Posted on 02/15/2003 10:25:48 AM PST by political_chick
How They Do It And Why
by Paul Walfield
After the resounding and mostly unpredicted Republican victory in the November midterm elections, Democrats, Liberals, and the Left scurried to find excuses for their debacle. From "the message didn't get out" to the influence of "Right wing talk radio," the Left trumpeted every excuse but the obvious. The intellectual elite of the Left needs a scapegoat for their ideology's wounding by the American electorate, and being only self-proclaimed "intellectuals," lack the self-esteem to look inward. Rather, the Democrats determined that the electorate is not smart enough to understand the Left's message. Being the party and ideology for the "average American," that is quite an assumption. You have to believe your base simply doesn't understand what is best for them, and they need to be led by the nose to the Promised Land in spite of themselves. However, you also need to couch your disdain for your followers in terms that do not offend.
In a word, you fib.
Fabricating is nothing new to the Left; it is in fact the basis for their popularity and in their ability to maintain their base. Whether it is fabricating about "tax cuts only for the rich" or the Administrations "intention to bomb Iraqi civilians," the Left fabricates as a matter of strategy. In the past, before cable news and the World Wide Web, the Left had free rein. Spouting off sound bites regarding the "Republicans are for the rich," or "Missile Defense is a waste of money," there were no rebuttals, just a move onto the next topic.
Just a few months ago, before the revelations of North Korea's flaunting of the Clinton-Carter agreement regarding a promise by the Koreans not to pursue nuclear weapons, the Left decried missile defense as a waste of taxpayer's dollars in the 21st century. "Missile defense would not stop terrorists on suicide missions." The Left believing missile attacks by rogue nations "unthinkable," or too big a diversion from their agenda to be mentioned. Now, with North Korea's No Dong 3's pointed at America's west coast, you would think the Left would champion missile defense; but no, they go back to the earlier mantra of "untried technology," to continue the fight against missile defense in spite of the latest tests by the Air Force that anti missile defense works. They just lie, whether by using half-truths or flagrant twisting of the truth, the Left has an agenda.
Overall, the Left seeks a unified planet, no super power, no rogue nations, and no borders. Everyone living in harmony and dancing with unicorns. On the surface, a noble cause. Unfortunately, there are no unicorns. The Left, never straying far from their own minds, thoughts, and visions could never accept evil as a reality, or the possibility that the cavalry could not always save them, even though they had the horses sent out to pasture and the Winchester's replaced with pepper spray. They are ensconced in their ivory towers never concerned that its foundation is becoming more and more vulnerable to being demolished. After all, we are the United States of America; no one can beat us from the outside. Unfortunately, we could be subjected to quite a beating from the inside.
The world as one nation is an attractive thought to virtually everyone, but everyone has a different idea of who would be in charge, and what kind of world it would be.
The Left tells us that America is a bastion for the oppressed. That the people seeking better jobs, education, and freedom makes up 99.9 percent of the immigrants coming to our shores. We could not use collective punishment on the brave and productive immigrants who come to America. After all, 99.9 percent of the immigrants in America today, including the illegals are assets to the American economy. By singling out the few, or scrupulously screening the many, we are hurting America in the long run. America needs immigrants; we need them as much as they need us.
The immigrants perform work and take the jobs no American wants. Americans would not stoop to take jobs on farms, in the kitchens of restaurants, parking cars, or other such menial labor. There are no statistics proving that idea, but that doesn't stop the left from saying it as if it were fact, and convincing not only corporate America to back it, but much of mainstream America as well.
The Left treats our immigration policy the same way they approach most of their indefensible stands. They make things up as they go along. When confronted with the reality that illegals are not assets but rather burdens, and that a large percentage of the prisoners in our border states are made up of illegal and legal immigrants who committed felonies, and that the taxes paid by illegal immigrants was far overshadowed by the damage to our economy by entitlement programs provided to them by taxpayers, and by the damage to our economy because of the billions of American dollars they send back to their home countries, the Left remains undaunted and though not actually retreating, changes tact.
The "progressive thinkers" demand that our quarrel is with known terrorists and sometimes those that support terrorists. Certainly to close our borders while we fight the war on terrorism is going too far. We are better than the evil ones, and to change our way of life, how we do business, or our immigration policies is not only wrong, it is immoral; and if those arguments don't work, they try another, and declare that if we change our ways in any way, it is a sign that the terrorists are winning. It appears that anything that is done in the fight against terrorism is viewed as either an infringement on some deserved souls civil rights, a possible infringement on everyone's rights, or an act morally equivalent to the acts committed by the terrorists. In any case, if we do anything to defend America, it is a sign that the terrorists are winning.
After all, the American style of life and culture needs to understand and open its arms to the diverse lifestyles of those who are different. It is the people who have achieved a relative peace and prosperity that must "show courage," and allow those who hadn't achieved the same, to share in the bounty. It is an act of courage and decency to take the chance of being destroyed in the quest to discover the wonders and beauty of diversity. Only people who have achieved a relative success without embracing disparate cultures need to give up that "isolationist" system to discover true success with the admission of less successful cultures into their own. It is a novel approach. Prosperity, freedom and power of one society would increase by the unlimited addition of cultures with little prosperity, freedom and power. Diversity is deemed a blessing on any society that strives in its direction.
Diversity by its very definition disallows nationalism. Its proponents would argue that diversity has nothing to do with nationalism; rather it enriches a people's culture and improves its academia, economy, workforce, and politics. By bringing in people from different cultures and allowing them to maintain their sense of cultural identity, we enrich the lives of all Americans. We get to see other views and ways of doing things. Diversity is good for America.
