New below- Classic Liberalism is how we ensure that government “serves the people” and does not become the tool of elite domination. Also, “How to ruin a nation in 9 short years”. The Trudeau legacy by Matthew Lau.
Here is more on the proven best approach to organizing human societies- Classic Liberal principles, laws, representative institutions. Best, as in “doing the most good for the most people” (Milton Freidman). Best, as in protecting all of us from the true “enemy within”, as in our own personal impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others/”enemies”.
Marian Tupy and Jon Moynihan offer good commentary below on how Classic Liberalism works best to improve the human condition. We now have two centuries of evidence that illustrates the differing outcomes from Classic Liberalism and collectivist socialism. Some two centuries of evidence that affirms the critical role of freedom in the grand enterprise of improving life, meaning freedom from big government, freedom from high taxation, and most critically freedom from excessive regulations. In a word, freedom from socialism.
I will soon offer more on Mike Benz (Joe Rogan interview) exposing the corruption behind-the-scenes of our societies as state elites manipulate government bureaucracies and control information media (i.e. engage censorship projects) to propagandize citizens. As Jimmy Dore noted, “We are the most propagandized people, and we don’t know it”.
Benz is good on exposing the massive infrastructure of censorship that is used by state elites to maintain their power in the elite commoner/divide of our societies.
This below by Tupy and Moynihan shows how critical it is to re-educate each generation with the principles, laws, and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism, as contrasted with the destructiveness of freedom-denying collectivism/socialism. They explain why societies of free commoners/innovators produce better outcomes than elites controlling commoners through big states, big taxation, and more regulations.
From Marian Tupy’s “Humanprogress.org”, an interview with Jon Moynihan on “How Europe Can Return to Growth”, Dec. 14, 2024.
This interview illustrates why we have to counter the insanity of the anti-fossil fuel “climate alarmism crusade” (a profoundly religious “death-cult”), and its decarbonization, de-growth, de-development salvation scheme that is ruining Western societies, notably Britain, Germany, and others.
Its important to understand what drives the nihilism of the climate apocalypse movement. These two provide good insight into this psychopathology.
Kristian Niemietz in his “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies” has also offered useful insights from social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Others like Jordan Peterson and Michael Shellenberger have further probed the “psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism”, and similarly the psychopathology of left-wing compassion, to offer insight into these drivers of “madness of crowds” crusades like Woke Progressivism and climate alarmism.
The outcomes, as in Thomas Sowell’s “Test of facts”, reveals that these varied neo-collectivisms are destroying Western societies, and if continued, will ruin billions of lives.
https://humanprogress.org/jon-moynihan-how-europe-can-return-to-growth/
Tupy intro blurb:
“Jon Moynihan, a businessman, author, and life peer, joins Marian Tupy to discuss why economic growth matters and how the UK and other social democracies can avoid financial collapse, economic stagnation, and long-term deterioration in living standards.”
Tupy adds that Moynihan is the author of a new book titled “Return to Growth, How to Fix the Economy”.
Tupy starts the interview asking- Why is growth important?
Moynihan responds with practical and moral reasons why growth is crucial. Billions of people need growth to bring them out of poverty. Growth in income, driven by the natural human desire to better ourselves, enables us to purchase things that create jobs and thereby benefit others. Without such growth and our purchasing power, others suffer.
He then traces the broad historical arc of how growth has improved humanity. He notes that 112 billion human beings have lived since the human beginning some 6 million years ago. 104 billion of them have died and 80 billion of those died from infection. They had average lifespans of 30 years.
Without growth, that would be our condition today. He asks, would you be OK with a 30-year lifespan?
Then penicillin was discovered and “capital and capitalism figured out how to manufacture that process in bulk, and spread rapidly around the world, giving an enormous change in transformation of the human existence…. now you or I can expect to live till we’re about 93…. all because infection has fundamentally been conquered as that prime cause of human death.”
His question again: Would you like to live in a no growth world where your lifespan was only 30 years, not 93 years?
He then traces the brief outline of how capitalism emerged, developed, and spread, the system that has enabled such amazing improvement in humanity’s condition.
