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The fact is, you cannot have it both ways. If he was doing thinking for himself, then he wasn’t doing a very good job of it if he thinks the rights of oppressed college students are important, but it is okay to overlook the faults of a bloodthirsty ideology responsible for tens of millions of deaths and hundreds of millions more living oppressed lives or imprisioned in Gulags. There is a severe cognitive dissonance in his “own thinking”.

Once again, you don't know what you're talking about.

Some examples of Nat Hentoff "overlooking the faults of communism":

http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-11-23/news/china-s-brutal-police-state/

"Savage beatings against Christians [the ones not officially approved by the government] were on the rise at the end of last year. . . . On December 24, in Liangzhuang Village, Xushui county . . . a 12-year-old girl, who told interrogators she became a liturgy lector out of religious conviction, was beaten so badly she had to be hospitalized. In November, a Protestant woman in Henan suffered brain damage in beatings by security agents. "On May 9, 1998, Chinese police, in collaboration with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, raided and bulldozed a Catholic Church in Luoyuan county of Fujian province while some of the congregation were assembled for worship. During the raid, the police, armed with guns and electric batons, kicked and beat anyone who resisted arrest. Three female parishioners were seriously injured. Within two hours, the 600-square-foot church was bulldozed." The parishioners will now have to go underground.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-05-02/news/eli-n-s-future-in-cuba/

"Are we really prepared to send these children back to their countries without an independent adjudication of whether they might face danger back home? To do so would set a dangerous precedent for other refugee children who need and deserve our protection."

Clinton and his shadow attorney general were in a rush to avoid a careful, independent adjudication of Elián's fate. Both Reno and Clinton should read the April 18 condemnation of Cuba by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. It cited that nation's "continued violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

And now, on May 11, thanks to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Elián may finally have his real day in court—and may yet live in freedom, unless sent back by Clinton, Reno, and public opinion.

(DW377:)No one is claiming Hentoff is a conservative; he’s not, he’s a liberal. Yes, he was befriended by I. F. Stone. I have known and liked and loved many liberals, and many of them have positively influenced my life. Should I have asked them to become conservatives before I associated with them? That sounds suspiciously like the childish DU crap. I associate with Americans, of all kinds of political persuasions. And yet I am anti-communist, pro-life, pro-free speech, anti-illegal immigration, etc. Hentoff is a great example of the independent thinking you claim to be so enamored of, while you slam him for publishing in a leftist newspaper, where he has pressed conservative positions on abortion and indeed communism to those who need to read them the most. Talking about prolife positions HERE doesn’t change any minds; talking about them THERE has. In the future, a lot of people should criticize Hentoff less and follow his example more, and let facts instead of comfortable kneejerk reactions inform their opinions, even if I don’t agree with many of them.

"... Should I have asked them to become conservatives before I associated with them? That sounds suspiciously like the childish DU crap. I associate with Americans, of all kinds of political persuasions..."

That is your interpretation and your words, not mine. Please don't attribute them to me. I never said that, never implied that.

What I do believe is that you can judge people by those they associate with. It is one of the reasons I was shocked that our country got enough people together to vote for a man who associated with outright terrorists, racists, marxists and socialists.

Liberalism is the greatest threat to this country. That may be my opinion, but I believe that liberalism presents a greater danger to this country than Islamofascism, Communism, or any other "ism" there is out there. I believe liberalism is the rot in our society.

I too associate with liberals, and count some of my dearest friends, indeed blood relations who are even more liberal probably than this author. But I do believe there is a stratification of liberalism, and using the rule of threes, would classify them as follows:

First, one third of liberals are people who don't care about issues, don't think about issues, and aren't really concerned about issues other than what it does for them financially. These are people who vote for a Democrat because they have always voted for Democrats, and because their parents vote for Democrats. They think they will get a grant/tax break/opportunity/job whatever if they get a liberal in office, because that is what those liberals promise them.

Second, the middle third of liberals are those who really care. Those who seriously believe that there are injustices, wrongs, poverty, ignorance and disease. I disagree with those people on their outlook on the best way to deal with those issues. I know these people (Living in Massachusetts as I do) I love some of these people and I talk to these people. I am able to carry on frank and open conversations without animus. I respect these people, and some of them are the brightest and talented people I know. These people will talk to me, I can talk to them, we disagree but there is mutual respect. I don't step on their political or intellectual toes, and they don't step on mine. I don't doubt that these people love their country, but as Thomas Sowell puts it, they are not thinking past stage one. These are the same people who might have a plant infestation in a lake and bring in some kind of fish from South America that is known to eat that plant. They are then genuinely surprised when all the native fish disappear and the lake becomes a muddy swamp because the imported fish also eat nearly every other kind of plant in the lake.

The last third are liberals who are ideological in nature and are interested in power and nothing else. This third can be further divided into those who drink their own Kool-Aid and fervently believe it with a religious ferocity, and the other part of them who don't believe and don't care, but think they can lay their hands on the machinery of life and bend it to their will. That machinery may be the socialistic implementation of a planned economy, or the legislative machinery of banning trans fats in restaurants because they know better than you do what is good for you. Your rights and desires don't matter. These people hate our country for what it is and what it stands for, and want to transform it into something else.

This last third, are in my opinion, the type of liberals who have inhabited the Village Voice since 1955. I do believe that people CAN and SHOULD be judged by their associations, and this person earned a lifetime income drawing readers to this publication and keeping it afloat. So, if I erred in judging this person by his association with scumbags like I.F. Stone and a rag like the Village Voice, both of which are (hopefully soon to be speaking of both of them in the past tense) or were dedicated towards tearing down the fabric of our society in any way possible, then yes, I am guilty.

You and I may disagree on whether his close, no-skintight association with a leftist, anti-American publication like the Village Voice is cause to damn him, and I have read enough of your posts of Free Republic to appreciate your point of view on MANY issues, but I am tired of laying down and ceding the battle to liberals in the fight for the life of this country. If someone has spent a LIFETIME contributing to the financial well-being of a political party, organization or media outlet that wants nothing less than the destruction of this country, then I feel justified in judging them on it.

In this case, I am willing to admit that it is possible I placed him in the wrong "third" of liberals, but I maintain that those credentials he would present justify that.