The Left wants to perfect human nature, not accommodate it

Submitted by Dave (United States), Jun 14, 2020 at 22:31

Consider the attraction of a basic Marxist axiom: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. It attempts to eliminate selfishness as an economic motivator. No more excess wealth alongside poverty. Everyone will pull together for the common good. Unfortunately, humans are selfish, so collectivist ideologies like Socialism fail time and time again. Nevertheless, their appeal continues for reasons of morality and hope that things will be different next time.

After all, greed is one of the seven deadly sins. Thus, leftists rail at greedy corporations, greedy hospitals, greedy drug companies, and so on. To remedy the situation, they advocate price controls and higher taxes. One result is that in attempting to make everything affordable, government tends to shortchange producers and destroy incentives. For example, Medicare only reimburses 86% of medical costs, forcing insurers to overcharge younger clients to make up the shortfall. In countries with free medical care, like Canada, there are long waits. On a larger scale, under Communism, there were lines for everything. Masses of people starved under Communism, and they go hungry today in Venezuela. Greed has its uses.

Cultural relativism and open borders reflect a push to eliminate pride, the first deadly sin. One should not be proud of one's country or culture, since all countries and cultures are morally equivalent. To deny that is to be racist, the ultimate prideful sin. Israel commits the sin of using force and exclusion to secure her country in a hostile sea, but would not have to do so if she saw the error of her sinful ways - and vanished accordingly. ICE should go, because it is a force which protects our borders from foreign criminals, but there are really no foreign criminals, only undocumented, persecuted refugees. Trying to protect America is nationalistic, prideful and racist, and so the military and police should be defunded. Ironically, identity politics is encouraged, but only for those groups deemed victims of past racism. Carry out this logic and America will disappear, a positive outcome for the Left, but they would not like living in a Third World hellhole, despite their ideals.
Free speech is disappearing in academia and the press because if speech is too free, sinful things that are racist, prideful, nationalist or chauvinist might be said, and that would be a sin. There is a Greek chorus out there ready to chant their righteous imprecations at any deviation from the moral orthodoxy.

In a sense, Iran is the most moral country in the world today. The Islamic religion is used as a strict template to perfect society. Stalinist Russia was another example of moral perfection, according to Communist theory, and Hitler's Germany tried to perfect humankind by eliminating inferiors from the gene pool. And those are some reasons why I'm afraid for America, and pray that she remains far from perfect.

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