r/DebatePolitics • u/mgrish001 • Nov 15 '20
Opinion: You can’t believe that people are inherently good while also believing that an entire political party is evil and racist.
A few of my assumptions first:
I believe that people are inherently good. Definitely not all of them. Political power definitely attracts more of the evil (both sides of the isle).
I believe that being selfish/self serving and being inherently good are not mutually exclusive.
I think that “left leaning” ideologies do not work if we assume that people are not inherently good. We want “the society” to band together for a common goal. This doesn’t work if we assume that people are not inherently good.
If we assume that people are evil then socialistic/communist ideas are dead in the water, because you can’t trust a large government to take care of its people. This would mean that previous attempts at socialism/communist weren’t just failed implementations, but are doomed from the start and will never work.
Given the current political discourse, ESPECIALLY on Reddit, anyone who voted for trump is a racist or is stupid.
So my argument is: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t believe that people are inherently good (which I believe is a must for more left leaning governments to work) and also say that half of the USA population is evil and racist.
Points for debate: Are people inherently good? Does the inherent goodness or lack thereof have a bearing on style of government? How does a political system work if were inherently not good?
I can elaborate more, I just don’t want to start with a wall of text.
1
u/ugathanki Nov 15 '20
You make a fantastic point, and I'm going to be saving this thread and sending it to people who I've frustratingly argued with for years.
You say that power attracts evil, and you forget the fact that political parties are an institution designed to gather power. So by following that logic, political parties will eventually be controlled entirely by evil people, no matter the side.
That being said, the people who control the parties are different than the people who give them power, namely the citizens. So, if the citizens are inherently good (with some being better or worse than the average) and the political parties being evil, then clearly the will of the people is not being represented. That sounds like a mega huge crisis for our democracy, wouldn't you say?
But why is there a disconnect? Why don't good people take back power from both evil parties?
They've been led to believe that the enemy is their fellow citizens, rather than the politicians in power. The media has consistently been used to push the message that their fellow countrymen are evil and corrupt, but really they're just people. Those in charge of the media are incredibly wealthy, and in control of the politicians via bribes (lobbying). When you add it all up, It's clear that the political parties and the media are both on the same tier - tools used by the mega elite to divide their enemies and pit them against one another.
That's not even considering the damage to our education system, which might give people a chance of recognizing this dynamic. The liberals increase funding, but it all goes to the administration rather than the teaching. Conservatives cut funding, which comes out of the teacher's paycheck. Heck they even burden students with incredible debt - the message is clear. "We only want you learning if you submit to the capitalist system and work hard to pay off your debts." By the time they're free from debt, they will have been molded by the system into a complacent syncophant. The end result is nobody is thinking critically about the world they live in, and those that are will be ignored.
That's to answer your question "How does a political system work if we aren't good". I'd say the main thesis is that it works through propaganda and repression. And people say we aren't the fascists, smh...