“You’ve got the Renaissance in Italy that moves to the Enlightenment in Scotland where they start questioning everything. And that leads to the scientific revolution in London where they start changing that questioning into understanding scientific laws. And that leads to the industrial revolution, basically in the Midlands and the north of England, places like Manchester and Birmingham which then starts transferring over to the United States, who then really put some turbo charges under that whole process. And so, we in Britain as we called it then are the most powerful and rich nation in the world. And gradually that transfers to the US over the 19th Century.”
He continues, noting that it was the discovery and development of cheap energy that drove the capitalist industrial enterprise.
Tupy interjects the point of zero-sum thinking, based on the fallacy of limited resources, stating there is no such thing as a fixed pie of wealth.
Moynihan adds, “Or a limit to growth”.
(Insert: I have posted before my personal experience of taking most of Bill Rees’s courses in grad school (University of British Columbia- School of Community and Regional Planning). Rees is known as the “Father of the Ecological Footprint” model that is based on the fallacy of “limited resources”. Julian Simon, in his detailed research on the main indicators of the true state of life (“Ultimate Resource”), has thoroughly exposed the falsehood of too many people on Earth (“Population Bomb” nonsense) exhausting Earth’s “limited resources”. There is no limit to the creativity and problem-solving capacity of human minds. As Simon says, “We (humanity) are more creators than destroyers”. Amen.)
Then they move on to the moral component to growth, Tupy noting that “rich countries, meaning countries with a lot of economic growth, tend to be very good on such moral issues such as position of women in society, treating gays and lesbians with respect, being good to their ethnic minorities, being religiously tolerant. But all those things are very highly correlated with growth.”
Further, “New research on this that shows that happiness keeps on increasing with income, even into millions.”
Then they discuss the “institutional underpinnings of growth. Why does growth happen in terms of what else do you need as a system?”
And this is critical, as Moynihan says, “The three big things that you’ve got to have for growth… are small government, low level of taxes, and a low level of regulation.” He says that all studies on what creates growth agree on these three critical factors of small government, low level of taxes, low level of regulation.”
The interview then turns to “Wagner’s Law” that states “the size of government inexorably increases”. Why? Because in order to get elected, politicians have to promise all sorts of things to the electorate. And hence, when they are elected, the size of government increases and they have to tax more and the result is “big state, big tax, social democracy.”
Moynihan says the European Union is pushing the limits of this now with states like France having government that is 55% of GDP and taxes at 50% of GDP. Similar to Germany. And the outcome? “They’re not growing at all. They don’t have any economic growth.” And, as he continues, the European Union is becoming poor now, rapidly so.
He says that the European big government, high levels of taxes, and increased regulations approach was also the project of Obama-Biden who wanted to turn the US into another European Union, along with additional things like culture wars and unlimited immigration.
And even though Britain had Brexit, it has continued to follow the European model of increased government and increased taxation.
Moynihan warns that this reckless program of increases means that you eventually reach a size of government (at percentage of GDP) where you get less tax revenue.
“Marian Tupy: This tax revenue, tax revenue taken by the government, meaning you reach a percentage at which you actually take in less tax revenue. Your increasing government, taxation, and related regulations, leads to the consequence of GDP not growing and tax revenue not growing.”
More pointedly, the increase in government spending (size of government in relation to GDP) means raising taxes which kills GDP growth and results in less revenue to fund programs that citizens want.
To continue filling out the picture on growth, Moynihan notes a psychologist named Hofstadter who focused on national characteristics, the main characteristics of nation’s citizens, particularly noting things like risk-taking. He found that the French are risk-averse while the British are risk-loving. Hence, the British are not collectivists while the Nordic/Scandinavian populations are more collectivist, like the French. And this relates/correlates to the level or size of government at which revenue income from taxation levels off.
Why? Tupy responds that “less risk-taking equals more redistribution, more risk-taking equals less redistribution.” Tupy continues, stating that “the richer the countries get, the more countries spend on social welfare and usually people on the economic left see that as a sign of progress. It means that wealthier you get the more socially conscious you get, the better care you take of poor people, et cetera.”
