Juno News - September 15, 2020


Why Socialism eventually leads to evil


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

206.36972

Word Count

1,810

Sentence Count

77

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Well, it seems that socialism is back and more popular than ever, especially so-called
00:00:11.280 democratic socialism. That's why it's important that you watch this video because I'm going to
00:00:16.160 tell you why and how socialism as a system ultimately leads to evil, and that's because
00:00:21.040 it is too far down one side of a slippery slope pyramid where either side can lead you to trouble.
00:00:26.320 Now, this is not going to be a video about the economics of socialism and about how the
00:00:31.680 government taking your stuff is theft and why that is bad. This is going to be a video about
00:00:36.160 the moral and political reasons of socialism leading to evil. So to begin, we have to understand
00:00:42.160 this one thing, and that is the social contract. Now, this is not something that we think about,
00:00:46.880 but something that we feel, and that is us as individuals giving up certain rights or giving
00:00:51.680 up certain things in order to live in society. So for example, you're going to give up some of
00:00:55.840 your hard-earned money to pay for roads and to pay for police, courts, judges, these types of things,
00:01:01.120 all the systems that you need to have a functioning government, a functioning society,
00:01:05.120 and that's even before you've paid your hydro and your rent and your food and everything else.
00:01:08.640 This is the basic stuff that you need to run a government. But the question here is,
00:01:13.600 when do you give up too much? And why is it so bad that we have a large government? Well,
00:01:19.120 having a large government is bad because of the illusion that it creates. The illusion is that
00:01:23.840 people think they have a say, but they don't. In democracies, people vote for a representative,
00:01:29.600 and they tend to think that that's how it works. We have democracy, and therefore I'm voting on
00:01:33.840 issues. But again, you're not voting on actual issues. You're voting for a representative,
00:01:38.560 not directly on any of the issues or any of the things that are important to you. You're just kind
00:01:42.560 of hoping that those representatives actually do the thing that you voted them in to do. Power is
00:01:47.440 therefore concentrated in these people, and these people, these third-party decision makers, are given all of the
00:01:53.840 decisions for you. Now, when it comes to government systems and government departments, the illusion
00:01:59.040 is a bit different, and that's the illusion that you as an individual actually have any control.
00:02:04.160 Now, all you have to do to be able to test this is go to your local water authority and tell them
00:02:08.640 that you want to have a say as to what happens or you'd like to know a lot more about how the water
00:02:13.280 system works in your city or your province or your state, whatever it is. They'll say, well, you know,
00:02:18.400 you're not a professional, you're not an expert, and they'll probably throw you out with a security
00:02:24.080 guard if you are lucky. Now, a large government is going to be bad because it either concentrates
00:02:29.440 power in political leaders or political representatives or in experts, elites, and
00:02:34.800 politicians, not the people that it supposedly represents. Further, we have to remember that
00:02:39.840 government is not just the people. Government is basically a big gun. Now, this means that everything
00:02:45.600 that the government does, it does with the implication that you will be made to do this
00:02:50.080 thing. You will be made to follow this rule by use of force if you decide not to do it. First,
00:02:55.040 there are fines, then there's imprisonment. Ultimately, there can be execution, again,
00:02:58.560 depending on the state or the society that you live in. But ultimately, the state is a big gun which
00:03:04.000 forces people to do the things that it has been decided that they should do. So, the question is now,
00:03:10.240 once you've limited the people's freedoms to such a degree, you have a big state and you have no
00:03:14.400 control because you either have representatives or experts that are all in charge of everything
00:03:18.080 and you've given up so much power, once you've limited people's freedoms to such a degree and
00:03:22.640 the use of force is concentrated in an increasingly small number of people, evil is guaranteed to
00:03:28.000 happen because even if you start off as benevolent people, even if this group of elites, this group of
00:03:33.120 politicians, representatives, experts, even if they start off as benevolent, there's always going to be,
00:03:38.800 because of human nature, there's always going to be a Stalin or a Hitler or someone behind them with a
00:03:43.840 gun waiting to abuse that system and take control of this now incredibly large government that they've
00:03:49.520 created. Now, to wrap things up, I kind of want to talk about the political spectrum because I think
00:03:54.560 this really will hammer things home for some people. Now, I'm going to pull up this. This is the classic
00:03:59.360 political spectrum and I found this one on a website and it's a bit older, you can tell by the logos,
00:04:03.760 but I thought it was kind of amusing and the fact that I found it on Google and it references Canada
00:04:07.760 made it even more entertaining for me to pull up. So, most people think you have here the center,
00:04:12.240 so we've got the center, on the left you have the NDP, the liberals, socialism, you've got Medicare,
