Its all about change
I hope this post finds you well.
In my quest to better understand what is going on in politics and government, to understand why we are NOT committed to fixing our climate challenges, I came across a video titled, “WATCH THIS: Jordan Peterson DESTROYS Climate Activist.” I like Jordan Peterson, although, I don’t always agree with him, he speaks his mind using reasoning and talks about his experiences. The 8-minute video, narrated by Dennis Prager, describes the difference between the far left and far right ideologies. Using examples, Mr. Prager gives you an easily understood description of the differences between the far left and far right.
What is PrajerU? You may ask. This is copied from their about page. https://www.prageru.com/about .
“We promote American values through the creative use of educational videos that reach millions of people online. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Prager University Foundation (“PragerU”) offers a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education. Whether you’re searching for a deeper understanding, a new perspective, or a way to get involved, PragerU helps people of all ages think and live better.”
From the about page, I observed this, typically 501(c)(3) organizations are for not-for-profit companies and the PrajerU web site address has a .com extension, while the .org extension is dedicated to not-for-profit companies the .com extensions are dedicated to for-profit companies. They should change the .com to .org. A little research and I find there are over 1,800,000 501(c)(3) and 501(c) organizations in the US. That’s right, over 1.8 million. There are many types with variations that would require a lawyer to describe. Go ahead, search it. See if you can figure it out.
The video titled: “WATCH THIS: Jordan Peterson DESTROYS Climate Activist” is located here, https://www.prageru.com/video/jordan-peterson-educates-climate-activist. After you watch it, you will better understand why each side does what it does. below is a description and my comments. Some of my sentences and description are taken from the video. Sorry if I plagiarize here. The video and explanations are very well done.
Let’s start with how the far left and far right seek ways to improve society. How they improve society differs.
The far right believes it’s up to the individual. Stating, “The way to a better society is almost always through the moral improvement of the individual. Each person doing battle with his or her own weaknesses or flaws.”
Also, he goes on to say. “It is that in a violent evil society, such as fascists, communist, islamist tyranny. The individual must be preoccupied battling with outside forces. Almost everywhere else, but here in a free and decent country, such as America, the greatest battle of the individual must be with inner forces, that with his or her moral failings.”
My comment here is that our society is violent also. Just today 2023-03-27, another school shooting occurred. This time a female shooter, killing 3 children and 3 adults.
“The left concentrates its efforts on combatting sexism, racism, intolerance, xenophobia, homophobia, islamophobia, and many other evils that the left believes permeates American society. Those people on the left are far more preoccupied with politics, than those on the right. Since the left is far more interested in fixing society, than in fixing the individual. “
For the left, “politics inevitably becomes the vehicle for societal improvement.”
My comment: Sure, … But dam, it just takes forever.
For the right: “Since, conservatives believe society is changed one person at a time, they accept that change happens gradually.”
My comment: That’s why they hated it when Obama would say “fundamentally transforming America” in his speeches. Incidentally, President Biden said “fundamentally change America” too. The democrats should not say the word fundamental.
The far left: “This isn’t fast enough on the left, which is always and everywhere focused on social revolution.” “An excellent example of this was barrack Obama. Just days before his first election in 2008. Barack Obama states we are 5 days away from transforming America.”
The far right: “Conservatives not only have no interest in fundamentally transforming the United States of America. They are strongly opposed to do so.” Conservatives understand that fundamentally transforming any society that isn’t fundamentally bad, not to mention transforming what is one of the most decent societies in history, can only make the society worse.” “Conservatives that America can be improved, but should not be transformed, let alone fundamentally transformed.”
Mr. Prager makes a statement: “The founders of the US recognized that the transformation that every generation must work on is the moral transformation of each citizen. Thus, character development is at the core of child rearing and of young people education from elementary school thru college.”
He backs this up, by a quote from John Adams, our second president: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Definition of Moral: 1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong. 2. Concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct: ethical moral attitudes. This definition is taken from The Random House Dictionary of the English language.
Just a thought here, a quote by Benjamin Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. The free-er the society, the more self-control is necessary. If the majority of people don’t control themselves. The State (meaning an ever more powerful government) will have to control them.”
I will stop reviewing the video here. It continues and I recommend you watch and study it. I would like to talk about the far left and far right. They have literally brought us to our knees and perhaps are destroying us, inadvertently or on purpose. The far right have abandoned our meritocracy and are not listening to the 99% of scientist who say climate change is human induced. On the other hand, the far left is just stubborn and not able to compromise. I am so frustrated with them that I don’t want to talk about them.
I believe the far right is not interested in fundamentally transforming America because of the potential jobs lost in doing so. I think they, as well as myself, felt bad not being able to help the thousands of small family farms that went bankrupt or were forced to sell, when small farms were taken over by big Agra-businesses. In 1900 about 80% of the population was associated with food. Like growing, harvesting, processing and delivery. Today it’s about 5%. From one perspective this is one of America’s greatest achievements. Freeing up millions to do other things like industrializing and enterprising. But on the other hand, if you look under the hood, you will find financial catastrophe, for thousands of families, forced to sell their land or declare bankruptcy. This was the first and largest wealth transfer in America.
It’s a travesty, just look at what we transformed to. Farming practices that are unsustainable, Foods that are low in nutrition and high in sugars. The processed food today is mostly sugar, salt and fat. Look at us, 600,000 people declare bankruptcy every year and most of these are due to medical reasons. Remember the right believes it’s up to the individual. Stating, “The way to a better society is almost always through the moral improvement of the individual. Each person doing battle with his or her own weaknesses or flaws.” It is extremely difficult to improve if 90% of the food is unhealthy. Especially if I am poor, for all I can afford is processed foods with huge amounts of government subsidized sugar in it. The processed and fast food is just sugar, salt and fat, not nutritious at all. Unfortunately, this requires a societal change and the far right will have none of that.
So basically, the republicans want slow change and the democrats and environmentalist want transformational change to speed the recovery. It’s a conundrum and I am paralyzed and cannot figure out how to broker a peace or create a compromise. If you have any ideas leave a comment.