Posted on 11/25/2005 1:55:46 AM PST by goldstategop
I picked up my friend Michelle Malkin's book, "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild," to peruse it, thinking I would get around to reading it when I finished the other three books I'm currently reading on and off. After reading the first few pages, though, I was hooked and had to read the whole thing.
Michelle deliberately chose the title, "Unhinged," purposely, to convey that the American Left, generally speaking, has long since come unglued, giving itself over to irrationality and extremism rather than reasoned discourse. "This book," writes Michelle, "is not about liberals being liberal. It is about liberals who've lost their grip on sanity and reality."
Today, you can cite myriad examples of liberal irrationality, conspiracy theory, flagrant dishonesty and even violence, and say, "Well, every political movement has its extremists, but they aren't representative of the whole and therefore do not taint the movement itself."
But Michelle amasses a book's worth of evidence demonstrating that these bizarre thought and behavior patterns are far too voluminous to be dismissed as anecdotal. They are indicative of a mindset – an unhealthy one at that – that she documents meticulously in her first chapter, "Liberals on the Couch."
There she cites example after painful example of liberals themselves admitting their unmitigated personal hatred for President Bush and how it colors their view of every issue and in many cases affects their psychological well being.
Even with the mountains of evidence and the liberals' self-confessed anti-Bush obsession, it would still be difficult to paint the entirety of the American Left as a few bricks shy of a load. But, as Michelle points out, we're not just talking about a couple hundred mouth-foaming radicals on the Internet. "The scariest part is, these Internet crazies aren't just riding along in the Democrat bus – they're driving it."
Indeed. Mad Howard Dean was not only the failed Democrat presidential contender whose scary, defamatory and ludicrous rants ignited the equally scary base of the Democratic Party. Party leaders not only rarely distanced themselves from Dean's outbursts, they elevated him to lead their party.
It wasn't merely some Internet loons who compared America's treatment of enemy detainees at Gitmo to that of the Nazi and communist prison camps. It was prominent Democrat Sen. Richard Durbin.
Nor was it just certain rabid Democratic Underground posters who said President Bush's Iraq War was concocted in Texas for political reasons, Bush knew in advance about 9-11 and allowed it to happen and Karl Rove was behind Dan Rather's forged documents scandal. It was Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democratic Congressman Cynthia McKinney, and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, respectively.
And, it's not just Democrat politicians who consider Karl Rove the personification of evil. No less a liberal icon than Walter Cronkite hinted to Larry King that Karl Rove might have been behind Osama bin Laden's public threat in October 2004 – just before the presidential election – of further terrorist attacks.
After all, this idea was not that far-fetched when you believed, as many on the Left apparently did, that Bush and Rove staged Saddam's capture for maximum political effect and similarly had Osama stashed away and prepared to announce it when it best suited their obscene political interests. This "unhinged" theory about Osama, by the way, was voiced by President Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright.
I challenge you to read this book cover to cover and emerge still believing – assuming you did before – that the modern Democratic Party is the party of tolerance and compassion. Especially read the chapter "When Angry Democrats Attack," and tell us with a straight face, "Each party has an equal number of crazies with violent propensities."
You simply can't dismiss this rampant violence with meaningless platitudes designed to establish a false moral equivalence. There is no moral equivalence. Nor is there any way to casually write off the all-too-frequent calls for President Bush's assassination from leftist loons, or the mainstream media's utter lack of outrage by them.
On one level "Unhinged" is amusing, because it cites case after case of literally unbelievable episodes. But on a far more important level it is quite disturbing because these are not vignettes from Mad magazine, but real-life reports of a movement that has delivered to the inmates the keys to the asylum.
Doubtlessly, this book will be viciously panned by those it exposes. They are certainly entitled to their point of view, but I would encourage you to be skeptical of rebuttals cloaked in generalities. Those generalities will fall under the overwhelming weight of specific data Michelle marshals in this valuable book.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Ladies and Gentlemen....A Christmas gift idea PING!
I know a lot of Freepers don't like Michael Savage, but he definitely has it right when he says "liberalism is a mental disorder." If anyone hasn't, I highly recommend his three books that he brags about all the time. They really are quite good.
(I'm on duty for 'cgk' until she is back home after Thankgiving holiday time off)
Michelle spoke at Cornell recently. I had the chance to attend her talk on the subject of "Unhinged." It was accompanied by a slide show composed in large part of the outrageous signs liberals displayed in recent times at various protests. You know the kind: everything from portraying W as Hitler to calling on enlisted men to kill their officers.