But he acknowledges that Wagner’s law states that there is some upper limit to how much you can tax and redistribute, and government then has to borrow which creates deficit which Moynihan then counters, saying that, “Sooner or later your debt to GDP gets to such a level that investors are not very keen on buying any more of your debt or even of holding it, because they worry about you going bust.”
He illustrates this with the examples of Venezuela and Argentina that were two of the richest countries in the world in the early to mid-Twentieth century. Both ended as disastrous busts.
Moynihan says that Britain and France, on their current courses, could also easily “go to hell… you can’t keep on borrowing”.
Tupy asks him about the “Rogoff-Reinhart” controversy where high government spending and debt crowded out private investment. Moynihan responds that had more to do with the size of government, where half the economy is crowding out private enterprise. He illustrates with interest payments on debt, like the $150 billion British interest payments on their debt. That is money not available for new hospitals and other programs for citizens. And as debt payments rise with increasing deficits, so more programs are denied money and worse “you have less growth…. high spending governments have very low growth.”
Moynihan then focuses on GDP per capita as the really important measure now. He says that, “if you have small government, you grow a lot. And if you have a large government, you don’t. And that’s why the richest countries in the world right now are Switzerland and Singapore, who are now considerably wealthier even than the United States because they keep their government really small. Now, of course, if Elon Musk succeeds with his DOGE, the Department of Government (Efficiency) then America will be back into growth again, too.”
And with increasing government and the “crowding out” issue you also get the element of more government employees needing to be supported by fewer private sector workers till that becomes a “crushing burden”.
And to my point on how critical it is that politicians seeking to lead major economies must have some business experience, Tupy notes that “the top echelons of the Labour Party don’t know how wealth is created.” Moynihan adds that this is astounding because it is true of both British Labour and Conservatives. Hence, it is civil servants who are running the economy. Business-ignorant bureaucrats.
“Jon Moynihan: ‘Not a single member of the Labour cabinet ever worked in the private sector.’”
“Marian Tupy: ‘That’s an extraordinary statistic’.”
Moynihan then states that with rising taxes, as necessary to sustain increased government, the top entrepreneurial citizens who pay most of the taxes start to leave highly taxed states. They are the main creators of businesses and jobs and any country’s wealth. The risk-takers and high achievers. He says Britain now has a net outflow of such people.
Tupy says that Conservatives in Britain have done little to improve the economy and as a result the country is losing its job and wealth-creators.
Moynihan returns to the root issues behind all this, “It does look like you have to teach every generation the perils of socialism.” He illustrates with the example of football clubs in Britain where regulators now demand that clubs must have a DEI strategy of equality, diversity, and inclusion, meaning equality of outcome. He says that such regulations are worse in impact than large state and high taxation because excessive regulations gum up the economy.
Arrogant regulators believe they know best what should be done, part of “the fatal conceit… that government knows best and that markets don’t know best.”
Moynihan sees this operating with the Net Zero “green jobs” fantasy. He says about this dream of the “economy of the future (i.e. green jobs, that it) is one of the most meretricious phrases ever invented ’cause there’s no such thing.”
As for the equity demand, meaning equality of outcome, he says that soccer is about competition and there are winners and losers. So, are the regulators, with their equity meaning equality of outcomes, going to demand that every game end in a draw?
“The whole idea is lunacy. And yet we’ve got to that stage. We’ve got so many regulators. Now we’re gonna have a regulator for soccer.”
His other illustration of excessive government, excessive regulation, and hence excessive wasteful costs, is a new UK railroad where regulators demanded a bat tunnel to cover 10 kilometers of railroad in order to protect any bats from flying in front of trains. $130 million of “bat shit craziness” that even the House of Lords balked at.
“And more and more and more of life is regulated and more and more life is just congealing until I believe the whole economy is just gonna congeal into inactivity.”
“Marian Tupy: So, when you talked about the three reasons that underpin economic growth, one is rule of law, the other one is low taxes, and the third one is small government. But small government, from your saying, it doesn’t just mean that you spend less money. It also means that you regulate less. This is the key takeaway that I take from what you just said.”
Tupy then notes, “We are always one generation away from socialism. Do I take it from that? Do you conjecture that the default setting of a human being is more or less socialist and that you need to educate them out of it? If we always come back to the same way of looking at the world, which is regulate more, tax more, give me more, zero sum, that would mean that there is a human nature that we are struggling to overcome and we have to do a better job at doing that.”
