Right Wing Nation

 

Sometimes, people give themselves away unintentionally. And every time liberals scream about Bush’s alleged dishonesty, they give themselves away.

If one thing is absolutely clear about George W. Bush, he’s a man who means exactly what he says and says exactly what he means. Bush is surely the straightest shooter that has been in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt.

As examples, immediately after the election, he began working on what he promised to do in his campaign—and liberals were mystified. Shocked. Social Security reform? Tax reform? What? Now, they are demanding that he appoint a “moderate” judge (to liberals, a “moderate” is somebody who will at least not get in the way of liberal judges forcing their “interpretations” on the nation) to replace O’Connor, and betray one of the major promises in not one, but two campaigns.

Apparently, they thought he just said those things to get elected—which would have been true, had he been Clinton. But he’s not Clinton. And as for all this nonsense about WMDs, there is absolutely no evidence that Bush intentionally misled anyone. None.

Also—and these are related, though you’ll have to indulge me for a moment until I get to that—have you noticed that all that (highly appropriate) liberal screaming about female circumcision and the treatment of women in Muslim nations has vanished? Poof, just like that, as soon as we invaded Afghanistan, transformed into all this gushy Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace, multiculturalist nonsense. Or how Gloria Steinam defended Clinton against that awful woman Paula Jones, and said even if he had done what she claimed, it wasn’t sexual harassment. Or how liberals are always screaming about the First Amendment, unless it comes to “speech codes” at univerisities, which they claim aren’t First Amendment violations. Or how liberals howled about not being able to protest at the Republican convention except in zones, yet said nothing at all about the cages Democrats set up for protestors at their convention. Or there’s Harry Reid, who when Clinton was campaigning for Social Security reform was loudly supporting privatization, but now that Bush is campaigning for the same thing, he not only opposes privatization but insists that there is no problem, nothing to fix—and wholly without shame. Again, the list goes on and on.

Both of these stem from the same cause: liberals have no principles. Liberals do not understand the concept. Liberals do not believe anyone could have principles. Liberals have only a goal, and how they reach it is irrelevant to them.

This is why they so readily accuse Bush of lying, even though they have no evidence to back up their charges. This is why they will subvert their own “principles” in a heartbeat if it suits their political agenda. This is why Gore and his team tried every underhanded trick they could think of to “win” the election in 2000 then turned around and accused Bush of “stealing” it—and to this day, see nothing inappropriate whatsoever.

It’s not that liberal principles have no consistency, as it at first appears. Their principles exist merely to further their goals, and are dispensible at any time, should that seem the best way to accomplish those goals.

Nor is it that liberals cannot have principles. If that were true, liberals would never become conservatives. I don’t think most liberals realize this about themselves, and indeed, if you have no principles and don’t understand the concept, why would you be able to realize that you had none? So it’s understandable—but it’s not acceptable.

It’s dangerous.

Let me finish by returning to my original statement: sometimes people give themselves away unintentionally. I’d like to quote Jane Smiley, from her article on Slate the day after the 2004 election (though only what I need, and I’ll spare you as much of the dripping hatred and invective as possible). Here it is:

“The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do–they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable.”

Here, Smiley has openly stated in the heat of her anger the goal of liberalism. Not rights, not concern for the poor, not freedom, but control. Don’t like to be told what to do. Virtually unteachable. These two sentences are liberalism, crystallized into its most fundamental form. And that is why I fear them.