Posted on 01/30/2005 9:56:06 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Has your dog been acting funny lately? They say dogs can smell fear. Perhaps your pooch is detecting the panic wafting from your morning newspaper.
In its unhinged post-election state, the American Left has delved to new depths of fear. Granted, fearful predictions of fascism and collapse have been their stock in trade for decades. Each election, we see some new examples of overheated fear mongering. Still, a new trend is emerging as the objects of the fear are no longer the men and women in the halls of power, but the couple down the street and the owner of the corner store.
Take the reason most liberals will cite as John Kerry's downfall: Values voters. The story is that Bush would have lost except for a tsunami of voters who came out to express raging homophobia and opposition to abortion. True, some exit polls showed many voters cited "moral values" for their choice, but that category could cover anything. Ask any voter, and they'll tell you they support "moral values."
One exit pollster, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, got the election results exactly right, and after examining Kohut's data and actual vote counts, David Brooks of the New York Times found the following:
As Brooks put it, "The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism."
But fundamentalist hatred as the primary force in American politics fits the Left's template of prejudice. As Brooks points out, it serves "to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them." If you have concluded the president's very belief in the concept "Jesus Saves" automatically means he wants to force Christianity on every human, why not believe his supporters have similar goals? If you wake up every day believing we live in a Bible-thumping theocracy run by the evil-but-stupid Chimpus Khan, then you really can't conclude the majority of Americans don't also see such an obvious truth. You must instead conclude they support it. When you fear your nation, it is a small step to begin fearing your fellow citizens.
In 2004, I wrote some Leftists find Osama bin Laden and his terror network far less worrisome than a president with a Bible on his nightstand. In 2005, I predict we'll see more of what we've seen in the last two months on The Journal-Standard's letter page and on the national stage: More people expressing their belief that voters with a Bible on the nightstand are the foremost threat to American democracy. They will portray themselves as martyrs for liberty as they call for rampant paranoia, asking you to believe the goal of your neighbors is to make you worship and live as they choose.
Yet I would be guilty of an equal prejudice if I believed that all, or even most of the 48 percent of Americans who voted for Sen. Kerry think this way. That is why I have hope for the future of American discourse. There are those who stand with the Democrats who know paranoia is not patriotism. It is time for you to have your day. It is time for you to take back what has been hijacked. A segment of your movement is horrified that anyone who thinks "What would Jesus do" has ever gotten near the reins of power and, admittedly, a segment of our movement is smugly convinced they won this election for the president and deserve some sort of political kickback. It's time for all of us to ask "What would Truman do" and rein them in. It is time to put away fear, and work together (or at least have more civil debate) with sound minds.
I LOVE it!
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Great article.
Thank you.
Good work!
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You're an excellent writer.
Nice column, Mr. Silverback. Another very talented FReeper!
Very well written letter! Did the paper publish it yet?
Thanks for the ping and the excellent op-ed.
Lefty liberals in a nutshell. (Yet some will lament that the majority couldn't POSSIBLY have voted for Chimpus Khan, so the election MUST have been stolen. There's no other explanation for a Bush win.)
...some Leftists find Osama bin Laden and his terror network far less worrisome than a president with a Bible on his nightstand.
Sad, but true. Good piece, Mr. Silverback.
I think it is hilarious how many on the left are truly afraid of us. It's also sad, because that fear would better be directed at terrorists instead of the evangelicals down the street. But I hope the left makes their paranoia more public in coming years. The more the rest of the country realizes how elitist and hateful leftists are, the more ordinary Americans realize how much they are scorned by leftists, the better it is for the conservative cause. The left is doing a great job of margianalizing itself.
Yes, it has been published. It's on the 'Net at the link that says "Freeport Journal-Standard."
The American insurgency is academia, the media, and which ever howling moonbat can scream the loudest. Logic and intellect are off the table. compromise only happens when you agree with them. They have taken over the language, and the religion. Remember when the Flintstones had a "Gay Old Time". You pay them handsomely every day to brainwash and "adjust" your children like a slow growing cancer. You can't have an indisputable opinion even in your own home. Everything has to be a shade of grey, and when it's not, they go straight for your emotional centers and hone in on shaming you. You become morally defective in your own eyes. You succumb after the assault goes from headache to migraine. By shear force of will they verbally and mentally beat every last bit of will out of you, and you give up. You become mute. And they have won. Again.
53% of Americans voted a conservative ticket, another 20% was so sick of the cacophony of lies they fell silent. Unable to do the right thing, even with an obvious choice.
The Left has you convinced they know all about you, even how you think. and that they can lay you naked at any time, in the most humiliating manor, if you speak and do what you know in your own mind is right, and lawful, and morally just. Welcome to the true terrorism in America.
I enjoyed reading that. Thanks for posting.
Bravo, Sir!
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