Pot, Meet Kettle
Contemporary Democrats are the heirs of Jeremy Bentham and his philosophy of "Utilitarianism". Spoiler alert: that is not a good thing.
To this day, there are those in the Democrat party and the American political left still accusing President Trump and the GOP of being authoritarians, fascists, racists and my personal favorite, “threats to democracy”.
The Democrats still think President Trump’s attempts to bring the DOJ, FBI, and AG’s offices to heel as turning them into his personal hit squads. The see the presidential prerogative of staffing the cabinet with people who follow the constitution as “firing the leaders of those respective agencies when they wouldn’t capitulate and replacing them with leaders that would.”
But when the GOP was in control of the US government, they didn’t:
Have the FBI raid a former president’s home (and those of several of his supporters).
Arrest and try a political opponent for crimes the DOJ confirmed she clearly committed.
Go after anyone in the orbit of that candidate.
Spy on a presidential candidate.
Falsify warrants and evidence in support of a two-year investigation.
Fraudulently pursue two failed impeachments based on nothing.
Weaponize the law by selectively applying the law to advantage their supporters and disadvantage their opponents.
Persecute political opposition (using the IRS against the Tea Party, prosecutorial overreach with the J6 protestors, etc.).
Ally with corporations to enforce social engineering.
Support and enact policies that promote vote fraud.
Create (or refuse to challenge) policies that promote segregation and discrimination based on race.
On top of those completely obvious things, Michael Hayden, a former CIA Director, just identified the GOP as the “most dangerous political force in the world.”
So, you sort of must ask, is this the pot calling the kettle black?
Of course, it is.
And all this exposes what I think are two of the most aggravating traits of the contemporary American left - a near complete lack of self-reflection and self-awareness, all while hiding behind the imprimatur of American law.
But alas, my friends, either one of two things are at play here – either there are no mirrors in the world of the Democrats or as is more likely, as vampires do not have reflections, so it is with Democrats.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Have you ever heard of an Englishman man named Jeremy Bentham?
Unless you are a student of history or philosophy, probably not, but Bentham was kind of a big deal in 17th century English academic circles.
Bentham was contemporary of America’s founding fathers and after the Declaration of Independence was published in 1776, Bentham responded by writing, "A Short Review of the Declaration", a booklet that mocked Americans' democratic philosophy.
Bentham opposed American style democracy. He believed that a democratically elected leader should be empowered to wield the law as a weapon of social control.
Bentham was born into a wealthy English family, a child prodigy, at age 12, his father sent him to study at Queen’s College, Oxford University. He became a philosopher, jurist, and social reformer – in other words, he never held a real job outside the law (he trained as a lawyer but never practiced) and academia.
He also advocated for the use of torture during interrogations, unwarranted search and seizures, and abolishing the rights to private property. He believed the separation of church and state, women’s rights, animal welfare, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the abolition of slavery, the abolition of capital punishment, the abolition of corporal punishment, prison reform and economic liberalization.
But even though he seemed anti-prison, he believed that any person or group who carried out acts that were detrimental to society should be punished with imprisonment. He conceptualized that the guards would be able to monitor every prisoner at any time without the prisoner’s knowledge, proposing that if those who were locked up felt that they were under constant surveillance, they would be more compliant. Since the prisoners would never be certain if armed guards were watching them at any given time, they would be forced to become model prisoners out of fear of retribution.
Sort of the model for the modern Orwellian surveillance state, right?
For all his liberal ideas, as an atheist, Bentham rejected the idea of inalienable natural rights - rights bestowed by God that exist independent of their enforcement by any government. He saw that idea as “nonsense on stilts” because in his world, rights only came as a function of government.
For all of Bentham’s enlightenment ideas, his core philosophy of utilitarianism was based on the glaring contradiction that freedom was a function of total governmental control.
Bentham was the very model for the contemporary progressive.
We didn’t see any shades of Bentham in the Trump administration, but boy howdy, are we getting it good and hard from Biden and the Democrats now.
Michael, you might have mentioned that "the pot calling the kettle black" came from times when most cooking was done over an open fire. Woodrow Wilson was probably a follower of Bentham.
Bentham sounds like a prelude to Prince Proletariat, Karl Marx the First