I had a chance to chat with Michelle after and buy an autographed copy of Unhinged. Great evening!
There is not an admission test for conservatism here on FR. The downfall of FR, GOP, USA will be the spinning of conservatism into something uncommon and hatefull. I am a conservative, not a republican and I despise 'progressives'.
Given the fact the Left applauds the PETA crowd and their more extremist allies, the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, it would not be above them to do something totally insane like assassinating a prominent critic of the Left (e.g., Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and so on). It is even not impossible to see the Left resorting to suicide bombings--e.g., walking into a crowded fast food resturant, shopping mall or large box store like a Wal-Mart and blowing themselves up as a form of protest against what they call the greed of corporate America. 
I too think liberals have gone off the deep end and I think I have a simple explanation as to why.
If one defines insanity as to the accuracy of one's perception of reality, then one might look to the difference between liberalism in the U.S. and conservatism and identify what it is that fundamentally differentiates the two.
The liberals in the U.S. are secular humanists, i.e. they don't believe in an interactive God. They either believe in a Creator that is far removed from the realities of this world or they believe in no Creator at all (not much difference between the two actually). With such a remote God or no God at all, the liberals presume that if the world is to be managed, it is up to them to makes the rules and bring order. And their plan...is, well, their plan as demonstrated by them.
On the other hand, the conservative belief system in the U.S. is based on a belief in the Judeo/Christian Creator. He is powerfully influential in our beliefs and our behavior. Conservatives rely on His rules for living and strongly believe that human (secular-humanist) ways are inherent sinful.
All this ultimately brings us to the question: Who is right? The side whose belief is correct is sane (i.e. behaving according to the truth on the universe)...and the other, diametrically opposite, believing side is insane (living according to a LIE).
I think Michelle Malkin tells us eloquently who has chose the LIE.
They believe that their cause is so totally "just" that ANY opposition MUST be EVIL, and such evil needs to be destroyed, by any means necessary.
Conservatives also believe that our cause is totally just and that opposition is misguided, and led astray by EVIL.
The actions of most of them are evil, but they are led astray by leaders that are EVIL incarnate, such as the Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, UBL, etc.
We believe in redemption, they believe in re-education.
See my tagline for a great definition of insanity...
I wonder how many Conservative authors get their material from Freeper?
I first noticed some of the newspeople on TV using phrases I first saw here in the 2000 election cycle.
Rush occasionaly plays excerpts from the Paul Wellstone funeral. Only mental patients can turn a funeral into a feel good political pep rally. One can imagine coming home after a concert, a movie, or a sporting event and being happy and having a big smile on the face. The Democrats do this after a funeral. And those who don't believe me should remember the happy smiling face of Bill Clinton after the services for Ron Brown.
I've noticed that too. We are a media power!
It is scary to contemplate that a liberal could write a companion book entitled, "Unhinged: Exposing Conservatives Gone Wild" just by reprinting some of the kookier posts on Free Republic.
I am reluctant to recommend FR to my conservative friends because some of the outlandish posts here by so-called 'conservatives'. Yes, some of it is entertaining, etc. but undiciplined, right-wing zealotry is not the way to win the hearts and minds of moderate Americans. That is the group that determines our political leaders.
In my view, the Moderators don't do a thorough enough job of cleansing kooks from this forum so that it could appeal to a much wider audience.
This books sounds a little like DUmmie Funnies.
You have made a good comparison but I have a very slight, but important, divergent view. I may be either alone or among a very small minority because I hear Rush and others express views more similar to yours that mine.
I think the other side is made up of Stalin-like Communists and Useful Idiots, his description for those who bought the Communist Manifesto BS. In keeping with that, I think the destruction of God and the church is premeditated and that secular humanism is simply a concocted argument used as an alternative which has some intellectual pretense about it. God and Communism can't coexist because Communism requires total commitment and dedication to the the state, through the Party. The Party controls, the state is simply the instrument.
Ironically, the most likely vehicle to get people to behave as the Party demands is through religion and they forbid that avenue. The Party must be the religion and the Great Leader is God. That is why the Great Leader's picture adorns every crook and cranny of the country. How would you like to see Hillary's picture everywhere?
Wow. Talk about drinking the liberal kool-aid. Bob Michael couldn't have said it better...
The main defense man-on-the-street liberals use when they discover their opposition isn't ignorant of the subject being demagogued is the "opposite side of the same coin," canard.
A smart conservative knows that's the time to press the attack. A dumb one thinks that's the time for compromise.
Once their knee-jerk reaction subsides, the unprincipled middle will follow whoever is winning.
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