Moynihan ends, making the point about “thinkers versus feelers”. This is similar to what Kristian Niemietz talked about in his history of Socialism, that “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
This also helps understand what others like Christine Brophy have said about research on the psychopathology of left-wing compassion that pushes socialist policies that have a proven consistent history of ruining societies. The socialists appear blinded to harmful outcomes while believing that they are promoting a more compassionate approach to life through big government, big taxation, and increased regulation. Venezuela has been the latest grand socialist experiment and has, once again, illustrated the inevitable destructiveness of this failed idea.
Moynihan says that feelers act from the heart and that “Feeler-thinker is gender-differentiated. 40% of women are thinkers… But 60% of women are feelers. 60% of men are thinkers… The primary school children up to the age of 11 are almost exclusively staffed with women across the country right now. And as a result, the be-kind philosophy is more inculcation into children than it was 30 years ago. And now children are coming out mostly rather woke.”
He adds, “But young people now are massively inculcated in the be-kind philosophy and are told over and again that they must be kinder, that boys are toxic, and boys should learn to behave like girl and so forth. I’m not into some massively anti woke statement here. I’m just saying factually what is happening. And so, everybody believes now that the default thing is to be kind, be nice, and that means be socialist.”
I would argue that the consistent outcomes of your approach (Thomas Sowell’s “Test of facts”) affirms whether your approach is kind/nice or not. And the past few centuries of evidence strongly affirms that the Classic Liberal approach to organizing human society has done the most good for the most people (Freidman), while the collectivist approach has done the most harm to the most people. “Collectivism” encompassing Robert Owen’s communalism, Marx’s Communism, and all varieties of mixed and oxymoronic Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism since.
A fascinating interview/discussion. See the full transcript at the link above.
More Mike Benz on the secret state “censorship infrastructure” coming soon… Elites behind the scenes scheming to maintain the elite/commoner divide in our societies.
The Trump populist coalition probably offers a more fairly accurate picture of populist movements across Western liberal democracies. It is a mixed movement and cannot be dismissed with the leftist’s demonizing smear of “right wing extremists”, as European governments have tried. Yes, that element is also in the mix. (Google “European populism as ‘right wing extremism’.”)
But populism also includes significant numbers of disillusioned moderate leftists, Democrats, liberals, centrists, independents, Libertarians, moderate conservatives, and so on. Note the diverse members of Trump’s coalition- i.e. former Democrat liberal Elon Musk, Classic Liberal Vivek Ramaswamy, anti-war Tulsi Gabbard, supporters like former liberal Democrat and now more independent Joe Rogan, and so many similar others. Representing the 70% of Americans that believed that the US was going in the wrong direction under the current Democratic party that has shifted toward extreme leftist Woke Progressivism.
As populists revolt against the elites trying to push the new totalitarianism/collectivism of Woke Progressivism, we may enter the dangerous phase that apparently collapsing apocalyptic millennial movements go through. Again, Richard Landes has detailed the patterns of these movements in his history of apocalyptic millennialism- “Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience”.
(Note: Woke Progressivism as “apocalyptic millennialism”? Yes, its elements of “climate apocalyptic”, portrayal of differing others as “existential threats to democracy”, etc.)
Landes has noted that leaders of such movements, disillusioned as their crusade appears to falter, will double down and even shift to the dangerous phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. Just a warning.
It’s just too hard to believe that the elites behind the massive infrastructure that Mike Benz has exposed on Joe Rogan will just throw up their hands, admitting that populism is winning, and conclude- “Let’s go home guys. It’s all over”. Nah. Not gonna happen.
No, the very night of the election as it became evident the populist movement of Trump was going to win, there was undoubtably furious activity and brainstorming throughout that massive censorship infrastructure as to what to do next, how to move into the next stages, of whatever they have pre-planned, to defeat the evil enemy, the “Nazis”, the “existential threat to democracy”, as in the Woke Progressive version of democracy defined as the “consensus of state institutions”.
