DEMS POLICIES AND DEFENSE THEREOF II
DEMS POLICIES AND DEFENSE THEREOF II
by
Ken Eliasberg
Last week I described the current policy positions of the Dems; this week I want to finish up their foreign policy position and address their typical approach to defending (explaining?) their positions.
Tidying up their foreign policy position, I believe it is safe to say that their position is one of surrender, defeat, cut-and-run, call it what you will, but it is clear that it is one that leaves the observer with the clear impression that America’s best option is give up on Iraq and to do so while the war in that country rages on (and without regard to what catastrophe might ensue if we were to follow their advice). However, in this regard I believe that I am being too generous; one might conclude that their approach was that of your typical “useful idiot.” I believe that it is worse than that; the left has gone beyond being merely misguided and wrongheaded. They are now behaving more like a “fifth column” —almost as if they were actively supporting the cause of radical Islam. Certainly there is no doubt in my mind that their conduct is providing immeasurable assistance to the cause of the enemy, and this is so abundantly clear that it cannot be explained in terms of mere utopian inadvertence. In this regard, I recommend an excellent book by David Horowitz entitled Unholy Alliance—Radical Islam and the American Left, Regnery Publishing, Inc. (2004). I also recommend a recent article that appeared at frontpagemag.com on May 1, 2007 entitled Europe’s Islamist-Leftist Alliance by Adrian Morgan.
Now to address the manner in which the left typically defends any of their positions, which I described as hot air and hubris in the title to my previous column. First, the hot air. Whenever you talk to a lefty—and I mean a reasonably intelligent and informed lefty, like say your typical left-wing history professor—all you get are slogans, bromides, platitudes, and clichés, the bottom line of which is that we’re for the “little guy” (with the unspoken presumption that you’re not), thereby establishing their sense of their own moral superiority. You rarely, if ever, get facts, logic, common sense, or any sort of understanding of the real-life implications of their position (perhaps because academics are so far removed from the real world, and appear to have so little understanding of the one real quality that is central to any real-world problem, i.e., human nature). I used to come away (I say “used to” because I don’t engage lefties any more; it’s a most unrewarding task) with the distinct impression that they didn’t know what they were talking about. They either didn’t know the facts, didn’t want to know the facts, didn’t understand the facts, or, typically, needed to utilize and distort selective facts which allowed them to analyse a particular problem by viewing the consequences of this factual distortion through an ideological prism that enabled them to justify any conclusion that they reached, no matter how much at variance such conclusion was with reality. Whether they were talking about gun control, charter schools, police conduct, profiling, or any subject, you got the distinct impression that they didn’t know what they were talking about, but, it didn’t make any difference because they were shielded from such considerations as real life by the sense of moral superiority in which they had cloaked themselves.
And when you did pin them down—which is fairly easy to do if you have any sort of command of your subject—they then retreat to the high ground of their moral superiority by asserting that you are a bigot. That’s the hubris part of the equation. After their hot air balloon has been pricked, the hubris part takes over. I’ve often wished that I could get a lefty—particularly a left-wing professor, from whose Phd. one is to presume some sort of intellectual command of the subject under consideration (if not omniscience) - into court in front of a knowledgeable and open minded judge to argue our respective cases. There is no doubt in my mind that I would get a summary judgment in my favor every time, no matter what the subject. Why? Because lefties rarely, if ever, invoke things like facts. let alone logic, common sense and/or reality; they almost always utilize emotion and wield it as if it was some form of mirror in which the opponent was to see his own humbling reflection and immediately capitulate in the face of such overwhelming blather.
And it frequently gives rise to an almost amusing situation. Like take the case of George Bush lied about WMD. How could he have lied when he said the exact same thing that every single leading Democrat said in 1998 when the Iraqi Liberation Act was on the table? When the intelligence arm of every single established country said the same thing? When the leading Dems said the same thing leading up to the current conflagration?
But more to the point, how could the Dems, at least with a straight face, talk about lying after 8 years of unrelenting mendacity with the Clintons. And, Clinton lied under oath. And he finally admitted that he lied. Indeed, it was Clinton’s unbelievable audacity in lying that finally opened my eyes, not just to his essential dishonesty but to that of the Party that circled the wagons around him. I used to say that the Clinton’s lies didn’t insult your intelligence; they just assumed you didn’t have any. Indeed, when Bill Saffire said that Hillary Clinton was a “congenital liar,” he flattered her. And David Broder, a liberal columnist with the Washington Post, was quite correct when he observed that Bill Clinton didn’t have an inappropriate relationship with women, he had an inappropriate relationship with the truth.
You’re average liberal reminds me of an expression which is (or at least used to be) commonly passed on to first-year law students by one or more of the professors in whose charge they were placed. If you’ve got the facts, pound on the facts; if you’ve got the law, pound on the law; if you’ve got nothing, pound on the table. And that’s what I have always found your typical lefty to be—nothing but a table-pounder, and that is why it is so frustrating to argue with a liberal—they just don’t know what they are talking about!
Actually, the essence of the left was succinctly (and accurately) captured in a simple phrase by John Derbyshire entitled Liberalism in a Nutshell—in which he observed “Everything is America’s fault and you’re not paying enough in taxes.” If you had to reduce the Left to one sentence I can’t think of one that more beautifully captures its spirit than that one.