Posted on 11/24/2005 10:36:39 AM PST by Luke21
"Those who hate evil hated the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, after all, was a made-up country, created by a band of gangsters called Bolsheviks and Communists. They murdered between 20 million and 40 million innocent people, spread their totalitarianism around the world, and thereby rendered hundreds of millions of people slaves and automatons.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, liberals and social democrats vigorously opposed communism. But the rest of the world's Left, especially its intellectuals and artists, not only did not oppose communist governments, they were the greatest defenders of communism."
WOW - Hit the nail on the head with that article.
By Dennis Prager
If you want to understand the Left, most of what you need to know can be summarized thus: The Left hates inequality, not evil.
As one raised as a New York Jew (who, moreover, attended an Ivy League university) and therefore liberal -- it took me a while to recognize this fatal moral characteristic of the Left. But the moment I realized it, it became immoral not to oppose leftist values.
It is neither possible nor virtuous to be devoid of hatred. Even those who think it is always wrong to hate must hate hatred. The question therefore is not whether one hates but what (or whom) one hates.
For example, on the basis of the value system that I hold -- the Judeo-Christian -- I try to confine my hating to evil. By evil I mean the deliberate infliction of unjust suffering on the undeserving; cruelty is the best example of such evil.
Those who hate evil hated the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, after all, was a made-up country, created by a band of gangsters called Bolsheviks and Communists. They murdered between 20 million and 40 million innocent people, spread their totalitarianism around the world, and thereby rendered hundreds of millions of people slaves and automatons.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, liberals and social democrats vigorously opposed communism. But the rest of the world's Left, especially its intellectuals and artists, not only did not oppose communist governments, they were the greatest defenders of communism.
By the end of the Vietnam War (begun and prosecuted by liberals), however, most liberals abandoned anti-tyranny, anti-evil liberalism and joined the rest of the Left. Since the late 1960s, with almost very few exceptions (one is Sen. Joseph Lieberman), "liberal" and "Left" have become synonyms. (That is why The New York Times characterizes the Nation, a far-left journal, as "liberal.")
Thus, when President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," the liberal world condemned him. The Cold War, once regarded as an epochal battle between freedom and tyranny, came to be regarded by liberals as an amoral battle between "two superpowers."
Likewise liberals almost universally mocked President George W. Bush when he labeled Saddam Hussein's Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil." It takes a mind that either has little comprehension of evil or little desire to confront it to object to characterizing three of the worst regimes in modern history as "evil."
How else can one explain the Left's enchantment with Fidel Castro, the totalitarian ruler of Cuba? Clearly his evil is of little consequence. What matters to people on the Left is that there is free health care and almost universal literacy in Cuba. Whereas non-leftists believe that it is far better to be illiterate but free, leftists believe that it is better to be a literate slave.
Today, this inability to either recognize or to hate evil is manifested in the liberal opposition to the war in Iraq. As I pointed out in a previous column, opponents of the war should be asked to at least acknowledge that America is fighting evil people and an evil doctrine in Iraq. But even that is difficult, if not impossible, for most people on the Left.
As noted above, everyone hates someone, and that includes people on the Left. The problem is that because they don't hate evil, they hate those who oppose evil. That is how liberals went from anti-communist to anti-anti-communist. To paraphrase one of the greatest moral insights of the Talmud, those who show mercy to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful. So, George W. Bush, not the Islamic terror world, is the Left's villain; life-embracing Israel is the Left's villain, not their death-loving enemies; and religious Christians who note moral weaknesses within the Islamic world are the real danger, not the moral weaknesses within the Islamic world.
To be fair, it should be noted that confusion over evil and insufficiently hating it are not confined to the Left. There are religious people who conflate sexual sin with evil and/or advocate automatic forgiveness of all evildoers, even when no repentance has taken place.
But the inability to acknowledge the greatest evils, let alone to join in fighting them, is the defining characteristic of the Left. That is why former Vice President Al Gore just announced that global warming was a worse threat to humanity than terrorism. He really believes that. As do the great many people on the Left whose moral passion focuses more on gasoline prices, drug prices, health care prices, and other expressions of material inequality than on people and movements dedicated to murder. That is why Robert Redford and friends from Hollywood can celebrate Fidel Castro. Castro may imprison political opponents, and most Cubans may have no right of dissent, but they are economically equal.
Thanks. Prager is a pleasure to read, and to listen to.
Democrats have never been more aptly described.
Great article.
Those who think that left-wing governments create equality aren't paying attention. They create widespread misery and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a priviledged few.
Prager hits a lot of homeruns. He's great!
They don't really hate inequality. After all, they want to have their special privileges and superiority.
"They don't really hate inequality. After all, they want to have their special privileges and superiority."
So true. And their smug, arrogant, condescending self-righteousness and crypto fascism.
How true.
And today, we are not in battle against Islamic Fascism, but against "Insurgents."
Spin by another name is Propaganda.
To the left, the only thing evil is declaring something to be evil.
Most often conveniently forgotten and never mentioned in movies or anywhere else lefties have control. In fact, it may be more like 60 million, including some of my family members.
book mark
To be more specific, the Left doesn't want "equal opportunity," they want "equal outcome."
-PJ
Agreed. Read the "black book of communism" and the number gets closer to 80-100 million, if my memory serves me correctly. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., all the same kind of murderous thug. So much for putting your faith in governments that promise to create workers paradises and take care of it's citizens from cradle to grave.
Yes, you're correct that in the Black Book of Communism, written by six European scholars, the fact that probably 100 million perished under communism is mentioned very early on in the book. But you mentioned Mao and what I'd like to bring to your - and all FRepers - attention is a new highly acclaimed book titled "Mao:The Unknown Story". This book received a good review in Commentary magazine and I ordered it. I'll quote one sentence from page 1: "Mao...was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other 20th century leader." It appears that as time passes the numbers of communist victims increases. I think we're at the point where sheer numbers and the overall horror leave us beyond the point where we can be shocked. Who would ever have thought that
Joe Stalin would look like a piker in comparison? By the way, the book is a great read and always interesting.
They kill children, plant bombs on their dead bodies and when their parents come to mourn over them they blow the parents up. They kill people for loving thier children when they should be hating America.
The terrorists kill people for being happy. They sent suicide bombers to a Muslim wedding in Jordan. The only reason I can come up with is because the people at the wedding were celebrating and being happy rather than spending every minute of every day hating America and Israel. They kill children for taking toys and candy from Americans. They kill children for trying to be happy.
I don't even think that their motivation is all that political. I think a lot of them are homicidal maniacs. They hate life, joy, freedom, love and beauty. They hate people who aspire to it. Like the Orks lead by Lord Sauron they thrive on darkness, blood and despair.
The terrorist and their leaders, Bin Laden and Zarkawi have to wiped off the face of the earth like bugs. Otherwise darkness and chaos will sweep over the earth and civilization will be no more. So yes I hate them and I believe they must be utterly destroyed. It's not a sin, it's an obligation to all that is light and love and innocence.
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