As Benz related to Rogan, the elites behind the censorship complex view the populist movement as the new enemy in the world to be fought and defeated, those they define as members of a movement of “right-wing extremists” who are the new authoritarians that have replaced the old threat of communist authoritarians. Woke Progressives view their new enemy as the “enemy within”- their own dissenting, populist fellow citizens.
And this is not to deny elements of right-wing extremism that are a danger to be noted and countered, just as left-wing extremism must be countered with the same Classic Liberal principles, laws, and representative institutions. We know better now what works best to protect all of us from our own worst enemy- i.e. the impulses inside all of us to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others. Solzhenitsyn’s real battle of good against evil that runs down the center of every human heart. We have found the enemy, and its us.
But, as in every hero’s quest, there is a wise mentor who gives us the weapon to slay our monster/enemy (taking cues here from Joseph Campbell’s outline of the Hero’s Quest). The most effective weapon, to slay our monstrous inheritance of animal drives to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others, is the weapon of Classic Liberalism. This weapon most potently counters these evil triad impulses that are more animal than human.
And digging deeper, the best of all weapons to go right to the root of the problem of the evil triad, and slay the real monster/enemy, is the insight of Historical Jesus on theology- i.e. his stunning new theology of an unconditional God. That profoundly humane insight overturned the entire sweep of previous millennia where the psychopathology of threat theology had long validated the worst of our impulses with themes of tribal deities, gods as Lords/Kings dominating people who were “created to serve the gods”, and gods as punitive destroyers of “enemies” (differing others). That threat theology functioned at a subconscious level (the “archetypes” thing) where primitive mythical themes validated the worst of our impulses.
If your God is a tribal lord and punitive judge advocating violent destruction of differing others, then so may you (to paraphrase psychologist Harold Ellens). As my friend Bob Brinsmead has said, “We become just like the God that we believe in”. Replace “God” with whatever you hold as ultimate reality, ultimate ideal or authority.
This mess of bad ideas validating bad behaviors, is one of the issues this site probes, tries to present, and then, in response, offer alternatives. My intention/project: Go right to the core of human narratives and deal with the “cohering center” (that which holds the rest together) that has always been theology- i.e. the God thing or Ultimate Reality element.
And stop the pretense that such reality no longer centers our narratives. What then is the search for TOE all about? The meaning impulse that drives us to explore and speculate on Ultimate Reality, on what is the nature of that which creates and sustains all of this material realm in existence? “That” which is the origin of “this”.
We can tell ourselves that metaphysical speculation is not our thing, but then what are these following speculations all about? I.e. unprovable multi-verse, mysterious dark energy and matter, quantum fields, Self-Organizing Principle, etc. Such speculations are all in the same lane as what humans have always speculated on re Ultimate Reality. The “unknown invisible” that is responsible for the existence and purpose of this material world.
(Insert: Yes, there are elements of the provable in the above mix of “scientific” speculations, but materialist science is too dogmatic in its dismissal of the far more profound Mystery that is emerging in the mix of human discoveries, mystery that is on a non-converging track from the other ongoing track in science to uncover ever more of what was previously considered mystery. So yes, while I am no advocate for Intelligent Design, I do affirm points made by Stephen Meyer in his “Return of the God Hypothesis”, aside from his conclusion of a “Christian Designer”.)
We have to know more about all such things because our meaning impulse drives us to know how we should live as human, how we can be like the “Mother of all Daddies” and thereby know that we are fulfilling something of the purpose for our existence here and not wasting our lives. And most humans, aside from any pro or con position on metaphysical realities, get that love is the central element in human purpose.
And hardcore materialist denial of Ultimate Reality as being of the nature of Consciousness, Mind, Intelligence, and consequently Personhood… well, that goes nowhere to satisfying the deepest impulses of our human spirits. These impulses are not just dismissible as “survival wishes” but emanate from something far more profound about being consciously human.
Historical Jesus gave some of the best insight on such things, especially on the true nature of love as a no conditions reality, both in defining deity and as the highest guiding ideal for ethics. His was a non-religious insight. In fact, a profoundly counter- or anti-religious insight (religion being essentially about conditions).
