Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee

New York Observer ^ | November 16, 2003 | Ron Rosenbaum

[T'wit]

More power to Rosenbaum. It's traumatic for a true believer to leave the faith he has devoted a lifetime to. I'm afraid he's got a long way to go, though, before he scrapes the rest of the scales off his eyes.

[martin_fierro]

Bump

[lowbridge]

bump

[Erik Latranyi]

I think we all need to remember in those first days after 9-11 how the left tried to raise its voice and politicize the events.

We need to remember how the country reacted to leftist idiocy in those first days after 9-11. There was no tolerance for their screwy views.

The left, like any cancer, just went into remission, bided its time, and now is spreading its death ideas freely.

[luigi]

Goodbye to the brilliant thinkers of the Left who believe it’s the very height of wit to make fun of George W. Bush’s intelligence—thereby establishing, of course, how very, very smart they are. Mr. Bush may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer (I think he’s more ill-informed and lazy than dumb).

Thereby establishing how very, very well-informed and very, very hardworking the author is.

[tkathy]

This may signify a turning point for the hate America crowd. Let's hope so, but not until they have destroyed the dem party.

[Samurai_Jack]

This blowhard is so longwinded that its enough to give a person nausea. I often get the impression that the lefts longwinded responses to the simplest of questions is not because of their 'intellectual curiousity' as much as a complete vacuum of the basic horse sense required to breathe air.

Its not for these guys to calculate within a millisecond that the anti-war anti-american leftist idealogues are nothing but ignorant neo-marxoist brownshirts waiting for a new hitler to drive them to krystalnaught. Noooo!! (as Jim Belushi used to say) these guys want to participate in supportive protests, and apologize for the cultural maoists. Then make longwinded illegible swansongs lamenting the loss of the only voice of reason in a publication whos opinion page is left of Joseph Stalin.

Im sure that with very little impetus this leftist idealogue can be repursuaded into turning his back on his exit from extremist intellectual snobbery. This guy is doing a simple headbob to distract you for a suckerpunch. Soon he will become untouchable to critique because he is so smart and because he is such a 'centrist'. When in reality, he is not so smart as he is pedantic and he is a centrist only in that he is to the right of Chairman Mao.

Within a reasonable amount of time look for an equally verbose and infuriating repudiation of what he will call 'The Racist Right' where he attacks conservative belief systems. This is how he will present himself as a 'centrist' so that he can sell his books.

Which is where this guy is going. He wants to sell a book. Why didnt he just say so!

[Samurai_Jack]

EeeDee is wearing leather pants again...

[Qwinn]

"I think I made that clear in a column published here on Jan. 28 of this year, "Where Was the Values Crowd When Dr. King Needed Them?" In that column, I argued that just as the Left had failed to come to terms with its history of indifference to (at best) and support for (at worst) genocidal Marxist regimes abroad, the Right has failed to come to terms with its history of indifference to (at best) and support for (at worst) racism and racist political allies here at home."

I wanted to stop reading here. But no, that would be intellectually lazy, I said to myself. After all, he's made the some obnoxious charge that has driven me up the wall a thousand times.

Said I to myself, hold on, said I. Let's find this article about Dr. King and the "values crowd". Oddly enough, I can't find it. Anywhere. I can find references to it in a couple of places, but the actual text of that editorial seems to have utterly vanished.

http://www.observer.com/pages/author_look.asp?Author=Ron%20Rosenbaum

Look here, and you see that although this list has every article he wrote for the Observer going back to 1/27/2003, and he dates that old article 1/28/2003... hmmm. Well, something could be screwy. I kept looking for another 20 minutes.

Nope. Nothing. Zilch. Everything I get is references to -this- article. The only thing I can find him talking about near that date is the permutations of the word "Dude" (I kid you not).

It's a shame, really. I would've loved to read the article, and maybe found some way to back up the idea that the Right's "history of indifference to (at best) and support for (at worst) racism and racist political allies here at home" -didn't- include being the party that voted in significantly greater numbers for the Civil Rights Act -and- the Voter Right's Act, -wasn't- the anti-slavery party at it's very foundation, -wasn't- the party that had most of the groundbreaking firsts in terms of blacks achieving high office. It would've been nice to see some evidence, after being called the party of racism for decades, that Republicans in fact allied with the KKK even one whit more than the Democrats did. Cause so far, in my whole life, I haven't seen any such evidence.

