New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 54
At the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Progressives, Communists, and the Woke have used this phrasing to drive a wedge in American society for over a century, provoking precisely the type of reaction they need to carry out their plans. Are all men really created equal? Aren’t some people smarter, stronger, faster? What about slavery? In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay dives into the question and explains that in terms of basic political authority, yes, all men are created equal, and this is the keystone of a just, free, and prosperous society. Join him to hear his take.
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8 comments
I think the Founders knew what they were doing and more than they said or wrote.
Human BEINGS are not human BODIES. We, as beings, were created “equal” trillions of years ago. Our bodies are obviously NOT created equal. And our subsequent experiences after our creation has left us, as beings, no longer equal. But we were created that way.
The human confusion between body and being has confounded our ability to understand life, and to understand our Founders. I wish that fewer of us were so confused!
“I think I detect today a certain public scepticism when intellectuals stand up to preach to us, a growing tendency among ordinary people to dispute the right of academics, writers and philosophers, eminent though they may be, to tell us how to behave and conduct our affairs. The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism. A dozen people picked at random on the street are at least as likely to offer sensible views on moral and political matters as a cross-section of the intelligentsia. But I would go further.
One of the principal lessons of our tragic century, which has seen so many millions of innocent lives sacrificed in schemes to improve the lot of humanity, is: Beware intellectuals.
Not merely should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of particular suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice. Beware committees, conferences and leagues of intellectuals. Distrust public statements issued from their serried ranks. Discount their verdicts on political leaders and important events. For intellectuals, far from being highly individualistic and non-conformist people, follow certain regular patterns of behaviour.
Taken as a group, they are often ultra-conformist within the circles formed by those whose approval they seek and value. That is what makes them, en masse, so dangerous, for it enables them to create climates of opinion and prevailing orthodoxies, which themselves often generate irrational and destructive courses of action.
Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”
Paul Johnson
‘Intellectuals: From Marx And Tolstoy To Sartre And Chomsky’
2007
Demonizing intellectuals is straight from the neo-Nazi playbook, because they challenge populism and the necessary conspiracy need for putting people in camps and gassing millions. Learn from our history, don’t pretend its lessons were to distrust the pursuit of informed discourse and peer-assessed science.
What a bizarre comment.
Paul Johnson was hardly a “neo-Nazi”:
“Johnson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to literature.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Johnson_(writer)
Read Roger Scruton’s “Fools, Frauds and Firebrands” 2007; and Raymond Aron’s “The Opium of the Intellectuals” 1955 — they might help to open your mind to reality!
Is black writer and educator Thomas Sowell also a “neo-Nazi”?
Thomas Sowell ‘Intellectuals and Society’ 2nd edition 2015
“Although we already know much about the biographies or ideologies of particular prominent intellectuals, systematic analyses of the nature and role of intellectuals as a group in society are much less common. This book seeks to develop such an analysis and to explore its implications for the direction in which the intelligentsia are taking our society and Western civilization in general.
Although this book is about intellectuals, it is not written for intellectuals. Its purpose is to achieve an understanding of an important social phenomenon and to share that understanding with those who wish to share it, in whatever walk of life they might be… This book is written for those readers who are willing to join with me in a search for some understanding of a distinct segment of the population whose activities can have, and have had, momentous implications for nations and civilizations.”
https://annas-archive.org/md5/a389246ac1197a9cba999bf4fec55dac
“…Dr. Sowell… will discuss why so many disasters of our time have been committed by experts or intellectuals…. FDR’s Brain Trust which according to later studies prolonged the depression by several years. The wiz kids at the pentagon under McNamara who managed to mess up the Vietnam War, you can run through an impressive list of… disasters brought about by people with very high IQs.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERj3QeGw9Ok
@Daddy Davey,
The German “philosopher” and “intellectual” Martin Heiddeger averred that the fundamental purpose of philosophy and the teleological meaning of “History” is to obey Der Fuhrer.
The Declaration and Our Civic Conscience
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-declaration-and-our-civic-conscience-2/
In those days, feeling a care and a responsibility toward your people above others without implying any hate was unquestionable because logic and common sense. Everybody is equal, but none love everybody equally. That’s how nature programmed life on earth. The ff established a new nation for their European offspring, not a cesspool of anonymous zombie consumers.