Note: I do not pay much attention to the materialist thing (philosophical materialism) in public narratives. Personally, I view it as sort of a background chatter thing but admittedly it dominates many public narratives with its meaningless nihilism so can’t be ignored entirely. Overall, I take a “live and let live” independent approach to most things, except where they intrude in some negative manner on all lives. Then I will toss my two bits into the free market of ideas.
The never-ending struggle in human existence, ending the elite/commoner divide, Wendell Krossa
““You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you… Whoever would be great among you must be your servant”, Historical Jesus.
“Serving” any population is best accomplished through Classic Liberal principles, laws, institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of every individual, equally.
Recent posts on the work of Mike Benz, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag, among others, show their research exposing the democracy-corrupting infrastructure being constructed and operated behind the scenes of our societies/governments. Turning governments that should serve their citizens into the tools for elites to control and subjugate populations.
The above researchers detail the agencies, institutions, and programs, notably in the US, that have been coopted by Woke Progressives who have been coercing and controlling media (news and social media), censoring political opposition, all to propagandize citizens with elite approved narratives to submit to elite domination framed as the new democracy of “the consensus of state institutions” (Benz’s comment).
All this and more points to a bigger background thing going on, something that has always “gone on”, from the beginning, the establishment and maintenance of the elite/commoner divide in human societies.
It’s just that today true journalists are uncovering and telling us the details of who and what are involved in this. All in hopes that sunlight may have a cleansing effect on the exposed rot.
Getting a grip on the real battle and enemy…
From the beginning of this human venture, there have been those in the human family who cannot or will not control their impulse to domination. This has been a dominant sociopathy across human history- the endless striving of self-appointed elites to ruin the lives of so many others through their domination, control, and punitive treatment of dissenters to their domination.
“Ruined”? Yes, by denying commoners their natural rights to freedom, property, and self-determination, rights that are vital to basic human well-being. Evidence of the common desire for such rights is seen in the earliest commoner revolts, slave or other. Though often, the oppressed, lacking any comprehension of fundamental liberal principles, simply became the new oppressors. And hence, the enslaving “eye for eye” cycling between oppressed and oppressors, sometimes just exchanging positions, has continued across history without interruption.
It’s the inner thing, man.
Elites, in the darkened environments inside their skulls, deform the hero’s quest that should be oriented inward and that should be about conquering our inner impulses that are the true evil in life, the true enemy of us all- i.e. the “evil triad” of impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others.
Instead, our societies continue to endure those who unleash these dark impulses and turn them outward to focus on the general population and thereby wreak havoc in societies by deforming state agencies and programs into vehicles of tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of others.
The varied postings here of current events all illustrate the big background story of the human battle against the animal inheritance. That is the real battle in life that we should all engage and win, the real righteous battle of good against evil in life.
Many of us miss the inner hero’s quest and instead turn outward to focus on battles with differing others. And yes, there are the varied public issues in life where we have to engage clearly defined struggles of right against wrong. But first we should try to get right the true battle that takes place inside us. As Solzhenitsyn said, the real battle of good against evil runs down the center of every human heart. Get that sorted out first, then we are better equipped to go forth and make sense of and properly handle the public struggles of life.
We sort this out by understanding and embracing Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that orient us to serving others.
Validating ideals, archetypes
This site persistently probes the deeper roots of the animal inheritance problem and understanding how our animal impulses have long been validated by primitive mythical/religious themes. I refer to the role of bad religious ideas, like the ancient projection of the features of tribalism, domination, punitive destruction onto deity, deity being the ultimate ideal and authority that humans have always modelled their lives after, the “behavior based on similar belief” relationship.
I understand that relationship as arising from our primary impulse to meaning and purpose, the natural desire of most people to want to live and fulfil the purpose for which we have been created and sent into this world. The natural desire to want to be like Daddy, or Mommy, as in deity.
The projection of animal inheritance features onto ancient deity has rarely been challenged since and those ultimate ideals and authorities continue to dominate narratives today, both religious and “secular/ideological”.
Problem-solving?
Why do you think I return so “repetitively/obsessively” to Historical Jesus? Because he stood out as a unique first in history. The Akkadian Father beat him to the draw on the ethical part of the behavior based on similar belief pattern. He told his son to befriend his enemies, to sit down and have a beer with them. But he did not get the belief part right and told his son to “make sacrifice to your god”. Same old pacification of retaliatory, threatening deity.
