Who’s Afraid of the Hardline Left?‏ pb

“THE CURTAIN WILL SOON BE COMING DOWN”

by Don Fredrick, ©2014, blogging at The Obama Timeline

(Sep. 27, 2014) — Many argue that Democrat and Republican politicians are all mostly low-life scum who would sell their mothers for money and power. One can vote Libertarian, but if they ever gained power they would probably learn to abuse the power as well. That is the nature of politics and the nature of power. That is also why the U.S. Constitution was designed to limit federal power. Regrettably, the Founding Fathers failed to imagine the extent to which the Constitution would be misinterpreted, abused, and ignored.

Some might argue that there is no “left wing” or “right wing” in politics—there is only freedom or tyranny, and the political left and right only offer varying forms of tyranny. The point is valid: you either control your own life or someone else controls it. Individual liberty should trump almost everything else. Individuals can certainly work together on a voluntary basis to achieve tremendous things they could never accomplish on their own. But the key word is voluntary. Most of the Democrat-versus-Republican political arguments across the nation are only about the amount of tyranny we will impose on others or are willing to accept. They are rarely about whether we should accept or reject tyranny. Even if the argument is only about the amount of tyranny, however, we should nevertheless accept that some differences between the political left and right do exist. Libertarians may want to drain the swamp but unless and until they are widely elected, for those who are forced to stand in that swamp, five-foot-deep Republican water is still preferable to six-foot-deep Democrat water.

The leftists rant about evil, greedy, power-hungry corporate heads as if there were no evil, greedy, power-hungry politicians. They somehow believe that working for the government magically transforms human beings into saints. (They have apparently never heard of Jon Corzine.) The difference between thugs running corporations and thugs running government is that we can choose not to buy the goods or services sold by the former, but we cannot readily escape the laws imposed by the latter. That should be obvious to anyone who can reason.

Those who reject the freedom versus tyranny continuum are merely making excuses for their own refusal to accept responsibility. “Government can solve our problems!” is simply another way for people to say, “I want someone else to pay for the resolution of my problems.” The former phrase is, of course, far more appealing and psychologically acceptable to the average person. Few are willing to admit that they prefer irresponsibility to responsibility. Virtually all the convoluted arguments they use to  justify big government are essentially for the purpose of allowing them to pretend they are not saying what they are saying. (“Hope and Change” is also easier to fit on a bumper sticker than “Hard Work and Personal Responsibility.”)

Obviously we will never be able to reason with many of the leftists who have willingly abandoned reason. So, we must let them have their delusions. Let them think Obama is their messiah, that raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment among the unskilled, that man can significantly influence the climate, that criminals will obey gun control laws, that all of life’s necessities should be guaranteed if not free, and that a select few on their side of the political aisle have the answers to all of the nation’s problems. Fine. If escaping reality helps them get through the day, so be it. The problem is that their delusions are typically subsidized by those who are not delusional. We may not care that leftists want to take frequent acid trips to the outer galaxies, but we also don’t want the flights on their flying unicorns charged to our credit cards.

There are moments when it seems as though the leftists are winning. Depressing as those moments may be, they are transient. To the lovers of liberty reading this, know that you are right. You hold the moral and logical high ground. Continue using reason rather than emotion. Hold your head high. You have achieved greatness few human beings have ever achieved, simply by virtue of believing individual liberty to be of paramount importance.

The truth is that our side is winning and the nation is becoming more conservative. Yes, the battles have been difficult. Yes, trudging through the trenches when we are out of power is difficult. Yes, many of today’s Republicans are nothing more than yesterday’s Democrats. But we are winning. The leftists are now frightened to death that their mad rush to socialism under the current thug-in-chief has been delayed, or even derailed. They are worried that millions of young Americans, disappointed by Obama, are deserting them. They are frightened to death that the GOP will win the Senate on November 4. Granted, the Republicans may not be much of an improvement, but they will be an improvement nonetheless. With any luck, the “establishment” Republicans may come around and realize that without an obstinate Harry Reid standing in their way they can actually return to whatever conservative roots they may be able to recall. They can certainly block another Ruth Bader Ginsburg from getting a seat on the Supreme Court, and they can deny Obama the revenue he needs to further implement his schemes (and those of Valerie Jarrett).

