Comments by "dixon pinfold" (@dixonpinfold2582) on "Forbes Breaking News"
channel.
-
1200
-
286
-
144
-
71
-
57
-
42
-
34
-
27
-
27
-
25
-
23
-
22
-
22
-
20
-
17
-
17
-
17
-
17
-
14
-
14
-
14
-
14
-
13
-
12
-
12
-
11
-
11
-
10
-
10
-
9
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
7
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
@Bat-Cat-Meow Thanks for your reply.
As a seasoned cynic from way back, I'm not impressed. A seasoned cynic is a reformed one, meaning no longer an extremist.
I freely grant that money has too much influence on American politics. Yet I will begin by pointing out that the rich do not have to feel assured that they can own politicians before deciding to throw money at political parties. They would do it even on the faintest hope of getting what they want, and would continue to do so despite turning up no results decade after decade. The fact that income taxes are at all north of 5% is proof enough of that.
And even then, who is to blame except the American people themselves, who worship money like almost no others on Earth? You think that in a democracy the leaders might ever be lacking in any of their countrymen's worst and most widespread faults? Not possible.
I grant also that the political deliberations held in public are of course deeply flawed, and I could go on all day about those flaws, yet the deliberations in the clip shown here are far better than most. Every point made is germane. The positions are well contrasted. The tone is civil. There is a certain amount of clear respect for the facts. (Just what the facts are is an important and separate matter.)
You need to understand that whatever degree of justice there is, whatever sound management, whatever order and peace, is entirely down to good debate (i.e. that which is open, sincere, practised, informed, and free) and respect for good debate. Without them, all is chaos, tyranny, and vicious rule by gangs and the mob with no recourse for people like you and me. Together they keep an enormous number of balls in the air, if you look at our civilization as a grand juggling act, which is what it is.
Your problem is that until you wise up your only way of appreciating how good you have it (assuming you're a Westerner and not a grossly unfortunate one) is to lose it all. You're judging it, I don't doubt, by utopian standards (i.e. a fantasy) rather than by realistic possibilities, which is why you think it's all garbage.
I respectfully suggest you get to know humankind and civilization better by looking at them around the world and across time.
Psychology and history would be good places to start, and at the outset you should rid your mind of cant, sanctimony, and the idea that conceptions of justice and morality have reached dizzying new heights in the American universities since 1970, after wallowing in blindness for an eternity beforehand. They haven't. They've actually deteriorated badly at the hands of bitterly deformed, usually not-very-bright, opportunistic, spoiled dupes, except for a few certain improvements. As valuable as they may in fact be, they have been purchased at a needlessly disastrous or even pyrrhic cost.
It could be a nicer society, I'll give you that. Income inequality is ballooning under the liberal order and that means misery is increasing. This is why I think we already hit all-time peak human niceness (prosperity and security as well). Real niceness (as well as the real prosperity and real security) is way down.
6
-
6
-
6
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
5