Historical Jesus finally got the theological element right, and stunningly so. No one else had ever done so before though the Old Testament prophets had broken ground in stating that God abhorred sacrifice and wanted only mercy instead.
Jesus took up their protest and offered “the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”, an unconditionally loving God who demanded no sacrifice. His consciousness-liberating theology of an unconditional God presented people with an entirely new ultimate ideal to model life after.
He took, through spoken words and personal behavior, the highest human ideal of love to its ultimate reach as “unconditional”. Even to “love your enemy” heights of authentically humane behavior. Into the realm of the truly “heroic”.
Unconditional is the singularly potent counter to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others. (I won’t repeat here that unconditional has nothing to do with pacifism. It is no denial of the practical need for robust criminal justice systems to protect innocent people.)
Let me insert that the Jesus insight is not a religious insight. It does not belong to Christianity, but is the common human understanding of the highest and best form of love, an understanding that most people figure out as the best of love from daily experience with imperfect family and friends. The self-validating thing as the best of being human that we all get from daily experience with ourselves and others.
The insight of Jesus on unconditional is also the “weapon from the wise man” to help us conquer and slay our own monster, the enemy inside. Jesus fulfilled the role of wise mentor at humanity-wide scale. He was the iconic wise sage offering people the potent weapon to help them win the hero’s quest.
Honor him for that brilliant insight and beware of embracing Paul’s Christ as some progressive advance on still-not-fully-formed Jesus. Paul put Jesus through the process of Christology and comes out with his Christ myth that has rightly been exposed for having ruined the central theological insight of Jesus, and for burying that stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God in the larger New Testament context where Paul reverted to promote retaliatory deity. Note again, Paul’s blunt reversal of Jesus’ theology in his main presentation of his gospel- Romans. His God- “’Vengeance is mine, I will retaliate’, says the Lord”.
With his Christology, Paul rendered Jesus’ core themes less visible and profoundly distorted, reduced to mean the very opposite of what Jesus had actually taught. (See, for example, “Paul and Jesus” by James Tabor)
Back to the orientation to serving others and countering the domination impulse…
Understand how the principles, laws, and institutions of Classic Liberalism protect us from the worst inside us- from our own impulses to tribalism, domination, punitive destruction. Classic Liberalism does this by orienting us to the full inclusion of all others (anti-tribalism), orienting us to relating to all others as free equals (anti-domination, orientation to serving), and by orienting us to systems of law that prevent unjust accusations and incarceration, and if justly accused, then still deserving to be treated humanely (i.e. restorative justice not punitive).
Classic Liberalism operates at the level of daily life in liberal democracy in shaping our relationships with others. But then there are still the deeper-rooted things that we struggle with- i.e. the inherited animal impulses and the inherited bad religious ideas that validate them. Our success in dealing with that inner inheritance will either make us amenable/agreeable to Classic Liberalism, or not.
Again, the Jesus insights on the belief and behavioral ideal of unconditional help us to deal at the subconscious level with the archetypes that shape our daily lives- i.e. the primitive mythical themes that validate our worst impulses and have done so for millennia. My suggestion- Deal with this evil triad problem at both vital levels.
Moving along…
I will continue to post more material from Walter Kirn, Matt Taibbi, Mike Benz, and others, all involved in exposing the massive infrastructure entrenched throughout our governments that serves the purpose of maintaining elite domination of our societies. We have imagined (or been propagandized to believe) that we were living in authentic liberal democracies. But now we are discovering that our societies have been corrupted by elites seeking to exert power and control over us commoners. The same old curse of the elite/commoner divide, as ever before across history.
So once again, this generation must take up the age-old struggle of commoners for liberation from elite domination.
Elites do not appear to understand the damage that their domination and control of others does. Or perhaps, if the psychopathy element is present, they just don’t care. I spent some time, decades ago, looking at organizational patterns and behavior (i.e. hierarchical structure issues) and, particularly, how the loss of personal control impacts human well-being.
