“Ten Reasons Why I Am No Longer a Leftist.” (h/t Rudy)
17 Replies to ““It doesn’t work””
Nice piece. Put my name on it and call it “Ten Reasons Why I Was Never A Leftie In The First Place.”
Agreed. This article was well put and well written.
Thats one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. I have experienced first hand most of what the author mentions here. The strongest point she makes is that the left only DESTROYS, they do not build anything. This is why I cringe when they win an election as I know they will leave a wake of economic, social, and political destruction that others will have to clean up later.
That was well written and just so true about the Lefts attitude.
A keeper and one persons journey to enlightenment.
I have saved it to my favorites :
Great article. Articulate and thoughtful. I have saved it, and emailed a link to an old friend, also very intelligent and thoughtful, who was formerly a liberal. Will be interested to see what he thinks of this.
The hard left has always been destructive, but I’ve always thought of the recreational left — teens and young adults who turn to the left for rebellion or fashion — as being more or less harmless: they always seem grow out of it. Since September 11, though, that seems to have changed — the recreational left seemed to me to suddenly become seriously deranged.
I’m probably wrong — the left of all persuasions have probably always been as nuts and hateful as they are now and I was just not paying attention — but it seems to have gotten worse in the last 13 years.
Great article. She describes what the leftards do not have,faith,hope,love,trust,and mostly dignity and integrity.If you don’t love or even like yourself,how can you function in a civil society,and take the small steps she mentions to help,not destroy?
As an afterthought to my previous comment. The left lives to hate and lives on lies. It hates capitalism, freedom, and religion of any sort. When it subjugates all those it hates it then turns to hating each other and devouring itself.
It is sad that so many people are deluded into thinking the left actually stands for something.
“… the left only DESTROYS, they do not build anything…”
Indeed, the left never has built anything but, and never can build anything but a police state, so they must destroy everything that was achieved before because their society won’t stand the comparison. Their goal is Year Zero.
I would like to see this article get some profile in the leftist media (not likely, I guess). It is a thought provoking piece with some striking wake-up calls: “in all my years of leftist activism, did I ever hear anyone articulate accurately the position of anyone to our right.” I often find left-leaning views shallow and self-congratulatory. They do not understand the role that they play in creating the great political divide. They need to take a closer look at themselves, and this article provides an opportunity.
Has anyone ever come across an essay detailing the journey in the opposite direction?
And I don’t mean a politician moving from right to left, but rather someone whose world-view shifted in that direction.
Any one of those reasons alone would be sufficient for switching sides but ten of them exhibit the kind of crap pile one has to mount in order to have political and moral clarity.
Not exactly, but I’ve never really looked for one. I’m always puzzled when you get people like Bill Gates or George Soros who benefit so fantastically from freedom and the free market capitalist system that they seemingly forget their routes and what allowed them to become wealthy and become weird and leftist.
And I’m not talking about old moneyed beneficiaries. The spoiled valueless children of their capitalist parents.
Damn auto correct, that should be roots. *sigh*
It’s nice that she finally got well.
It would be even better if she had listed the my #1 problem with the Left: That is, the Left thinks they know better how to run my life than I do. They want to run every aspect of my existence and not only ‘save the world’ but worst of all ‘save me from myself’.
Great piece, but I would disagree with the oversimplified right/left dichotomy. The primary diffetences I’ve encountered among people are individualism vs statism. Those who are classified as being “right wing” believe in the ability of individuals to succeed on their own merits whereas those who are “left wing” believe that success only comes from groups of people. Those who are individualists are strong believers in self organizing metworks wheras statists are believers in rigid hierarchies as the only way of doing things.
I would consider the vast majority of “right wing” US politicians as “leftists” given their statist proclivities. I blame the binary division of individuals on Aristotles 2 valued logic and, while such a system is very attractive because of its simplicity, it greatly oversimplifies reality.
Just because Christians tend to be more individualistic, on average, doesn’t automatically make them “right wing”.
I think the dominant trait of those who call themselves “progressives” is that they support anything that makes them feel good about themselves. They are seldom concerned with mundane matters such as thinking through, in a rational manner, the effect that their policies might have on others. Another personal observation is that they are really tyrants in disguise but of course they don’t seem to realize this. They are really smug elitists who disdain the unwashed. Among the academy I think their hatred for capitalism (real capitalism, that is) is grounded in the envy they have towards the wealth of any capitalists all the while supporting crony capitalism (aka fascism). They believe that as the self-appointed “philosopher kings” of society they have the right to re-distribute these riches, and as the “philosopher kings” they should be in charge of society and make decisions on behalf of the unwashed. Organically driven development is not in their vocabulary.
