Good Intentions

 

Dennis Prager narrated a short video on 8/1/22, entitled Why The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions. I took notes on the video and will comment on them: “In the 20^th century 100 million people—noncombatants—were killed by despotic Communist regimes. The Russians killed 20-40 million people. People inside and outside these regimes thought they were doing good—they had good intentions. Many were nice people, doting parents, considerate neighbors, courteous to strangers.

 

In Cambodia, 1/4^th of the population was killed. China murdered over 60 million of its own people. They took the road to hell paved with good intentions.”

 

My response: How anyone can be a Marxist after the unprecedented Marxist butchery and atrocities committed against humanity in the last century is a tribute to intellectuals and ideologues able to live a lie and deny reality.

 

Good intentions or idealistic ambitions advocated by ardent fanatics that use the sword and totalitarian state power to save the people no matter if they want to reform or revolution or not. Bad or cruel means leads to a nightmare ending every time, There are no forceful or involuntary measure to justify shortcuts to what is good for society.

 

Prager: “Were it not for the well-intentioned people who believed in Communism the truly evil people that implemented it might not have come to power. For example, the American idealists that had good intentions while giving the secret to making the atomic bomb to Stalin.

 

Prager: There is no genocide in America today but the road to lesser evils here are stilled paved by people with good intentions. Teachers teaching transgenderism to kids. And politicians defunding the police.

 

Those that seek to eliminate hate speech, and those that support bad causes, and many actual evildoers have good intentions: They think: “’mean well therefore I do good. And if you oppose me, you do not have good intentions and do not do good.’

 

My response: Prager seems correct that good intentions are worthless: we must also be able to anticipate the consequences of our actions, and try to do no harm and maybe some good, and if we early on discover we are doing harm, we must cease that line of behavior right away.

 

It also seems to me that wicked people might not have good intentions and use the lie of good intentions to fool themselves, ease their guilty conscience and to keep the rest of the fooled world pacified and not alarmed, not realizing that a cruel enemy is attacking on the move, before it is too late.

 

It could also be that cruel people have bad intentions know that they mean to harm others, but pass of their bad intentions as good intentions so that others will not condemn them for the rotters they are, let alone forestall them out of a sense of outrage.

 

Prager: “Since good intentions are so often morally worthless how do we increase goodness in society? If good intentions pave the road to a terrible world how do we create a beautiful world? We learn and teach wisdom and learn and know the consequences of any position taken and acted upon.

 

Wisdom asks what does good not what is well-intentioned. Good intentions and even being a nice person without wisdom lead to evil.

 

My response: I agree.

 

Prager: “I worry about the future of America and the West not because our elites are people with bad intentions but because they lack wisdom. They are foolish: professors, college administrators, and now teachers, journalists CEOs and so-called experts are foolish. Why are they unwise but successful? They do not study wisdom. We must study wisdom to know how to do good.

 

If you are taught wisdom, there is a good chance you will become wise. If you are not taught wisdom, you will be foolish and foolish people do a great deal of harm.”

 

My response: Prager is wise, and knows that wisdom and speaking to God is how we know how to proceed, not based on good intentions. We learn wisdom by studying the Greeks, the Bible, the classics, and the Great Books, and studying history itself to see what worked and what did not work.

 

Become wise and then you more likely will know what to do and what not to do, and do not group-live and run in packs, especially as a cult member following a cult or mass movement in service of a totalitarian master seeking to take over the world, No matter how noble the demagogue intentions seem, he is lying to you and tricking you, and he will betray all for raw power,  the only thing he cares for not matter how noble and compassionate his flowery speech is.