The intuitive grasp of the negative impact of subservience to dominating elites is what commoners have expressed across history in their populist revolts against elites, the felt need for freedom of choice, for self-determination and control over one’s life.
I won’t argue against the fact that hierarchical structures are an unavoidable part of life. No one questions that. But more important, it’s an issue of how those in supervisory positions further up in hierarchical organizations treat those beneath them. There is good commentary on practical ways to include those in lower strata, those who are impacted by supervisory decisions, to include such lower strata people in the decisions being made at upper levels, as much as possible, in order to ensure more that lower strata workers will “buy in” to the decisions and not resentfully undermine them (foot-dragging from feeling coerced, ignored). Allowing some input in decision-making processes, motivates workers to support the decisions affecting them, more. This is not always possible but where it is, then do it as much as possible. It’s about treating others with respect as equal fellow humans.
Further, its fundamentally about understanding and getting ahold of the principle that any supervisory role is to be about serving, not lording over others. Government overall as serving its citizens. But then there is the problem that upper hierarchical positions attract psychopathic types who see opportunities for control and abuse.
This is what a country gets after voting for a name and pretty boy who does nothing more for a country than virtue-signal and zealously crusade for the destructive death-cult of Net Zero decarbonization.
Or- “How to ruin a nation in 9 short years”.
“Canada’s Trudeau-induced economic coma: No matter what metric you look at— GDP, business investment, jobs, taxes, crime or identity politics— the figures are grim”, Matthew Lau, Dec. 16, 2024
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matthew-lau-canadas-trudeau-induced-economic-coma
This illustrates what Kevin O’Leary meant when he said that Trudeau has been the most incompetent Prime Minister in Canada’s history, the most destructive. Trudeau campaigned to run a major world economy with his entirely disqualifying background of having been a former high school drama teacher who has no interest in financial/monetary theory (he stated this) and who stated that he admires the Chinese dictatorship. Well, then what did we expect?
(Remember in Lau’s notes below that business investment leads to increases in productivity that creates overall wealth in a society that then results in higher wages for workers.)
Lau reviews “the severely negative economic and social outcomes Canada has suffered under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau… (as) objectively reported from official statistics.”
Since he took office in 2015, real GDP per capita growth in Canada… versus about 18.6 per cent in the US.
“So economic growth under Trudeau is clearly a disaster.”
Lau then moves to business investment, which is the engine behind the productivity improvements on which standards of living rely. He says that business investment is down 8.2 % per capita while it is up 34.5 % in the US over the same period.
This is “an astonishing divergence between the two countries. People just don’t want to invest in Canada anymore.”
Pierre Poilievre recently stated in Parliament that under Trudeau some $500 billion of Canadian investment has gone south to contribute to improved US workers wages.
Business investment results in improved productivity which is the basis of wealth creation and leads to increased worker’s incomes.
Lau then notes that public sector employment is up 25.2 per cent and “all those jobs that are statistically reported as private-sector jobs but are effectively publicly funded”. The growing public sector is an added burden on the private sector that must be paid for by rising taxes. And so, adds Lau, taxes have gone up under Trudeau.
He says, “While taxes have gone up, the higher spending outpaced taxes: nominal debt was only $701 billion in 2014-15, but has approximately doubled to $1.4 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, 2024-25. Where has all this spending gone? It has been wasted. Health care wait times have risen ever higher, Canada’s national defence is a complete shambles”.
There is more to Trudeau’s shameful legacy of ruining this once great country. “In 2015, violent crime began rising again, so by 2023 the violent crime index was more than 40 per cent above the 2014 level.”
Lau concludes, “So, to recap, since Trudeau took office, average incomes are 17 per cent lower than what they would be if Canada tracked with the U.S., business investment is down, taxes and the federal bureaucracy are much more expansive, public debt is higher and outcomes are worse in health care, safety and any other sector or service with increased federal involvement. Economic and social trends that were doing well or improving before Trudeau came to power are now doing worse, in some cases significantly so.”
National Post, Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer.
Jordan Peterson and Kevin O’Leary are right that this most incompetent PM ever has destroyed this country. He is a striking illustration of Woke Progressivism gone extremist, added to his zealotry for the eco-suicide cult.