French Revolution and US Primaries Französische Revolution und US-Vorwahlen La Revolución Francesa y las primarias estadounidenses Révolution française et primaires américaines フランス革命と米国予備選挙 프랑스 혁명과 미국 예비선거 A Revolução Francesa e as primárias americanas Французская революция и праймериз в США

Hi there, Steve here again. Hallo, Steve hier nochmal. こんにちは、スティーブです。 Just to tell everyone, these videos with the audio and transcript are available at LingQ (LingQ.com) as a course of study for those who are working on their English. Nur um es allen zu sagen, diese Videos mit Audio und Transkript sind bei LingQ (LingQ.com) als Lernkurs für diejenigen verfügbar, die an ihrem Englisch arbeiten. みんなに伝えるために、音声とトランスクリプトを含むこれらのビデオは、英語に取り組んでいる人のための学習コースとしてLingQ（LingQ.com）で入手できます。 I’ll leave a link in the description box.

Today, I want to talk about…call it the ideals of the French Revolution and society today. Heute möchte ich über … nennen Sie es die Ideale der Französischen Revolution und der heutigen Gesellschaft sprechen. Before I do that, I just want to say that we live in an age where we’re able to connect with information, where we’re able to connect with the past. Bevor ich das tue, möchte ich nur sagen, dass wir in einem Zeitalter leben, in dem wir uns mit Informationen verbinden können, in dem wir uns mit der Vergangenheit verbinden können. I happen to be reading a very interesting book called Evening in the Palace of Reason which describes the life of Frederick the Great of Prussia and describes the life of Bach. Ich lese gerade ein sehr interessantes Buch mit dem Titel Abend im Palast der Vernunft, das das Leben Friedrichs des Großen von Preußen und das Leben Bachs beschreibt. Sto leggendo un libro molto interessante, intitolato Sera nel Palazzo della Ragione, che descrive la vita di Federico il Grande di Prussia e la vita di Bach. Before going to bed, I read this and I listen to Bach. It’s kind of a nice combination, connecting with the music, connecting with the thoughts, with the lives of these people. We can connect very easily, so we can connect with the French Revolution. During the French Revolution the sort of slogan was ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité' freedom, equality and fraternity, which I would translate in modern politically correct terms as solidarity. I think those are such important ingredients in any society, however, tempered by the fact that there is no such thing as perfection and perfection is very often the enemy of the good, so if we pursue any of things to the extreme we create more problems than we solve. Ich denke, dass dies wichtige Bestandteile jeder Gesellschaft sind, die jedoch durch die Tatsache abgemildert werden, dass es so etwas wie Perfektion nicht gibt und Perfektion sehr oft der Feind des Guten ist, so dass wir, wenn wir eines der Dinge bis zum Äußersten treiben, mehr Probleme schaffen als lösen. Penso che questi siano ingredienti importanti in qualsiasi società, tuttavia temperati dal fatto che non esiste la perfezione e che la perfezione è molto spesso nemica del bene, per cui se perseguiamo uno di questi aspetti all'estremo creiamo più problemi di quanti ne risolviamo. Eu acho que esses são ingredientes tão importantes em qualquer sociedade, no entanto, temperados pelo fato de que não existe perfeição e a perfeição é muitas vezes inimiga do bem, então se levarmos qualquer coisa ao extremo criamos mais problemas do que resolvemos. The utopians have been a disaster for any society where they have attempted to install a system that was based on extreme adherence to certain principles, whether they be religious or political or whatever.

The principle of liberty and liberty means, first and foremost, freedom of expression and I did a video on that subject. Equality, you can’t have perfect equality, but the more equal the society is within an atmosphere of freedom, in other words not imposed on everybody, then the better we feel. Gleichheit kann es nicht geben, aber je mehr Gleichheit in der Gesellschaft herrscht, und zwar in einer Atmosphäre der Freiheit, d. h. je weniger sie jedem aufgezwungen wird, desto besser fühlen wir uns. We’re not surrounded by people who are dying of hunger, whereas we have everything kind of thing. So to that extent, a tax system where the rich pay more than the poor, those who have more help those who have less because, typically, those who had more were luckier, either by birth or they were born with better skills or good things happened to them. Então, nessa medida, um sistema tributário onde os ricos pagam mais do que os pobres, os que têm mais ajudam os que têm menos porque, normalmente, os que tinham mais tiveram mais sorte, seja por nascimento ou nasceram com melhores habilidades ou coisas boas aconteceu com eles. So for them to share with those who where for whatever reason less fortunate I think is a good thing and, therefore, that’s the equality part of it. Solidarity, you have to feel that you’re willing to share with other people in your society. You feel they’re part of your society, you work together to do things. Those are three very important aspects of any community.

