...I think our side is analyzing this all wrong: Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right....
The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think.
It has been desperation time for the political left ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90's. In their hearts, they know that the tide of history for them has ebbed and that soon, if they do not ram their ideology down our throats and assume total control, they will finally expose their deep, dark secret.
Have you ever wondered why it is that the political left, whose policies always--ALWAYS--end up enabling and exposing the worse aspects of human nature, are the same people who are always coming up with these fantastic utopian schemes that promise a veritable paradise of human love, compassion, kindness and brotherhood, "hope and change"; and instead deliver a toxic brew of hate, envy, and discord?
How can they be so completely clueless about something as obvious as the reality of human nature?
Perhaps, the best answer to that question is that, when it comes to themselves, the left is constitutionally unable to understand or accept the dark side of their own natures with any degree of clarity, let alone honesty.
The squalid utopian fantasies of socialism, communism--or any variant of Marxism for that matter--appeals primarily to people who refuse to acknowledge their own human imperfections, and hence their own capacity for evil. They don't want to admit it, but those who are drawn to the leftist view of the world, tend to see themselves as superior; above all the other boring, ordinary human beings around them; more virtuous, more compassionate, smarter; and of course, much better qualified to decide what's best for lesser beings like you and me.
It is extremely ironic, considering the left's rhetoric to the contrary, to realize that it is conservatism and its underlying priniciples that fundamentally embrace the awful truth about human nature; and understand that it is closer to your average selfish, lazy, superstitious, and money-grubbing con artist than to the utopian "ideal man"--so prominently promoted in the rantings of communists, socialist, or any collectivist or totalitarian. And, as a consequence of understanding that reality, conservatism and its economic policies (i.e., capitalism) are able to harness even the most negative aspects of human nature to bring positive good both to the individual and to the larger society as well.
Conservatism and capitalism are both ideas that have worked amazingly well for one reason: they do not pretend that human nature is something it is not. Leftism of any stripe fails miserably and catastrophically because they routinely pretend that human nature can be changed and perfected.
God help us from their ministrations, as the moldering bodies of the millions upon millions they have destroyed with their perfectionistic techniques.
In essence, the left's denial and its psychological attraction to all these dysfunctional utopian systems inevitably leads to envy and a host of other negative and sadistic human traits; and, along the way, it promotes a cult of victimhood and identity politics with all the associated social and political conflicts those emotions generate. Envy, in particular, is the lovely human emotion that drives all these leftist systems; and it exists in pure, unadulterated and vicious form in those systems. Just listen for a while to the speeches of President Perfect and you will appreciate how subtly he stokes this envy for political gain, and how he is always identifying the "greedy" corporations and those who work for them.
And, as I noted in the post linked earlier,
...in answer to the unspoken question, yes; capitalism also thrives on envy--and even greed.
But, capitalism within a democratic and politically free system of government offers a healthy channel for the redirection of negative emotions like envy and greed into something positive for both the individual and the larger society.
Something, I might add, that Marxism, socialism and all its malignant variants completely fail to do. You cannot escape the reality of this dark side of human nature. You can either channel that dark side and use it constructively to benefit the individual and incidentally the society he lives in; or you can encourage and facilitate it in all its destructive power, and by doing so create the hell on earth we've come to associate with communist and Marxist societies.
After the leftist disasters of the 20th century; after the devastating consequences of forcing people to live in a variety of these "utopian paradises", it is simply amazing that today's left continues to deny the reality of human nature. Yet they do, and that is why they keep coming back to the same old tired ideas and policies and formulas that have repeatedly failed in the real world and which have always--ALWAYS--ended up unleashing all the evil of which human nature is capable.
Ahhh. The power of the unconscious!
On the other hand, the values that have brought enduring light and progress to humanity--Life, Liberty, and the freedom to pursue one's own individual happiness--are not utopian in nature. Far from it. These values, enshrined in the American singularity represent the values that are able to transform flawed, ordinary human beings into luminous souls; because by pursuing their own happiness in a free society under the rule of law, individuals are able to achieve incredible heights.
Leftists in their psychological delusion, always base their policies on ridiculous fantasies about their own nature, i.e., they imagine they are "better" people than the rest of us. In other words, they allow their unconscious self--in which the dark side of human nature is at home--to take control of their actions. Rarely do they ever examine their own motives or the dramatic inconsistencies between what they say and what they do. In essence, they demonstrate repeatedly how truly despicable human nature can be when the dark side of one's self is denied and hidden behind a veil of arrogant, narcissistic superiority.
These do-gooders always end up doing bad, but console themselves by saying, "We meant well." All their so-called "progressive" policies have the same superficial quality: it first and foremost makes the leftist feel good about himself and reinforces their psychological denial about human nature (specifically, their own).
Conservatives, with the tacit acceptance of human foibles and human evil manage, with their better ideas, allow human nature--with all its attendant good and bad qualities--to reach for the stars. Sometimes we fail (we are human, after all), but when we succeed, the whole of humanity moves forward.
Which is why conservatives are the true--and only-- progressives.
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