Happy New Year!
I am hoping for a new year in which everyone (including
myself) becomes a bit more tolerant and that we are able to be thankful for
what we each have and take joy simply in living without forever taking issue
with those who have more, less, or are simply different in mind, body, or
spirit than we are.
But, then, I read the morning news and learned that the Left
has declared this the “year of resistance.”
(One wonders what the last 3 years have been?!) The Left have vowed to double their efforts to
remove President Trump from office, whether by the electoral process or by
other means, they don’t really seem to care.
This caused me to again reflect upon what is “the Left” and
why are they always so discontented and hateful? We must begin with the understanding that,
even though they both inhabit the Democrat Party, Leftists are not Liberals and
that Leftism is not Liberalism.
While we often use the two terms interchangeably or think of
Left as simply more extreme Liberalism, the reality is that the two have very different
world views and each’s ideal includes very different Americas.
Liberals essentially believe in American Democracy and Capitalism
but understand its imperfections and would make changes to improve but not fundamentally
change them. Liberals would like to see
more income equality, more affordable housing, better and more affordable
health care, less discrimination, etc., but they would create these things
within the capitalist structure of this country. Their disagreements with the Right are more
often on how to achieve these things within our governmental structure rather
than with the governmental structure itself.
The Right also has a number of conservative factions
including fiscal, Christian, traditionalist, libertarian, moderate, as well as
some extremists; but, for the most part the Right or Republicans all support
the American capitalist form of government.
As such, when the two parties
consisted mostly of conservatives and liberals, it was easier for the government
to accomplish necessary changes as the two sides could more easily work toward successful
compromises within the same fundamental government structure and ideals.
In contrast, the Left considers capitalism as something that
should be done away with. While they would
like to see many results similar to those advocated by Liberals, their method
of achieving those goals is to fundamentally change the governing structure of
America. While Liberals might want to
see governmental structures change more quickly, the Left would like to see
them change completely. Ultimately, in
their desire to create what they would see as a better incarnation, the Left would
destroy everything that makes America what it is today.
Hence the Left’s hatred of Trump, patriotism, and
nationalism. A note here: nationalism is simply a support for one’s own
nation. While that nationalism can take
a dark turn it is not in and of itself an evil; indeed, it is something that is
necessary for the health and sustenance of any country or nation-state. Similarly, patriotism is nothing more than support
for one’s country along with a feeling of attachment to that country. These are not negative things, but they
become negative to a group that would completely destroy that country and rebuild
it with something else. This is what the
Left would do.
The Left would completely restructure our economy, and in
doing so would also completely restructure our democracy. They cannot follow the Liberal approach of compromise
or have patience for the slower path of change that occurs within our current
systems because the Left does not believe in that system. The Left wants not only immediate change but also
change to a completely different system.
Their entire ideology is different.
The Left rejects the core ideologies of this country. For example, Leftism is based on class
solidarity, not national solidarity and not human solidarity. The class – the identity group – is essential
to a Left philosophy. While America
believes that the color of one’s skin should be insignificant (and despite history
that contradicted that, our country has and continues to allow us to move past
inequalities based upon race or other identifiable factors), to the left, seeing race as insignificant is actually
racist. That is, the Left needs racial identity
to build class or identity group solidarity.
The Left’s view toward free speech is entirely antithetical
to that of traditional Liberals and to the core values of this country. “I disagree with what you say but will defend
to the death your right to say it.” That
statement encapsulates the essence of our belief in free speech and the free
and often passionate interchange of ideas along with the individual's right to
hold and speak ideas with which others disagree. This concept is essential to our democracy. The Left, on the other hand, would ban all
speech which they find offensive or which counters the speech necessary to
their vision of what America should be.
In this suppression of free speech and with it the freedom
of individuality in speech, values, and ideas, the Left would eliminate the
individual in furtherance of class solidarity.
The Left has contempt for all which does not further its goals. Indeed, some would completely obliterate
anything based on “Western Civilization” which does, indeed, hold most of the
underlying principles of America: morals,
ethics, literature, artistic work, music, philosophy, religion. These are all denounced in one way or another
as the Left seeks to remake America.
To the Left, America is a capitalist horror filled only with
people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
While Liberals acknowledge that such mindsets exist, they will work to
remove the effects of such negative attitudes within our current Constitutional,
legal, and capitalist system.
Economically, Liberals' work will be more towards equality of opportunity
rather than equality of result. While
Liberals will use the current democratic and capitalist systems to eliminate
such things as economic gaps, the Left will ignore individual enterprise and
turn to such things as redistribution of income and/or property promulgated by
government fiat.
The democratic system of this country will always recognize individuality
and with it the unreality of total sameness.
The Left, on the other hand, would envision absolutely no differences in
economic or other results; that is, the Left strives for one unified class
supervised by a government that holds and enforces Leftist ideals. The
individual is lost to the dictates of a large and controlling government who
will create what the Leftists (but perhaps not the people) will determine to be
good.
No, Liberalism is not Leftism. While both philosophies currently inhabit the
Democrat party, they actually have very little in common. They do however, both want to take the power
of the presidency back from Donald Trump.
Frighteningly, they have joined forces in this; however, the Liberals
have, in so doing, forgotten their core belief in and allegiance to this
country. The Left could care less.
This country, while always holding a variety of beliefs,
including political, has always been generally united in the core support for
the fundamental structure of our government.
That is no longer true. The Left
has a different mission, one not to support and improve America, but to totally
destroy it. They hate not only President
Trump, but also his supporters, and every traditional value upon which this
country was built. They will not give up
until they have eradicated them all and remade this country into something no
longer recognizable as the shining beacon of individual freedoms and democracy.
That is the mission of the Left. I do not believe that is the mission of Liberals
or Conservatives or most Americans. The
mission of the Left is filled with hate and nihilism. As the rest of us consider our New Year’s
resolutions, we can make them ones of respect and tolerance and inclusion. Rather than discarding all that is good in
America simply because it is not perfect, we can make resolutions that improve and
strengthen the already greatness of this country and all that it stands for. We can make that our mission. I hope that we do.
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