On the other hand, the same folks who espouse the benefits and beauty of diversity shun the idea of Americanism. Being American is not a cultural identity that should be preserved; rather it is an identity that must be diffused in a hodgepodge of other ideals, thereby lessening its importance. By doing so, America becomes part of a global family. No one can hate us or attack us; we are they.
It's so beautiful. Everyone who comes here, and all are welcome, can maintain their traditions and loyalties to their motherland, or people, or cause, and can call themselves American. When America finds itself at odds with other countries, the voices within our own can shout in protest to our hegemony and the protestors can be called patriots. American standing in the world as the only superpower can be reduced to just another cog in a wheel and it's considered a good thing, not necessarily for Americans, but everyone else in the world, especially the third world.
Again, the Left has a few too many presumptions to allow reality to get in their way. The obvious flaws and inequalities of the Left's love affair with the idea of diversity make that notion plainly detrimental for all. In a world where evil or as the Left would prefer, people and foreign leaders whose agenda we don't like, exist in the world, maintaining a strong defense is necessary. So long as the defense of one's country is dependent upon the populous for that defense, the populous must be of like mind, at least as far as believing what they have materially or ethereally is something worth defending against losing. To do that, the population must believe that at least partly, their nation is responsible for their bounty. To ask a country's people to defend their country, the people must believe in their country's continued existence as a country.
The Left uses the American model of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to prove their point. "Weren't we a nation of immigrants?" "Aren 't we what we are as a result of allowing and cherishing the immigrants who came to America and help build this great nation?" True, all of it. However, what's also true is that the "progressive" thinkers stopped short of the reality of what America is and why it became so.
There is no question that immigrants built America. Immigrants that worked hard and strove to be the best they could in a free land. However, none in the beginning had bi-lingual educations and were encouraged to hold onto their cultural identities. They were in America and had to be Americans. The overriding theme that the Left has chosen to leave out is that America became great, because the people who lived here and the people who came here struggled to make it that. The journey and realization towards American greatness in the world was due to our oneness as Americans. The vast majority of those that came here from distant lands and whose contributions led America to be the sole superpower, with freedom and prosperity unmatched by any other nation, did so without the shackles of their former homelands. Each was taught that being an American was special. Feeling uniqueness allows a people to work harder and believe their achievements benefits themselves and their country as a whole. Diversity does the opposite, and assumes nationality is just a word.
Of course there are extremes that presumes nationality to be all, and the individuals are cogs in a national wheel. This type of nation, by relieving its people of individuality and sense of personal success cannot sustain itself. Individuals must be allowed a sense of self and a sense of nation. Whether it is a nation in which diversity allows no true sense of nationalism, or a nation that allows only a sense of nationalism, and no true sense of self; only a country that allows both can achieve success for its people. And America has had the right balance since its birth. The freedoms of Religion, Speech, Assembly and all the freedoms bestowed on us by the Bill of Rights were never meant to interfere with our sense of uniqueness as Americans. Just the opposite, they were meant to convey the ideals that made us Americans. Encouraging our citizenry to disavow our Americanism and embrace cultures other than our own is as abhorrent as allowing the subordination of American sovereignty over our citizens to foreign governments and ideals. It is anathema to our national well-being.
The Left claims that in spite of everything, and despite the arguments and fact that the terrorists hate us for who and what we are, and seek not to reconcile our differences with them, but to destroy our very way of life, the Left insists that if the evil ones come here, see and experience our way of life, they would like us and give up their evil ways.
In fact, legislation by several esteemed members of the Senate has been introduced to do just that. It was pointed out that of the half million foreign students in America, only twenty-five thousand were from not so friendly countries. In 2002, "The Cultural Bridges Act" was introduced to correct the problem of not having enough members of the worldwide student community in America. It is reasoned by the bill's sponsors that by having more students from countries that hate us in America, positively interacting with Americans, their irrational hate of America would disappear. We can counter the ignorance and hatred of the world for America, during pledge week.
Why would anyone suppose that American customs that are deemed "disgusting," by members of a different culture who spent time with us suddenly disavow their own culture and accept ours? The bill's authors make that supposition. We are good and kind and regardless of what beliefs other cultures may have, they will find ours superior and tell all their friends that they have been wrong all their lives.
People with a fundamentally different view of what is right, just, and acceptable will not be swayed by an explanation or familiarity with opposing dogma. The Left "thinker's" penchant to not judge who is right or wrong, but simply accept that there are people whose views on the subject of right and wrong differ from theirs, prevents them from a clarity of mind and reality that is needed to make intelligent decisions. The Left's "thinkers" need to understand that the shallowness they possess, is not universal.
"The Cultural Bridges Act" will cost America more than twenty million dollars a year in money. The terrorists, who arrive in the US due to the Act, may cost us far more than just money.
We are told each and every one of us is made of stardust. We are all one. The world is a beautiful place. But, it is not. We are not one. Most of us in the West have nothing in common with Hitler, Stalin, or Saddam. Yet, the "progressives" declare otherwise. Most parents in the West don't send their children to kindergarten to learn to be suicide bombers. Most parents in the West do not dress up their babies and small children like suicide bombers and then take photos of them. Most students in the US don't learn to hate and kill the infidels in school or anywhere else.
Clear thinking people must agree that the only thing we have in common with the terrorists and pro-terrorists is that we are members of the same species. The idea of which should make us all ashamed, and not a reason to bond.
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