I likely have an earlier blog entry on this Prager U video by Dennis Prager, but I am not yet digitally organized enough to find the earlier entry. Be that as it may, I would like to respond to a video that Dennis Prager narrated for Prager U on 12/7/2020, entitled “How The Left Sees The World: Power, Race & Class.”
I took notes on this five-minute, 40 second video, and then I will respond to his remarks.
Prager: Why does the Left hate Israel? It is a liberal democracy, extending full rights to women, gays, and its Arab citizens. Like all people everywhere, Israelis are flawed because humans are flawed. But compared to its neighbors and most countries, it is a civil rights paradise. So why does the Left hate Israel?
My response: Leftists love Palestinians and Arabs, not known for their love of democracy and respect for civil liberties, while Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East. This denial of reality by Leftist reveals that they are liars, and not to be believed in whom they select as morally virtuous and who is villainous. Their reasoning is mistaken and intentionally mendacious. Disregard their assessments most of the time as a general principle. Is real is good and they conceive of it as the villain of the Middle East, and Palestinians are murderous fanatics and terrorists, when they attack Israel, and they are portrayed by the Left as freedom-fighters oppressed and brutalized by fascist Israel.
Prager: Please note I’m talking about Leftists, not liberals. Leftists are not guided a moral compass.
My response: This is a remarkable insight. I do not know if Prager originated it or not, but it is true. Judeo-Christian moral code is not perfect, but it is pretty darn effective, likely as close to a system of objective morality as has been devised, but, since Yahweh the Lawgiver, gave us the Ten Commandments to live by, it seems evident that such a system would be true and objective, and to be adhered to. This moral system has been utterly rejected by the Left. Their replacement set of values is inferior and grows cruelty and wickedness in the world, not love, mercy, peace, law and order and justice for all. Leftist replacement moral code is actually an immoral code of conduct that does not come from God but from or will pass through secular culture but is really ins service of the Dark Couple and all of their nefarious schemes.
Prager: The Left judges behavior based on three substituted ethical compasses: power, race and class.
Let us start with the power compass. Its emphasis is not to judge people as right or wrong or good or evil. If a group is weak, then they are good, and if a group or nation is strong, they are evil. Israel is strong so it is evil, and the Palestinians are weak, so they are good.
When we are guided by the moral compass, we do not care who is strong or weak, but who in character or action is good or evil.
My response: I recall that Stephen Hicks pointed out years ago in his book on Postmodernism, that Leftists side with the disenfranchised as groups or classes, against the strong or successful, and that parallels nicely with what Prager is narrating here. Many Palestinians, being extremist, fanatical, violent Muslims, keep attacking Israel through terror and war, so though weak, they are the aggressors or evil, and the Israelis, thought strong, are just defending themselves, so they are good.
Prager: Years ago, when Israel was weak, the Left ignored them. After 1967, strong Israel offended Leftists, who labeled them as bad.
My response: Democratic Israel, rich, powerful, well-armed, are good if they are not imperialistic, empire-building, and invading innocent neighboring peoples like the bully Putin is doing today seeking to conquer and swallow up Ukraine. Prager points out that the Left also hates America for being strong, calling it evil, and weak Cuba is good, though without wealth and civil rights.
Prager: The second normative compass employed by the Left is Race: those that are non-white are good, pure and simple, and those that are white, are bad, pure and simple. The Left judges people by their race, not their actions.
My response: we judge people by their character and actions as individuals, and their race is irrelevant to their being morally worthy or blameworthy.
Prager: black persons cannot be racist, and only whites can be racist.
My response: this is not true. All people are born depraved or racist and prejudices against people from competing tribes or groups, be their religious, racial, or national. I would argue that blacks, on average, not only are racist too but on average are more racist than whites due to their groupist, tribal, collectivist lifestyles.
We need all groups and all races to individual-live no longer group-living, and for them to be individualist first, and collectivist second. Then racism will mostly disappear.
Prager: Israelis are considered white so are regarded as evil, and Palestinians are non-white, so they are considered good. But over 50% of Israeli’s population is non-white.
Prager: The class compass: people are considered good or evil based on economic class. Rich people and rich nations are bad, and poor people and poor nations are good.
My response: Poor people and poor nations are without wealth, so the people suffer from low self-esteem. They live under a socialist economy and a corrupt, authoritarian, Marxist government, and this leaves the people with low self-esteem do that makes them more evil than rich people and rich nations. The rich are more individualistic with higher self-esteem. Remember: if you esteem or love yourself, you will esteem and love others. You will be virituous and grow good in the world. If you do not esteem yourself, and hate yourself, then you do not esteem or hate others, so you hurt yourself and others, and thus you grow evil in the world. Ayn Rand is wise: Self-centeredness or selfishness is virtue, and selflessness is vice.
Prager: Karl Marx taught this world is divided by economic class, not divided by moral behavior. Good and evil are solely class-based and the workers are good, and the owners are evil. This ill-conceived alternative Leftist normative system guarantees that we will get more evil in the world and more hatred of the good. Leftists and Marxists seek to destroy Israel, America, and the West.
My response: Prager is still an altruist, and I am an egoist, but he is an intellectual giant and a moral genius, and he could understand my more advanced Mavellonialist ethics if he studied it, even if he still disagreed with me. We are not that far apart, and my Objectivist ethics code is the next generation from where Prager is at, and I now see that more clearly than the firs time I commented on this vide a few years ago.
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