Leaving the left

There was a time when I knew what a liberal was. Liberals stood for the common man and the less fortunate. While the right catered to the interests of big business and the establishment, the left sought a fair deal for the rest of America. This spirit was seen in FDR's drive to establish social security so that the elderly would not live in poverty, Johnson's creation of the "Great Society" so that those Americans left behind by the country's prosperity could get a helping hand and -- not least -- the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Even if the prescription wasn't always correct, one had to at least respect the goals and intentions.

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This drive for a more perfect world was also seen in foreign policy through the establishment of the Peace Corps and the vows of presidents both Republican and Democrat to lend America's might to the effort to stave off the global spread of communism, an ideology that has resulted in perhaps more misery than any other. Communism, our leaders realized, was profoundly at odds with long-cherished American ideals of free people and liberty. America, as one of the world's oldest democracies and a pre-eminent power, had an almost sacred duty to play a central role in this endeavor.

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As President John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address:

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

But something has changed. Perhaps it began during the tenure of Ronald Reagan when liberals railed against the U.S. arms build-up and assistance to the contra rebels that were fighting to rid Nicaragua of its Marxist government. Maybe it goes back even further to the maelstrom of the 1960s, in which a hatred of U.S. policy in Vietnam transformed itself into deep suspicions over all of U.S. foreign policy.

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Whatever the case it's clear that a profound shift has occurred. Today's members of the far-left view the U.S.-led war to topple the depraved, woman-hating, terrorist-supporting Taliban as a sinister action driven by desires for an oil pipeline (indeed, film maker Michael Moore has made a mint in part by peddling this myth in the movie Fahrenheit 9/11). Others simply offered up the platitude that war wasn't the answer. Leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky went so far as to salute the Taliban's "astonishing endurance" before their collapse.

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Even more widespread, however, was opposition to ridding the world of one of it's most brutal dictators, Saddam Hussein. Members of the left came out of the woodwork to demonstrate against Operation Iraqi Freedom. Perhaps the effort to rebuild Iraq as a democratic bastion in the Middle East that respects the rights of its citizens is a pipe dream, but opposing this effort surely seems a curious position for a liberal. How can anyone who believes human rights to be a paramount concern and in the use of American power to make the world a better place fail to endorse this? What has become of the left's idealism?

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Quite simply I think that liberals have been driven insane by President George W. Bush. Opposing Bush and his agenda -- whatever it is -- trumps all other considerations. Apparently I'm not the only one who believes this:

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

That's seems to pretty much sums things up. I genuinely hope that the liberals come around, and start putting their principles before politics, but I'm not holding my breath.