reduced local liability. They selectively include/exclude trans and hetero behaviors. They preach a “secular” faith in lieu of Judaeo-Christian faith that promises secular returns and absolution.
Ymarsakar:
Oh, and righteousness, in the course of sponsoring human, civil, environmental, and evolutionary corruption. Who wouldn’t want to join their cult?
WRT hating lefties:
I suppose one could reserve the hate for those who know what they’re doing. But the libs who vote for them while deluded have a duty not to be deluded and they fail that duty, repeatedly. I’m kind of cross with them, too.
Artfldgr, your analogy of the bus ride and n to r to z is a good one. I apologize that I didn’t get all the way through all your comments, but you certainly made a good point there. I’ve always found David Horowitz’ path to Conservatism more interesting than Dennis Prager’s for the reasons you stipulate.
I have a theory that most of the converts convinced by the words of Peter the Apostle would not have been attracted to the words of Saul of Tarsus, or vice versa. Prager is more akin to Peter; Horowitz to Saul.
Unlike you, I believe folks like neo-neocon and Dennis Prager still deserve credit and praise. Most people go through life with insufficient introspection of their “beliefs” and even fewer are mature and courageous enough to admit when they were wrong. Neo-neocon and Dennis Prager not only admit they were wrong, they actively campaign to convert others to the Truth.
Who wouldn’t want to join their cult?
That should and would be a better advertisement billboard than the claim that the Left has too much hate.
On a prior topic, there’s a lot of enmity in the US right now, but I don’t consider it hate because hate is when you see Leftist death squads kill people you’ve spent years protecting and raising. Other people can intellectually think of it as hate, but it’s an abstract concept when it doesn’t happen to them.
What the Left has for the most part is second hand orders to be disgusted by people, on the made up proclamations that conservatives did horrible things to Leftists. But this never actually happens as often as the Left needs, so the Leftists have their hate second source. It does not burn as purely or as strongly, because it’s an intellectual pass me down from their Authorities. It’s not something that comes from their own heart. It’s often their own pain being projected on other people, sadism. Enmity. Hostility.
True hate has a different personal flavor to the people involved. It is much more personal, less abstract.
I wonder if that 1970 Joni Mitchell performance was before or after the Isle of Wight concert. I understand that she quit performing live for a while after that experience, and I don’t blame her.
Artfldgr: What do you think of Diana West’s “American Betrayal”?
Apologies if you’ve discussed it before and I missed it.
glad i came back to check.
rickl, i am not familiar with it enough to give you a cogent truthful answer… other than she is describing a facet of whats been going on for nearly 100 years since the soviet revolution, but most such trophs stop short of actually tracing things back beyond the surface characters they discuss. whether she does that or not, i do not know…
ok..
i just took some time to read about what its about and so on.. she is trying to write the popular version of what others been writing since the 1960s and 1970s (and in the case of feminism and stuff, before that)
this is what jonah did with “liberal fascism”, took tons of stuff that are out there in books people wont read (like the ones i recommend) and condense it to a cliff notes concept,which plays careful on where they step and how they step.
here is a quote from a brightbart article:
Contrary to the complacent myths of the establishment, the United States and other Western democracies have not won the Cold War. Of course, on the simplistic view of it as a purely military confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the former can claim a formal victory simply by having survived its adversary.
she is writing that in 2013-2014 and breitbart is paraphrasing her and that concept.
but Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa and Anatoliy Golitsyn been discussing that since they defected in the 1970s… and they are in a much better position to talk about this stuff than she is!!!!!!!
this thesis is best laid out by Golitsyn in New lies for old (among others books). the soviets were so upset of his knowlege and stuff they sent a second defector to de defect the defector (Nosenko), who spouted what the agencies wanted to hear, and so they sided with that, and not the other, marginalizing Golitsyn.
though not much of anything nosenko came to pass, while Golitsyn from the 1960s and 1970s laid out theplan of deception and the collaps, and the fall of the berlin wall and the conceptuals of the ideas…
these others also laid out the use of islam, and are confounded in their confessions by western liberals iether on the side of the soviets OR being paid by them in many ways, including success and protection..
Mark Riebling stated that of 194 predictions made in New Lies For Old, 139 had been fulfilled by 1993, 9 seemed ‘clearly wrong’, and the other 46 were ‘not soon falsifiable’.
The 1996 American film Mission: Impossible featured a fictionalized character based on Anatoliy Golitsyn named Alexander Golitsyn, played by actor Marcel Iures.
Golitsyn’s views are echoed by Czech dissident and politician Petr Cibulka, who has alleged that the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was staged by the communist StB secret police
so there is tons of information and predictions that can be confirmed or not, many of them as long as 30 years before the events happened, showing a 100 year plus “cathedral plan” as to taking things over.
the reason this went this way is that once you had nuclear weapons, the only way to win a war is by internal betrayal and remolding of the body politic.
in an open society where peopel think protecting yourself is tin hat, and so on, well, they let it happen. but i dont think they will wait for converstion, at some point they always jump the gun, and will want to fight believing as they alwyas do that the US cant do so…
this time they may be right though…
not that we dicuss any of this here…
we do just the same as everyone else on this information, and just ignore it, pretending that if we have our heads up our arses things are gonna be just fine…