It always gives me pause and I scratch my head when I see owners of extremely successful businesses who personally have a particular strong political philosophy Left or Right, and they endeavor to make the two one with no daylight between them. A mistake in my opinion. Especially in this particular case where the founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream are determined in their personal "virtue" and "morality" to call out their own country within the framework which they have made their millions and billions.
These particular now multi, multi-millionaires who have made their FU money where they can have the freedom to disparage that very same country founded by a bunch of "Rich White Guys" within the Constitution that they fashioned and a Capitalist system that is without doubt the exact reason that they are now so wealthy. That is the first counter intuitive thing about these "virtuous" and so "moral" social warriors to me.
And now you have these virtuous and oh so very moral multi, multi-millionaires, members of the elite .5% of Americans, whose success is firmly situated and incontrovertibly attached and cemented directly on to the shoulders of those very same "Rich White Guys". And they now propose that America "Commit to returning it", the land that America was founded and now exists upon to the indigenous "rightful" owners.
And I find their logic and what they propose in a word to be CHILDISH. Is it because they have some degree of guilt about their massive succe$$ in America that drives them? These are grown men as I understand it, how does a grown man's mind come to such conclusions in the real world?
Is this the foundation of American Liberal (D) self-destructive, self-hatred thought process and logic? And the problem here is that a Liberal Democrat is in my opinion a valid American political animal. The problem becomes when the radicals among them who not as conflicted, idealistic and weak as they are take over their political platform and seek to drive the entire bus over a cliff.
(This self-destructive thought process has to have some point of germination and logic. And please do not bother to call me an antisemite because I choose to follow a clear string of logic in an attempt to explain someone's intellectual suicidal insanity guilt thought process. Don't bother.)
"The idea of guilt is deeply ingrained in Jewish culture both in everyday discourse and is enshrined both literature and in humor. As Rabbi Harlan Wechsler (1990) asserted, deep in the Jewish tradition, deep in the Jewish Psyche of the Bible, is a human being who can experience guilt. More than guilt's being a problem is that it is second nature to the Jews. "
The Origins of Jewish Guilt: Psychological, Theological, and Cultural Perspectives - PMC (nih.gov) You tell me.
This is how things in the real world as I have come to understand it have operated for the last at least 20,000 years and I am certain for much, much longer than that. Men (and women) in their struggle to exist and survive and not die systematically and methodically design and implement systems and protocols to ensure their resources, existence and survival.
And once you prove your systems and protocols of survival are effective then you grow those systems and protocols to ensure your resources in order to further your now proven successful systems and protocols of survival. And if some other group threatens your proven survival systems and protocols and resources you stop them. And by stop them I mean you either dominate and control them through power and conquest or you eliminate them. Or possibly both. You either dominate or you are dominated, invade or you are invaded. This is the nature of this kind of existential power. Cold? Yes, real reality is cold.
Who is indigenous and how do you define indigenous? Everyone and no one are indigenous as far as the real world is concerned IMO. Indigenous today, refugee tomorrow. (See: S.O.M.)
That is fundamentally how things work in the real world, at least for the past 20,000 years and more. It worked that way on the African savannah, in Mesopotamia, in Europe, in Asia, in North America and South America and everywhere else. And this is how every single population or tribe in all of those locations throughout time operated. And they survived, they prevailed, and they prospered. They prospered whether that is offensive to your now "virtuous" and "moral" modern day sensibilities or not. Your apparent historical subjective guilt is all yours.
Other than learning from history the future should be informed by it and not condemned by it.
So, is the United States founded on stolen land like Ben and Jerry propose? No, that is a childish and irrational "politically correct" perspective that appears to be based in some form of innate guilt related to massive success within a system that those who have become so successful from their 30-thousand-foot elite perspective NOW find offensive.
Related: Ask yourself: How many of their ice cream competitors has the Ben & Jerry's company utterly destroyed and crushed into the ground in order that they become sooo successful? How about they identify those companies and people who they crushed and share their massive compensation with them in an apology for the "wrongs" they have done in destroying their companies and their dreams? How many? I am certain they are out there.
Don't be holding your breath on that one, there is no transmittable high visibility "politically correct" "virtue" in it. This "return to the indigenous people their land" is all childish, self-serving, feel-good Liberal BS, political symbolism. A feel-good political narrative manipulation.
Simply: America is founded on land that is the result of someone else's superior, bigger and more powerful more systematically and methodically designed and implement system and protocols to ensure their resources, existence and survival.
BUT, think about this. Those very same people "Rich White Guys" who are having an intellectual moral finger pointed at them are the very same people who within the system that they conceived and designed counter intuitively ensured the Rights of those who are apparently unhappy with that system to protest it and even propose that it be dissolved. And that is what makes the American social experiment in governance so unique.
Now you think about the counter intuitive nature of that little piece of logic and fact and tell me what under any other system those very same very successful people who are now proposing the dissolution of that very same system, where would they find themselves? You know, in the real world.
Have there been inequities and harms done throughout the American social experiment in governance? Yes, yes there have been, and some are without doubt shameful. There is no fairness in building civilizations, there is just power.
And these kinds of conversations and protests that are allowed and encouraged, in fact guaranteed to take place are part of the cure for those inequities and harms. But suicide based on some measure of subjective "virtuous" politically based guilt is not prescribed.
Is America perfect? No, no it is not, but it is the best we or anyone else has, as perverted and corrupt as it can be and as counter intuitive as that sounds.
Make Ben & Jerrys Bud Light Again? You tell me. JGL 7/5/23
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