The ever-more destructive left

Last September during the Katrina disaster, I wrote to a prominent conservative who has a deep knowledge of the left:

I thought the left and even the “mainstream” liberal press had reached a new level of insanity in their embrace of Cindy Sheehan, but in the last week they’re reached yet a new level of destructive insanity. They are literally unable to discuss any real problem in a responsible way. Their only interest in any subject is how they can use it to attack Bush. What this means is that a very large part of the brains of the country, such as they are, instead of being devoted to solving problems or conveying useful information, are devoted to solely to harming Bush. So, for example, you open a column by some reputable columnist hoping to get useful information on New Orleans, and all you get is Bush bashing.

At a certain point, this leftist destructiveness, just by itself, even without considering all our other terrible problems, could be enough to make the country incapable of functioning Can you see this madness ever ending?

The conservative replied:

No. This is what the left has been doing for as long as I’ve been alive. The only difference now is that the Democratic Party and liberalism itself are firmly part of the left. There was a time when liberals were actually liberals.

My reply:

Something else. I have been critical of the mainstream right, and conservatives like yourself, for focusing too much on the nasty left, just reacting to the left all the time, so that the right becomes little more than reaction to the left, responding to its lies, instead of building up a meaningful politics of its own.

But when we see the stream of monstrous falsehoods coming from the left the last week, it become more understandable that some people make it their main job just to combat this.

Conservative’s reply:

They have taken over the Democratic Party and the liberal center and distorted the entire debate. They will stop at nothing unless they are stopped.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 13, 2006 11:59 PM | Send