00:04:18.080 higher taxes, all the way going down to the Soviet Union, China, the left, community, communism,
00:04:24.320 these type of things. On the right you're going to have conservatives, lower taxes, republicans,
00:04:29.600 capitalism, the PCs at the time they were called before they became the conservative party merged with
00:04:34.240 the Canadian alliance. Then you've got fascism and Nazi Germany and individualism. The only problem is
00:04:41.680 this is because this does not capture what we're talking about and it does not actually represent
00:04:46.720 what the government is and what socialism or any of these other systems are. That is because it does
00:04:52.720 not capture liberty and individualism versus authoritarianism and groupthink and group socialism.
00:04:59.840 Now, this is an aptly titled picture called the true political spectrum and this is at the bottom
00:05:06.320 here the most important part. 100% total government power, 0% government power. Now, this is the
00:05:12.960 slippery slope. On one side you have no power, no government. So, you have anarchy. This is what
00:05:18.640 is called the state of nature. So, it's the war of man against man. Everyone is just kind of fighting
00:05:22.240 for themselves. Might makes right. If you want something, you beat that person up and you take it.
00:05:26.400 This is total anarchy. There's no society. We're all just kind of living in, you know, this perpetual
00:05:31.200 state of war as is said. So, this is the slippery slope on one side of having no government or too
00:05:36.800 little government. On the other side you have total government power and the interesting part
00:05:41.440 about this and why I want to bring this up is because people often confuse fascism and communism
00:05:47.360 as being on total opposite ends of the political spectrum. So, you have here left and right. But what
00:05:51.920 is most important is the fact that both of them share the desire for 100% total government power and
00:05:58.160 government control. That's why you can have someone like Stalin who has ordered the execution of
00:06:03.200 hundreds of people, sent thousands, millions even to their death, and Hitler who did practically the
00:06:08.400 same thing through use of the government. This is why socialism, which is more on the left side of
00:06:13.920 this political chart, socialism is going to ultimately lead to evil again for the reasons I've outlined which
00:06:20.800 is the illusion of control and the fact that ultimately there is going to be someone behind you
00:06:25.280 with a gun waiting to take control of that very large and very beautiful system which you have built.
00:06:30.720 So, what about the other end of the political spectrum? If 100% government control is going to
00:06:35.120 ultimately lead to evil, shouldn't that mean that the answer is 0% government control, zero evil?
00:06:40.320 Well, that's not true because if you have no police, no courts, no judges, you'll simply be in a war of
00:06:46.240 all against all. Might will make right and you can do whatever you want if you have the power to back it up.
00:06:51.440 You'll be able to take from those that are weaker than you through violence or some other kind of
00:06:54.880 evil means, and again you're stuck in a situation where society, or the lack thereof, has created
00:06:59.840 the evil. Now, I want to bring here a thought from a 12th century rabbi named Moses ben Maimon,
00:07:05.600 the Rambam or Maimonides as he's known in English because he tackles this theoretical problem in a
00:07:10.240 way that makes sense. He says that most people tend to conceptualize things as good versus evil,
00:07:15.840 so you have good on one hand and evil on the other hand. Instead, he said, let's think of it like this,
00:07:21.200 evil on one hand, evil on the other, and good actually in the middle. We can use charity as
00:07:25.840 an example for this to make sense. Now, if you give no charity, that would be bad. But on the other
00:07:30.720 hand, you could give so much charity that you yourself will give away all your material possessions
00:07:35.120 and then require charity from others. That's also bad. Instead, he said, let's be in the middle and
00:07:39.840 give the appropriate amount of charity so that you can continue to help others while also supporting
00:07:44.640 your family and taking care of yourself. Now, this is the type of thing that we need to keep in mind
00:07:48.720 when we're talking about the political spectrum. We need to find some sort of balance here,
00:07:52.960 some sort of representative democracy that has safeguards to prevent us from going too far to
00:07:57.520 either side. And that is the real challenge. And that is why not only does socialism lead to evil,
00:08:03.440 but the lack of all government leads to evil, again, creating that pyramid of slippery slopes that
00:08:08.160 I mentioned earlier. Now, I know this is a little bit complicated, and I hope you were able to follow
00:08:12.240 along with me, but tell me what you think. I really enjoy this political spectrum. I think it is a much
00:08:17.440 better representation of what government is and government is not, rather than the traditional
00:08:22.800 left and right. I'm really curious to see what you guys think, and where do you guys think Canada falls
00:08:27.920 right now on this new political spectrum, which, according to the image, is listed as the true
00:08:32.720 political spectrum. So, for True North, I am Sam Ashkenazi. I hope you enjoyed watching this video,
00:08:37.680 and you learned something. Have yourselves a great evening, and thank you again.