Because we are winning, the closer we get to November 4 the angrier the leftists will become. The closer we get to the press conference that spills the beans on Obama’s fraud and forged birth certificate, the angrier they will become. The closer we get to the Benghazi truths via Congressman Trey Gowdy’s Select Committee, the angrier they will become. The biggest battles are on the way, and the leftists will not go down easily. But in their fight for survival they are further exposing themselves. That was demonstrated at the September 21 climate change rallies, where there were more placards and pamphlets promoting socialism and communism than decrying CO2 levels. To poorly mix several metaphors, the cornered leftist rats are now increasingly showing their fangs and their true colors. Robert Kennedy, Jr. has even called for “climate change deniers” to be jailed. (“The First Amendment:  for me but not for thee!”) They are going nuts—literally, as Joe Biden would say—and the more they see their hoped-for socialist utopia being challenged the more nutty and defensive they will become.

That will be the left’s downfall: going too far and losing their masks in the process.

We have seen the left go too far with abortion: It is one thing to argue for the use of abortifacients after a rape; it is quite another to argue for the killing of a child in the birth canal in the ninth month of pregnancy. The average American supports the former, but cannot accept the latter.

We have seen the left go too far with its war on religion: It is one thing to expect insurers to provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients; it is quite another for the Obama administration to sue a Catholic charity, the Little Sisters of the Poor, because it refuses, on religious and moral grounds, to comply with the mandate. The average American may like the idea of free birth control (which will not really be free), but does not support suing nuns over the issue.

We have seen the left go too far with illegal immigration: The average American supports the legal immigration of people who will learn English, embrace our culture, and contribute to society, but cannot accept hundreds of thousands of future welfare recipients (and perhaps hundreds of radical Islamist terrorists) wading across the Rio Grande, to be welcomed by border agents who have been turned into nothing more than traffic cops by Obama.

We have seen the left go too far with its opposition to photo ID laws for voting: The vast majority of Americans—including majorities of Democrats, blacks, and Hispanics—believe it is perfectly reasonable to require photo identification to vote. The leftists have fought against those laws as if they were tantamount to torch-lit lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan.

We have seen the left go too far with environmental regulations: The average American wants clean air and water but does not want the power shortages and higher prices that will result from the Obama administration’s war against coal.

We have seen the left go too far with welfare benefits: The average American does not mind providing a temporary safety net to help those who are in need, but does not like subsidizing lifelong benefits, free cell phones, and SNAP cards that can be used to buy lobster and marijuana.

We have seen the left go too far with its “global warming” scare tactics: The average American supports “renewable energy sources” and “alternate energy sources” but also understands that you cannot make plastic with wind or sunlight. The average American wants to reduce the nation’s reliance on imported oil but understands that the economy runs on oil (and coal)—and will for a long time to come.

We have seen the left go too far with its over-regulation of business: The average American wants truth in advertising and safe products, but does not want the owner of the local hardware store having to read 2,000 pages of rules, or the police shutting down a child’s lemonade stand, or “smart meters” that prevent a good night’s sleep.

We have seen the left go too far with its selective enforcement of the laws: The Department of Justice did not even bother to indict Obama pal Jon Corzine for stealing more than $1 billion from his MF Global clients, yet it pulled out all the stops in an effort to jail author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza for an offense that is often ignored and when it isn’t typically results in a suspended sentence.

We have seen the left go both too far and not far enough with its responses to radical Islamist terrorism: The average American is rightly cautious of bearded young Muslim men but does not support the airport frisking of their grandparents, the groping of their children, or the confiscation of their stuffed animals. Yet in the interests of political correctness the federal government has avoided the term “radical Islamist,” called a jihadist’s murder of 14 people at Fort Hood “workplace violence,” and seems unwilling to revoke the passports of homegrown terrorists who travel to Iraq and Syria to wage war against Western civilization.

We have seen the left go too far with its continual playing of the “race card”: The average American no longer supports Obama not because he is black, but because he is a liar and a failure.

As the Obama years have progressed, Americans have increasingly witnessed the true nature of the political left. Many who had been seen as “liberal” and “progressive” are now seen as intolerant bullies. The Democrat Party used to have people like Hubert Humphrey, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, and Sam Nunn—with whom the conservatives may often have disagreed but who were civil and not too far from the mainstream of America. The Democrat Party now has mendacious agitators like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, angry loudmouths like Alan Grayson, partisan obstructionists like Harry Reid, demented fools like Nancy Pelosi, and brainless nitwits like Hank “Guam will tip over” Johnson. The American people have had enough of the nonsense, and on election day they will reject the leftists. Nixon’s “silent majority” is tired of being silent. Like Howard Beale, people are “mad as Hell” and are “not going to take it any more.”

To the gullible and the naive, the leftists may have seemed caring at first, like a kind couple inviting new neighbors over for a drink. But as the evening progressed, they became, like Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, more shrill and delusional. We are now nearing the end of their third act, and the curtain will soon be coming down. Make sure your review is heard on November 4.