Nice piece. Put my name on it and call it “Ten Reasons Why I Was Never A Leftie In The First Place.”
Agreed. This article was well put and well written.
Thats one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. I have experienced first hand most of what the author mentions here. The strongest point she makes is that the left only DESTROYS, they do not build anything. This is why I cringe when they win an election as I know they will leave a wake of economic, social, and political destruction that others will have to clean up later.
That was well written and just so true about the Lefts attitude.
A keeper and one persons journey to enlightenment.
I have saved it to my favorites :
Great article. Articulate and thoughtful. I have saved it, and emailed a link to an old friend, also very intelligent and thoughtful, who was formerly a liberal. Will be interested to see what he thinks of this.
The hard left has always been destructive, but I’ve always thought of the recreational left — teens and young adults who turn to the left for rebellion or fashion — as being more or less harmless: they always seem grow out of it. Since September 11, though, that seems to have changed — the recreational left seemed to me to suddenly become seriously deranged.
I’m probably wrong — the left of all persuasions have probably always been as nuts and hateful as they are now and I was just not paying attention — but it seems to have gotten worse in the last 13 years.
Great article. She describes what the leftards do not have,faith,hope,love,trust,and mostly dignity and integrity.If you don’t love or even like yourself,how can you function in a civil society,and take the small steps she mentions to help,not destroy?
As an afterthought to my previous comment. The left lives to hate and lives on lies. It hates capitalism, freedom, and religion of any sort. When it subjugates all those it hates it then turns to hating each other and devouring itself.
It is sad that so many people are deluded into thinking the left actually stands for something.
“… the left only DESTROYS, they do not build anything…”
Indeed, the left never has built anything but, and never can build anything but a police state, so they must destroy everything that was achieved before because their society won’t stand the comparison. Their goal is Year Zero.
I would like to see this article get some profile in the leftist media (not likely, I guess). It is a thought provoking piece with some striking wake-up calls: “in all my years of leftist activism, did I ever hear anyone articulate accurately the position of anyone to our right.” I often find left-leaning views shallow and self-congratulatory. They do not understand the role that they play in creating the great political divide. They need to take a closer look at themselves, and this article provides an opportunity.
Has anyone ever come across an essay detailing the journey in the opposite direction?
And I don’t mean a politician moving from right to left, but rather someone whose world-view shifted in that direction.
Any one of those reasons alone would be sufficient for switching sides but ten of them exhibit the kind of crap pile one has to mount in order to have political and moral clarity.
Not exactly, but I’ve never really looked for one. I’m always puzzled when you get people like Bill Gates or George Soros who benefit so fantastically from freedom and the free market capitalist system that they seemingly forget their routes and what allowed them to become wealthy and become weird and leftist.
And I’m not talking about old moneyed beneficiaries. The spoiled valueless children of their capitalist parents.
Damn auto correct, that should be roots. *sigh*
It’s nice that she finally got well.
It would be even better if she had listed the my #1 problem with the Left: That is, the Left thinks they know better how to run my life than I do. They want to run every aspect of my existence and not only ‘save the world’ but worst of all ‘save me from myself’.
Great piece, but I would disagree with the oversimplified right/left dichotomy. The primary diffetences I’ve encountered among people are individualism vs statism. Those who are classified as being “right wing” believe in the ability of individuals to succeed on their own merits whereas those who are “left wing” believe that success only comes from groups of people. Those who are individualists are strong believers in self organizing metworks wheras statists are believers in rigid hierarchies as the only way of doing things.
I would consider the vast majority of “right wing” US politicians as “leftists” given their statist proclivities. I blame the binary division of individuals on Aristotles 2 valued logic and, while such a system is very attractive because of its simplicity, it greatly oversimplifies reality.
Just because Christians tend to be more individualistic, on average, doesn’t automatically make them “right wing”.
I think the dominant trait of those who call themselves “progressives” is that they support anything that makes them feel good about themselves. They are seldom concerned with mundane matters such as thinking through, in a rational manner, the effect that their policies might have on others. Another personal observation is that they are really tyrants in disguise but of course they don’t seem to realize this. They are really smug elitists who disdain the unwashed. Among the academy I think their hatred for capitalism (real capitalism, that is) is grounded in the envy they have towards the wealth of any capitalists all the while supporting crony capitalism (aka fascism). They believe that as the self-appointed “philosopher kings” of society they have the right to re-distribute these riches, and as the “philosopher kings” they should be in charge of society and make decisions on behalf of the unwashed. Organically driven development is not in their vocabulary.