Home » Posts tagged 'Integrity' (Page 10)
Tag Archives: Integrity
Right on the Left
To quote one of history’s most conflicted figures, let me be perfectly clear:
I am no fan of Bill Maher. And that is precisely the point.
No doubt he would deny it to the death, but the toxic talk show host has much in common with his own favorite target of righteous condemnation, Donald Trump.
Mr. Maher is arrogant, opinionated, abrasive, belittling, ill-informed about positions he opposes, and indifferent to nuance. He subscribes to a black-and-white worldview that disdains and denigrates anyone with whom he disagrees. For him, there are only two ways to look at the world: his way and the way of morons.
If the online quotes attributed to him are accurate, Bill Maher defines faith as the purposeful suspension of critical thinking – implying that there is no such thing as reasoned belief and that only the religious suffer from self-delusion.
He:
• Equates the 9/11 terrorists with churchgoers
• Calls religion a neurological disorder
• Fails to recognize that political dogma on both sides of the aisle can be as virulent as the most zealous religious dogma.
So what is my point? Simply this: however much I may despise the man and virtually everything he believes, it’s only fair to acknowledge when he’s right.
The evil of economics
It takes a big man to admit he’s wrong.
There are few men bigger than Alan Greenspan. And there are few men who have gone wrong in such a big way.
Although he stands shy of six feet tall, the former Federal Reserve Chairman was the colossus of the business world as he oversaw the longest economic boom in American history. But when financial collapse swallowed up the bulls of Wall Street like the cows in Pharaoh’s dream, Mr. Greenspan’s reputation deflated along with the economy.
To his credit, the erstwhile guru humbled himself and confessed the error of his ways. In October, 2008, Mr. Greenspan gave testimony on Capitol Hill before the House Oversight Committee concerning the economic meltdown that ravaged the country. This was the takeaway:
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”
In other words, despite all logic to the contrary, people cannot be trusted to do what is in their own best interest.
The question is: why not?
Yonason Goldson 