Yes, if we were indeed "indifferent to (at best) and support for ... racist political allies", that would be in the sense that we still shared the legislature with Southern Democrats who filibustered the Civil Rights Act for 74 days straight.

I still fail to see how that's the criminal racist history of the -Right- any more than the Left tho. Seems to me, the Left has just been the party that consistently ignores genocide and racism from the get-go.

I'll admire Rosenbaum for "leaving" the Left as soon as he stops regurgitating BS about sins of the Right while giving the Left's blatantly racist history a free pass.

Qwinn

[tdadams]

Left or right, I'll give credit where credit is due. Mr. Rosenbaum is a very intelligent, keen thinker and writer. Witness these two paragraphs:

[To the left] it was as if the terrorists who flew the planes into the towers were really architectural critics, flying Herbert Muschamps, not mass murderers.

{snipped}

I suggested the "next step" might be Holocaust denial, because the deniers had found a diabolical way to twist the knife, compounding the pain of the survivors by negating and slandering the memory of the murdered.

Wow! How right he is.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Maybe he has hopes for the Non-Marxist Left in America. I could care less what stripe they are.

[TomB]

BUMP

[Republic]

I thought this article was tremendous. I don't care that this author is a secularist, wants the name of our Father taken out of our Pledge, in fact , doesn't even like the fact that the Pledge is a part of our world, as Americans. I am interested in the fact that Hitchen's wake up call disturbed and pricked his conscience. Hopefully, other tuned in 'intelligensia' have had that same push.

And I know this author still feels the need to jab mildly at President Bush, but he states clearly that there is no WAY that Al Gore could be considered a wise alternative, in fact, he states in black and white that Al Gore is basically an idiot.

This man looked around a crowd of anti-American, anti-Bush people and the mirror reflected back the true reality of exactly whom he was surrounded by...and he dispised what he saw.

Zell Miller and others have watched this marxist movement of extreme America=evil scum slowly eviserate his party, and I would not be surprised if others follow.

Only hard core marxists like hillary- who fully and deeply and unshakeably believe that NO ONE truly understands exactly what she is about- that the public is basically full of dumbed down masses just waiting for her nose ring to be inserted-will never grow out of their immature, leftist ideology that places America somewhere near the bottom of the heap.

I really liked this article. It is amazing to read about a transformation of thought based on historical reality. This man found the log in his own eye. That is not easy to do.

[Republic]

FYI.

[Qwinn]

"This man found the log in his own eye. That is not easy to do."

He found -a- log in his own eye. There's a rather sizable one he still insists on ramming into ours and then yelling at everyone to come look. Knowing how much influence the marxists and communists (whose penchant for rewriting history are well known) have come out, I wonder if he'd be willing to give the history of racism in this country a fair review in that light. If so, then yes, I'll respect him. Not till then.

Qwinn

[T'wit]

> I'll admire Rosenbaum for "leaving" the Left as soon as he stops regurgitating BS about sins of the Right while giving the Left's blatantly racist history a free pass.

T'wit's Fifth Law reads, "Leftists never admit a truth about themselves without telling a lie about the Right -- for balance."

[Republic]

I hear you. And yeah-'a' log would have been more accurate.

I take issue with much of what he said, my point was basically to state how hopeful this article is. This man is taking a new road, a new look as it were, at the accuracy of his own beliefs and decided to shun revisionist history, or at the very least, actual historical fact conveniently ignored. (Truly sick, as he indicated.) He has found 'a' blind spot in himself.

He will face consequences from publically expressing this, the 'intellectual elites' are hardcore ideologues who truly believe they walk in a different realm. Probably many of his associates, friends, etc will react by slowly shunning him...there is a new battle for this man to fight.

But he took a giant step-towards reinventing a basic ideology he has held since forever. Hopefully he is going to travel this road with the blinders off.

All of us have blind spots.

We should all be so lucky as to find 'a' few of our own.

[cricket]

Enjoyed reading this. . .

Rosenbaum is still 'wrong' on his versions of 'Right' - his personal 'blind spot' thing - but he is right enough that maybe his Contemporaries might be persuaded to reconsider the fruits of their labors. . .

Perhaps this will motivate at least some of them to re-examine the root of genuine idiological evil of the tree they take their apples from. Posted on 11/15/2003 5:01 AM PST by cricket

[mewzilla]

I'm afraid he's got a long way to go, though, before he scrapes the rest of the scales off his eyes.

I managed. This guy has no excuse.