Leftism

Leftists vs. Conservatives, Obama vs. Palin

American Thinker | Thomas Lifson | Sep. 3, 2008

Great analogy from the American Thinker readers posts:

The mass-hysteria phenomenon of Obama worship proves the saying (Reagan’s?): “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Most of the Obamanians are pitiable secularists who are going through their whole lives without a clue as to what life is ABOUT.

It’s as if an aspiring carpenter spent his or her whole life just reading books about woodworking, without ever once actually picking up a hammer, nail or screwdriver. Meanwhile, they TALK endlessly about all the things they’re thinking about building, and they dream and they plan and they think and they talk and they never actually DO anything–and this goes on for years and years and years and then they finally die without ever having finished–or even started–even a single, simple project. How very, very sad.

[Read more…]

Sarah Palin and the Two Americas

American Thinker | Thomas Lifson | Sep. 3, 2008

Liberals have long lamented the existence of two nations in America. They are right to do so today, but in a way they never meant. It is not the divide between rich and poor which soon will be causing serious pain on the left. Sarah Palin’s pending nomination for Vice President is exposing the depth of the cultural divide between Middle America and the leftists who have taken over the education, media, and cultural establishment of our country.

The announcement of Palin’s selection by Senator McCain last Saturday reportedly triggered outright laughter in newsrooms across the land, a nearly unanimous opinion that she would be a disaster for McCain. To the sort of people who believe themselves sophisticated citizens of the world and feel a sense of pride at saving the planet by purchasing carbon offsets, a woman who has borne five children is incomprehensible. Add in moose-hunting, a champion snowmobiler husband and a pregnant 17 year old daughter, and the phrases “white trash” and “trailer trash” are deployed. [Read more…]

Sarah Palin and the narcissistic wounds of the Left

American Thinker | James Lewis | Sep. 2, 2008

The Left always counts its presidential chickens before they’re hatched. They did it with Algore, they did it with Kerry. They think they have victory in their grasp, and when reality says otherwise they feel robbed and betrayed. They have to find dark plots and conspiracies to explain the impossible; the Supreme Court was corrupt in stopping the Al Gore assault on the election rules in Florida. Ohio’s voting machines were hacked to give George W. Bush his win there. Today, Algore is still bulking up with rage, eight years after Florida. Kerry still thinks he was “swiftboated” — when his Swiftboat chain of command finally got its chance to tell the truth. Rapper P. Diddy was on YouTube yesterday going “Alaska? Alaska?” and “McCain, you’re getting the *** out of town.” [Read more…]

Are Liberals Just Giving Lip Service to “the Least of These”?

Townhall.com | Will Hall | Aug. 28, 2008

I have held my tongue for some time while folks like Jim Wallis (Sojourners), Mara Vanderslice (Matthew 25 Network) and Brian McLaren (emerging church movement) -– all religious and political liberals — have manipulated a compliant secular media and some of the religious press to shill talking points for them.

The message varies in slight ways from story to story but basically asserts “the left” cares more for the poor than does “the right.” A companion assertion stated as fact is that evangelicals are “fractured” and that there is an emerging progressive group of evangelicals “discovering” there are other issues “just as important” as protecting the unborn and defending the biblical definition of marriage. Then a tired liberal political agenda is reframed in the language of faith.

It’s not just political chicanery or religious wrangling, but simply fraud — a form of wishful thinking that if repeated enough times, de facto becomes the truth. [Read more…]

Democrats Move Left On Abortion

Wall Street Journal | Naomi Schaefer Riley | Aug. 20, 2008

“Above my pay grade.” Those words rang in the ears of Gene Taylor, a middle-age member of Saddleback Church I interviewed after the worship service on Sunday morning. He was referring to the answer offered by Barack Obama when Pastor Rick Warren asked him at what point in its development a baby gets “human rights.”

“In this country,” Mr. Taylor told me, “there is no higher pay grade than the president.” Which is true at least metaphorically. Mr. Taylor added, “I thought I was going to be supporting John McCain. Now I’m sure of it.” [Read more…]

What about the Poor?

FrontPageMagazine.com | Barry Loberfeld | Aug. 13, 2008

For defenders of the Constitution, the free market, and individual liberty, no single issue has thus far proved more defeating – on both the intellectual and electoral battlefields – than that of poverty. It has handed one unearned (and by no means inevitable) victory after another to the unconstitutional statism of collectivist liberals.

The conquest of poverty (to borrow the title of Henry Hazlitt’s classic) requires just two weapons: wealth and compassion. So the only real question is: Who can better provide these – civil society (“the market”) or the political state?

The answer as it regards wealth has now been settled: “[C]apitalism has won,” conceded left-aligned economic historian Robert Heilbroner in 1989. “Socialism,” conversely, “has been a great tragedy this century.” [Read more…]

God’s Welfare State

FrontPageMag | Mark D. Tooley | Aug. 7, 2008

Christianity, Judaism and Islam do all commend helping the poor, of course. But the Book of Deuteronomy, a law book for the ancient Hebrews’ theocracy, does not provide detailed policy guidance for modern political parties. How interesting that left-leaning religious groups can quote from the Old Testament and its supposed counsel about welfare programs and environmental regulations. In contrast, conservative religious groups that cite the Scriptures about their moral and political issues are widely derided as aspiring theocrats. [Read more…]

Solzhenitsyn and His Critics

Acton.org | John Couretas | Aug. 6, 2008

The world justly celebrates the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great man whose work and witness seems most aptly summed up in a single word: prophetic. But, as prophets are in a habit of doing, he made some people feel the needle who were sure they didn’t deserve it. This was especially so for Western liberals who, in the eyes of Solzhenitsyn, were indifferent to — if not supportive of — communist oppression. [Read more…]

NEA Teachers Have Become Re-Educators

Investor’s Business Daily | Phyllis Schlafly | July 25, 2008

The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, attracted 9,000 delegates to its annual convention in Washington, D.C., over the July Fourth weekend. Delegates sported buttons with provocative slogans such as “Gay marriage causes global warming only because we are so hot,” “Hate is not a family value,” “The Christian right is neither” and “Gay rights are civil rights.”

The delegates passed dozens of hard-hitting resolutions that now become the NEA’s official policy. The resolutions authorize NEA members and employees to lobby for those goals in the halls of Congress and state capitols. [Read more…]