Ten Reasons Why I Am No Longer a Leftist

American Thinker ^ | July 20, 2014 | Danusha V. Goska

[2ndDivisionVet]

How far left was I? So far left my beloved uncle was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in a Communist country. When I returned to his Slovak village to buy him a mass card, the priest refused to sell me one. So far left that a self-identified terrorist proposed marriage to me. So far left I was a two-time Peace Corps volunteer and I have a degree from UC Berkeley. So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a button saying "Eat the Rich." To me it wasn't a metaphor.

I voted Republican in the last presidential election.

Below are the top ten reasons I am no longer a leftist. This is not a rigorous comparison of theories. This list is idiosyncratic, impressionistic, and intuitive. It's an accounting of the milestones on my herky-jerky journey.

10) Huffiness.

In the late 1990s I was reading Anatomy of the Spirit, a then recent bestseller by Caroline Myss.

Myss described having lunch with a woman named Mary. A man approached Mary and asked her if she were free to do a favor for him on June 8th. No, Mary replied, I absolutely cannot do anything on June 8th because June 8th is my incest survivors' meeting and we never let each other down! They have suffered so much already! I would never betray incest survivors!

Myss was flabbergasted. Mary could have simply said "Yes" or "No."(continued)

[Billthedrill]

A wonderful article, and thanks for posting. I love to learn what causes a dedicated Leftist to reconsider, what causes the scales to fall from the eyes. David Horowitz has been brilliantly articulate about it, and oh, God, how they hate him for that! Before him, Whittaker Chambers wrote Witness about his own conversion. I happened to be reading that the week the Soviet Union fell. Wish Chambers had lived to see it.

There is a fascinating book on the topic: The End of Commitment by Paul Hollander. Highly recommended. Intense read in places - Hollander recounts a Soviet general whose evening commute took him by a prison. He said he lost faith when he began to hear the screams. I think our author has had a similar epiphany.

[definitelynotaliberal]

Good article, thanks for posting it. I’m also an erstwhile leftist, albeit lacking her analytical skills.

[GOPJ]

...Hollander recounts a Soviet general whose evening commute took him by a prison. He said he lost faith when he began to hear the screams. I think our author has had a similar epiphany.

Thanks for the link...