Opinion Piece on A Sam Harris Podcast

Sam Harris said, “Life for many Americans is not paradise.” Of course, that’s true. Where in the world and at what time in history was there a nation where everyone lived in paradise? It’s an old rhetorical device of demagogues. It is intended to mislead. How many Americans are living in paradise? Define paradise. Identify those Americans and tell me whether they’re worse off or better off than they were under Obama. It does not encourage honest or constructive debate. The truth is that millions of people continue to come to the United States of America because compared to what they have, America is paradise. And under Trump, economically, it was closer to paradise than at any other time in history.

Harris said, “There’s no excuse for the inequality in America and what is happening right now is a response to that.” What kind of inequality is he talking about? And exactly what is happening right now? He doesn’t define or specify either insinuated topic. There is always inequality of some kind everywhere. It is built into the human experience. Yet even though we are born unequal in virtually every aspect, America strives to protect our right to pursue happiness and to guarantee our Constitutional right of equal treatment under the law. So be specific, Mr. Harris. Financial inequality in America expanded under the Obama/Biden eight years and narrowed for the first time in decades under Trump. That’s not my opinion, these are well documented facts. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer under Obama. Under Trump, the gap between rich and poor narrowed and low-end blue-collar workers saw their income increase for the first time in decades. In fact, their wages grew faster than their boss’s wages. Under Trump, the poverty level was the lowest in recorded history. So why didn’t they protest and riot under Obama when it was much worse? Was he talking about some other kind of inequality? If so, why was he not specific? Did he leave it open so the listener could fill in the blanks with a vision of something dire and dark? That would be my guess.

Harris said, “If we can’t agree on what is real or is likely to be real, we will never get along together.” I’ve been saying that and writing about it for years. The problem is that while Republicans tell the truth, Democrats not only ignore the truth, they promote false narratives that are repeated by the media until a large part of the population think they’re true. For Democrats, it’s all about perception, not truth. One grotesque example of this are the Kavanaugh hearings, and there are many more.

Harris said, “Some of the videos we’ve seen of police cracking down on peaceful protesters is truly hideous. We’ve seen so many videos of police inflicting endless violence on peaceful protesters.” Really? I haven’t been able to find them. Tell me where I can find the “many” videos of “endless violence” inflicted on “peaceful” protesters by the police. But what I do know is that hundreds of cops have been either injured or murdered by “peaceful“ protesters, including being blinded by lasers—among so much other well-documented violence against police officers.

Harris said, “We’ve also seen police standby while looters broke into buildings and set buildings on fire. How do we explain this inverse behavior?” It’s simple, and I bet that Sam Harris knows the real answer, which is that the cops stood idly by and watched because they were ordered to do so by their liberal Democrat leaders. And then, incredibly, Sam Harris asked if maybe the cops stood idly by because they were angry at the protesters and wanted to teach them a lesson by not doing their job and letting property get destroyed. Are you kidding? This is pure liberal propaganda and you should not go anywhere near it. It is what is destroying our country.

Then he says that we have long been in a situation where the craziest voices on both ends of the political spectrum have been pitted against one another. That’s demonstrably false. It’s what liberals tell you when they’re trying to defend their own crazy—often criminal—behavior. They say it’s coming from both sides. But, with the exception of a minuscule percentage by fringe right-wing people, it is not coming from both sides. The measurable preponderance of the violence is coming from the left—think Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

The left say they want to defund the police, that is until danger gets too close to them and then they’re quick to use the police for personal protection. They have a robust collection of false narratives, which includes systemic racism, hate crimes and much more. It’s all a part of their “divide and conquer” strategy. One label for it is Identity Politics. It’s how they divide us and pit us against each other. Republicans don’t do that. Unlike the Democrats, Republicans are interested in improving the welfare of the citizens, while the Democrats are narrowly focused on gaining political power for the sake of power and its benefits and they will say and do pretty much anything to attain power.

Nancy Pelosi calls COVID-19 “the Trump virus.” I have a long list of venomous remarks made by Democrats toward Trump, and I defy anyone to compile a similar list of remarks made by Trump or other Republicans toward Democrats. While Democrats constantly accuse Trump of divisive language, once again, an objective, unbiased appraisal of language from the Left and Right reveals that Donald Trump has never been as mean and divisive as liberal Democrats. It’s not even close. And on and on and on. Show me the crazy stuff coming from Republicans, Mr. Harris.

Harris says, “… we can’t identify the truth.” Really? I can identify the truth. But that’s not really the point. The left doesn’t want you to identify the truth. They want confusion, obfuscation. They are like evil sleight-of-hand magicians who hold out one hand with what they claim is the truth in it, but when you ask, “I want to see it more closely, please give it to me so I can inspect it,” it is suddenly no longer there. It has disappeared before you can have a closer look at it.

It is my opinion that Sam Harris is an accomplished political propagandist. In other words, he is a political snake-oil salesman. I heard nothing to indicate that he is a seeker of truth. He talked about precisely doing that—seeking the truth—and then proceeded to state points of argument that were demonstrably untrue or intentionally misleading or ambiguous. It sometimes reminded me of Mark Antony’s speech after Caesar had been murdered. “I am not here to praise Caesar,” even though that is exactly what he was doing.