but you already knew that since you can see my Libertarian Party icon.
Over here there's a saying that if you aren't left wing under 40 you don't have a heart and if you're still left wing over 40 you don't have a brain.
Outside of politics, sports, and popular entertainment, how many living Germans, or French, or Austrians, or even Brits can you name?
Even well-informed people who love art and literature and who follow developments in science and medicine would be hard pressed to come up with many, more often any, names. In terms of greatness in literature, art, music, the sciences, philosophy, and medical breakthroughs, Europe has virtually fallen off the radar screen.
This is particularly meaningful given how different the answer would have been had you asked anyone the same question between just 80 and 120 years ago -- and certainly before that. A plethora of world-renowned names would have flowed.
Obvious examples would include (in alphabetical order): Brecht, Buber, Cezanne, Chekhov, Curie, Debussy, Eiffel, Einstein, Freud, Hesse, Kafka, Mahler, Mann, Marconi, Pasteur, Porsche, Proust, Somerset Maugham, Strauss, Stravinsky, Tolstoy, Zeppelin, Zola.
Not to mention the European immortals who lived within the century before them: Mozart, Beethoven, Dostoevsky, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Manet, Monet, Hugo and Van Gogh, to name only a few.
What has happened?
What has happened is that Europe, with a few exceptions, has lost its creativity, intellectual excitement, industrial innovation, and risk taking. Europe’s creative energy has been sapped. There are many lovely Europeans; but there aren’t many creative, dynamic, or entrepreneurial ones.
The issues that preoccupy most Europeans are overwhelmingly material ones: How many hours per week will I have to work? How much annual vacation time will I have? How many social benefits can I preserve (or increase)? How can my country avoid fighting against anyone or for anyone?
Why has this happened?
There are two reasons: secularism and socialism (aka the welfare state).
Either one alone sucks much of the life out of society. Together they are likely to be lethal.
Even if one holds that religion is false, only a dogmatic and irrational secularist can deny that it was religion in the Western world that provided the impetus or backdrop for nearly all the uniquely great art, literature, economic and even scientific advances of the West. Even the irreligious were forced to deal with religious themes -- if only in expressing rebellion against them.
Religion in the West raised all the great questions of life: Why are we here? Is there purpose to existence? Were we deliberately made? Is there something after death? Are morals objective or only a matter of personal preference? Do rights come from the state or from the Creator?
And religion gave positive responses: We are here because a benevolent God made us. There is, therefore, ultimate purpose to life. Good and evil are real. Death is not the end. Human rights are inherent since they come from God. And so on.
Secularism drains all this out of life. No one made us. Death is the end. We are no more significant than any other creatures. We are all the results of mere coincidence. Make up your own meaning (existentialism) because life has none. Good and evil are merely euphemisms for “I like” and “I dislike.”
Thus, when religion dies in a country, creativity wanes. For example, while Christian Russia was backward in many ways, it still gave the world Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Tchaikovsky. Once Christianity was suppressed, if not killed, in Russia, that country became a cultural wasteland (with a few exceptions like Shostakovich and Solzhenitsyn, the latter a devout Christian). It is true that this was largely the result of Lenin, Stalin and Communism; but even where Communism did not take over, the decline of religion in Europe meant a decline in human creativity -- except for nihilistic and/or absurd isms, which have greatly increased. As G. K. Chesterton noted at the end of the 19th century, when people stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. One not only thinks of the violent isms: Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Fascism, Maoism, and Nazism, but of all the non-violent isms that have become substitute religions – e.g., feminism, environmentalism, and socialism.
The state sucks out creativity and dynamism just as much as secularism does. Why do anything for yourself when the state will do it for you? Why take care of others when the state will do it for you? Why have ambition when the state is there to ensure that few or no individuals are rewarded more than others?
America has been the center of energy and creativity in almost every area of life because it has remained far more religious than any other industrialized Western democracy and because it has rejected the welfare state social model.
Which is why so many are so worried about President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s desire to transform -- in their apt wording -- America into a secular welfare state. The greatest engine of moral, religious, economic, scientific, and industrial dynamism is being starved of its fuel. The bigger the state, the smaller its people.
Agreed. Dennis Prager is a wise man, very insightful.This was written by Dennis Prager, who is Jewish and not a Christian at all. He is absolutely correct and has historical perspective that is acute and very accurate. It is too bad that so many people have been lulled into a sense of security that is false.
Socialism and Secularism Suck Vitality Out of Society - Page 1 - Dennis Prager - Townhall Conservative
Sealacamp
I think it's an inherent contradiction, like atheist Christianity. They believe in people being free, except that when it comes to capitalist acts between consenting adults, they want to curtail that freedom. That's radically inconsistent!Izdaari, since you're a libertarian and this thread is about socialism, I was wondering what's your take on libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think it's an inherent contradiction, like atheist Christianity. They believe in people being free, except that when it comes to capitalist acts between consenting adults, they want to curtail that freedom. That's radically inconsistent!
Simple, it is a falsehood and has no evidence to support it other than the opinion of the deluded.
The following rankings of countries with the best standards of living are according to Human Development Reports (Human Development Reports (HDR) â United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)). It certainly seems to back up the essay writers' contention. Where is the evidence to support your statement/opinion?
Top 30 on Human Development Index Ranking
- Norway
- Australia
- Iceland
- Canada
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- France
- Switzerland
- Japan
- Luxembourg
- Finland
- United States
- Austria
- Spain
- Denmark
- Belgium
- Italy
- Liechtenstein
- New Zealand
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- Singapore
- Hong Kong, China (SAR)
- Greece
- Korea (Republic of)
- Israel
- Andorra
- Slovenia
- Brunei Darussalam
Looks like the first Christians were socialists
Socialism- A political and economic theory of that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Acts 4:35
and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
Acts 2:45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
Looks like the first Christians were socialists and Jesus preached Social Justice which they acted out in Acts. So all Christians should be Socialists. Or how else would you interpret these verses?
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