There are other things I want to talk about like the Panama Papers and how Putin told the people in Russia that the origin of the Panama Papers [insert Russian] belongs to Goldman Sachs, which is complete nonsense. Há outras coisas sobre as quais quero falar, como os Panama Papers e como Putin disse às pessoas na Rússia que a origem dos Panama Papers [inserir russo] pertence ao Goldman Sachs, o que é um completo absurdo. How he can just say stuff like that without correcting himself if beyond me, but we’ll leave all that aside and get the the U.S. election.

Essentially, if I were an American I would either vote for Kasich or for Hillary Clinton. Not that I agree with everything they say, not that they are wonderful, perfect candidates, but at least they don’t promise things that they are obviously not able to deliver on. For example, Trump says watch me, I’m going to eliminate the debt. First of all, the U.S. debt as a percentage of its GDP is not out of line with other major countries. Second of all, if the U.S. wanted to eliminate the debt they could put a sales tax on everything and they would eliminate the debt, whether it be the sort of national public debt or the external debt it’s not out of line, so I think a lot of that is exaggerated. Nor is Trump singlehandedly going to be able to change that. Similarly with whatever he promises to do. He’s going to build a wall and make the Mexicans pay for it. That’s just not going to happen. He’s going to force companies to not move their factories overseas. The President of the United States doesn’t tell private companies what to do. He’s not going to all by himself make new jobs happen. It’s a part of the economy and there’s a lot of stuff that has to come together for jobs to be created and jobs are being created in the United States.

Similarly with Bernie Sanders, he implies that the rich don’t pay any taxes. Allo stesso modo Bernie Sanders insinua che i ricchi non pagano le tasse. In fact, the rich pay the overwhelming percentage of the tax revenue in the United States. I can’t remember, but I saw one figure where one percent of the population pays 50% of all tax revenue. Non ricordo, ma ho visto una cifra in cui l'1% della popolazione paga il 50% di tutte le entrate fiscali. That’s an indication of how unequal the society is, but to imply that the rich are not paying their taxes is simply demagoguery. Das ist ein Hinweis darauf, wie ungleich die Gesellschaft ist, aber zu unterstellen, dass die Reichen ihre Steuern nicht zahlen, ist einfach nur Demagogie. Just as the suggestion that the financial sector is too concentrated. Ebenso wie die Behauptung, der Finanzsektor sei zu stark konzentriert. It’s not. It’s less concentrated than in most countries. Nor would making university education free send more people to college. The U.S. already has one of the highest levels of college attendance in the world with Canada, Japan and Korea and it hasn’t helped their equality because the real issue in the United States, as I’ve said before, is their education system. That’s where this tremendous difference starts to happen.

So both Trump and Sanders have been very successful by being demagogues, promising things they can’t deliver on, whipping up anger against Mexicans or bankers, whereas most of these issues are quite complex and need the participation of a lot of people. They need fixing, systems can be improved. I think the lawyers have too much influence. I think there’s a lot of inequality.

If we get back to this whole idea of freedom, equality and solidarity, I think people should have a sense of solidarity with others in their society. Therefore, I am in favor of a comprehensive single-payer medical system with a little more flexibility than we have in Canada. I think there are issues with immigration, to the extent that immigrants don’t assimilate. Penso che ci siano problemi con l'immigrazione, nella misura in cui gli immigrati non si assimilano. I think a lot of the Mexican immigrants in fact do and that’s why I’m against multiculturalism. If immigrants are encouraged not to assimilate, if they’re told you just be your multicultural selves, you run your little Diaspora branch here, that starts to detract from the sense of solidarity in the society at large. Wenn Einwanderer ermutigt werden, sich nicht zu assimilieren, wenn ihnen gesagt wird, dass sie einfach ihr multikulturelles Selbst sein sollen, dass sie hier ihre kleine Diaspora-Filiale betreiben sollen, dann beeinträchtigt dies das Gefühl der Solidarität in der Gesellschaft insgesamt. Se gli immigrati vengono incoraggiati a non assimilarsi, se viene detto loro di essere semplicemente multiculturali e di gestire la loro piccola filiale della diaspora qui, questo inizia a sminuire il senso di solidarietà nella società in generale. Se os imigrantes são encorajados a não se assimilarem, se lhes é dito que sejam apenas os vossos "eus multiculturais", que dirijam a vossa pequena sucursal da diáspora aqui, isso começa a diminuir o sentido de solidariedade na sociedade em geral.

Without expecting perfection, if we look for freedom, freedom of expression, freedom from political correctness, freedom to say what we want to say, equality, in other words some effort to re-equalize the distribution of opportunity in the society and solidarity, where we make people feel that they belong to each other, to their neighbor regardless of the origin, religion, race or whatever of that neighbor, that that’s what we should be working towards, but in an atmosphere that’s not full of creating enemies, providing false promises and so forth and so on.

That was a very brief touch on the U.S. election and the three principles of the French Revolution. If you’re not a native English speaker, you can find these lessons at LingQ. Bye for now.