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The Left’s Catastrophic Moral Record
The Jewish Press ^ | 5/21/2003 | P. David Hornik

Posted on 05/22/2003 12:39:08 PM PDT by veronica

Wrong again.

Not long ago, the Left in the democracies was saying that the U.S. was getting stuck in a “quagmire” in Iraq, that the Iraqi people were fiercely resisting the hated invaders, that the war had been badly and unrealistically planned. Now that the dust has cleared, and the revelations of horrific tortures by Saddam’s regime are emerging, we’re left with a strange spectacle: the Left, which likes to think of itself as a champion of the oppressed and the weak, was in fact supporting the indefinite continuation of one of the most rapacious, cruelly oppressive regimes on earth.

It’s nothing new; the Left has long had a penchant for getting things catastrophically wrong. In Britain and France in the 1930`s, the Left saw Herr Hitler as a reasonable man and could not countenance the thought of the democracies doing something to stop his war machine before it got rolling. In the U.S. in the late 1060`s and 70`s, the Left loudly demanded the wholesale abandonment of America’s Southeast Asian allies. Eventually it got its way, and the Cambodian and Vietnamese peoples paid horrendously for that exercise in advanced morality.

In Israel from 1993 to the present, I’ve been witness to another left-wing venture in moral equivalency and appeasement. The Israeli Left anointed Yasir Arafat as a “moderate,” and brought him here to rule over the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza and make a lasting peace with Israel.

I’ve seen some of the results with my own eyes — the bombing, death, and maiming in our streets, not to mention the creation of a corrupt, destitute, anti-Semitic mini-Iraq in the territories. I’ve also seen most of the Israeli Left keep insisting that they were right all along, not even having the gumption to admit their terrible mistakes and rethink their positions.

It’s hard to say what makes people living in the lap and luxury of Western democracies take such perverse attitudes. Indeed, for decades the Left in general has showed its mettle by fawning over, idolizing, and making pilgrimages to one brutal dictator after another — Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, up to “our own” Arafat (still playing host, in his bombed-out Ramallah compound, to a stream of eager European diplomats and even U.S. congressmen).

It’s strange that while people who admire Hitler are rightly consigned to the margins of society as cranks and creeps, people who’ve admired a long line of mass murderers and terrorists — so long as they have a “left” or “revolutionary” aura — get the status of honored professors, pundits, artists, oracles.

But having observed leftists in the two countries I’ve lived in, the U.S. and Israel, I’ve been struck by certain family resemblances. They tend to be highly secularized, and vituperative toward traditionally religious people — whether evangelical Christians in the U.S. or Orthodox Jews (both of the non-Zionist and Zionist varieties) in Israel. They tend to view their societies as oppressive, and to embrace all trends — from feminism to gay rights to preferential quotas — that claim to be liberating while they refuse to take seriously any counter-arguments or heed evidence of those trends’ harmful effects.

Even more strikingly, I’ve noticed that leftists in both countries tend to practice cults of highly personalized, prima facie hatred and contempt toward right-wing leaders — just mentioning the names Nixon, Reagan, and Bush (W. in particular), or Shamir, Netanyahu, and Sharon, is enough to illustrate what I mean. It never occurs to them that to sneer at and delegitimize a person because of his social background is no less a form of bigotry than the kinds of bigotry they claim to deplore.

Are leftists misguided patriots, people who mean well but whose refined lives prevent them from grasping the realities of politics? Or are they elitists with a deep-seated hostility toward their own societies that leads them to feel sympathy for their societies’ enemies no matter how odious and evil? To ask what makes them tick takes us into murky waters of psychology and motives. What’s clear, though, is that the historical record proves the Left is dangerous and sometimes catastrophically harmful.

It’s not that it wants the Hitlers and Pol Pots and Arafats to perpetrate their atrocities, but it paves the way for those horrors by disarming and demoralizing the democracies with its shrill, accusatory propaganda and, when it can, pursuing its ruinous policies. No, the Left didn’t revel in the thought of Saddam, Uday, and the rest gassing people to death and slicing out their tongues — but it was the thought of American soldiers with guns that sparked its fiercest opposition.

Democracies, to be sure, have no choice but to grant leftists the freedom to express themselves, to organize, to run for office. By the same token, non-leftists are free to point to the historical record and expose leftists’ recurrent, inexcusable moral and political blindness. The more energetically and persistently we do that, the less likely that leftists can prevail, and wreak their calamities, in the future.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Israel; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: dictator; left; leftist; liberal; liberalism

1 posted on 05/22/2003 12:39:09 PM PDT by veronica
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To: dennisw; SJackson; Bahbah; Grampa Dave; Catspaw; Alouette; quidnunc; Yehuda; BenF; Nachum; ...
FYI.
2 posted on 05/22/2003 12:40:34 PM PDT by veronica (How's about a Palestinian state inside France? It could be called "Francenstine"...)
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To: MadIvan; Sabertooth; Thinkin' Gal; Brian Allen; Long Cut; JohnHuang2
Bump.
3 posted on 05/22/2003 12:41:59 PM PDT by veronica (How's about a Palestinian state inside France? It could be called "Francenstine"...)
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To: veronica
The Left is filled with those who only claim to be concerned about their fellow man, while coddling the tyrannts that butcher & oppress the powerless. The Leftist is not a patriot....but plays one on TV...for the consumption of the unthinking media whores. And somehow that makes the media feel better about their own complicity in the cycle of enabling evil.
4 posted on 05/22/2003 12:50:44 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
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To: anniegetyourgun
...whatever the bad opposition is for...they are against. It's having the power (for the betterment of mankind, of course) that really counts. Who has the job of ruling.

Pardon me....who has the job, stupid.

How insensitive of me.
5 posted on 05/22/2003 12:57:02 PM PDT by PoorMuttly ("No Kibble - No Peace"")
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To: veronica

6 posted on 05/22/2003 12:58:29 PM PDT by Capitalism2003
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To: veronica
It’s not that it wants the Hitlers and Pol Pots and Arafats to perpetrate their atrocities, but it paves the way for those horrors by disarming and demoralizing the democracies with its shrill, accusatory propaganda and, when it can, pursuing its ruinous policies.

Excellent point. Their foolish utopianism, of having peace without needing to use force to stop evil, impedes our ability to deal with reality. As a result, we are weakened in our ability to confront evil.

7 posted on 05/22/2003 12:59:05 PM PDT by DeweyCA
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To: Capitalism2003
Should be called "useless idiots."

I just posted on another forum debating who's military kicked butt in Iraq. The other poster (a leftwing nutcase) said Clinton "took care" of the military with "huge" increases in defense spending. The sad thing is, people out there still believe it.
8 posted on 05/22/2003 1:02:49 PM PDT by corlorde
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To: veronica
To ask what makes them tick takes us into murky waters of psychology and motives.

Not when you come to realize that leftists follow a wayward and evil Philosophy that avoids reality, reason and truth.

A gifted philosopher of the 20th century -- in my opinion,the most brilliant philosopher ever -- explains it well in a speech delivered personally to West Point's 1974 graduating class.

A copy of that speech (it is, unfortunately, a typo-ridden copy) is available at CLICK HERE.

9 posted on 05/22/2003 1:10:23 PM PDT by thinktwice
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To: corlorde
That's another thing: the left makes things up. If the facts don't support their position, they make up a lie that will. And then they get the New York Times, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and Peter Jennings to repeat the lie, and overnight it becomes "fact." Bill Clinton: "I remember the church burnings growing up in Arkansas..." Al Gore: ...well, pick from many. Useless liars who have no moral core to prevent them from foisting whoppers on the gullible public, to forward their own evil programs.
10 posted on 05/22/2003 1:16:10 PM PDT by My2Cents ("Well....there you go again.")
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To: thinktwice
What a great speech! Thanks for posting the link.
11 posted on 05/22/2003 1:35:45 PM PDT by babyface00
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To: corlorde
They're called useful idiots because they are useful to the communists. They were labelled as such by Lenin.
12 posted on 05/22/2003 1:51:09 PM PDT by expatpat
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To: veronica
...the historical record proves the Left is dangerous and sometimes catastrophically harmful.

I am always disgusted and disheartened whenever a talk show host or a pol dismisses the Left as "the looney left" because they're damn dangerous! They're not looney, not silly, not amusing, not cute.

They ARE dangerous, their agenda is decidedly UN-American/anti-American, and I'm grateful and pleased to find my exact thoughts in print, and so well written!

13 posted on 05/22/2003 3:01:41 PM PDT by onyx
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To: babyface00
You are welcome.

West point liked the speech so well that they asked, and received, permission to use it as chapter one in the Point's Philosophy textbook.

A military officer gave me a copy of the speech some years back - it changed my life.

14 posted on 05/22/2003 3:17:05 PM PDT by thinktwice
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To: veronica
Thanks for posting this article and pinging me.

I have bookmarked it.
15 posted on 05/22/2003 3:31:34 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (Time to visit this website and join up: http://www.georgewbush.com/)
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To: anniegetyourgun
The Left is evil and without real morals.
16 posted on 05/22/2003 3:34:04 PM PDT by AmericaUnited
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To: DeweyCA
Their foolish utopianism, of having peace without needing to use force to stop evil, impedes our ability to deal with reality. As a result, we are weakened in our ability to confront evil.

Nicely put.

17 posted on 05/22/2003 3:43:33 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: veronica
Excellent article.
18 posted on 05/22/2003 7:53:29 PM PDT by TwilightDog ("The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast"--Oscar Wilde)
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To: Yardstick
"Their foolish utopianism" (warning: Jimmy Carter!)..."of having peace" (oooh! Jimmy Carter in rapture! Danger, Will Robinson!) without needing to use force (Jimmy Carterthink: always go to Detente and give away the store to achieve the "victory of peace") to stop evil".
The only thing I would have added to this description ("foolish utopianism") would have been the words "arrogant, self-righteous, and smug", as in "their foolish, arrogant, smug, self-righteous utopianism." Honestly, the Left considers themselves superior and considers those who disagree with them to be stupid, hicks, Limbaugh Zombies, Religious Fanatics, etc etc etc...
19 posted on 05/22/2003 8:02:38 PM PDT by Springfield45 (Bush WON, Democrats. Now YOU get over it.)
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To: veronica
bttt
20 posted on 05/22/2003 10:14:49 PM PDT by cgk (It is liberal dogma that human life is an accident - Linda Bowles (r.i.p.))
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