In response to a post last week titled Truth Matters my friend Byron e-mails to ask me why I seem skeptical of the intentions of those on the political left. It's a good question since I am indeed skeptical of the short-term aims and long-term goals of some, perhaps most, of those in Congress, the media and the blogosphere who tend to position themselves along the portside rail of the ship of state. Here's By's query. My slightly amended reply to it follows:
The only reason I take the time to keep this little sidebar conversation going is to ask why you are so singularly cynical and skeptical of the motives and ulterior motives of the Dems? Wait, on second thought, I am not sure I want to hear why.
Too late to change your mind. Here's the root of my concern, By. Today's liberal leaders wish to move the country to the left in several ways which I think are truly harmful. They want to secularize the nation, lower or erase standards of sexual morality, define deviancy down, and socialize the economy, including health care. They also wish to emasculate American power and influence around the world and restrict individual freedom here at home. They long to banish distinctions of class and values and level everyone to the lowest common denominator. They see each of these as a desideratum, but they realize that the general public, were they aware of this agenda, would not stand for it, so they seek to implement it gradually, hoping that, like the frog in the pot, the public won't notice the rising temperature.
You might say that this is true, perhaps, of Marxists, but that it's not true of liberals. As someone once said, however, Marxists and liberals are traveling along the same road. The only difference between them is that Marxists are in more of a hurry.
People of the secular left tend to share in common the desire to push the boundaries of culture, society, the economy, foreign policy, etc., ever leftward, and there's no endpoint to the push. If there were then progressives would have to change their name to conservatives when the endpoint was reached. No matter how much change we undergo as a society it will never be enough to slake the progressive's thirst for more.
Along the way traditional institutions like marriage are undermined, and education, especially in the humanities, is diluted and debased. People who have strong family attachments are not good raw material for the progressive project nor are people who have some historical understanding of the founding principles of this nation or the major lineaments of world civilization. As I said, the march leftward is a slow trudge that takes generations to complete, and I don't mean to give the impression that it's a conscious conspiracy or that all liberals are on board for the journey - some no doubt oppose it - but the overall ebb and flow of the American culture war has been relentlessly leftward for the last 100 years.
The best way to stop this march to the cliff, perhaps, is to first recognize its manifestations and to then hold it up to the light of day. The more people see what's happening the better chance there is of heading it off.
None of this is to say that there is nothing good about liberalism. I've talked about this with you on occasion and explained that I think liberals are often much more attuned to human problems than are conservatives. Liberals also provoke conservatives to question assumptions and convictions they hold which may be indefensible. But the problem with liberalism is that their solutions to our problems - more government control, higher taxes, more spending, a weaker military, a libertarian socio-cultural milieu, a radically secular public square - are all, in my mind, dangerously wrong-headed.
So, when I see intelligent government officials and others doing and saying things that prima facie make no sense, and which would appear to people whose opinions and thoughtfulness I respect to have deleterious consequences for our nation or society, I have to wonder whether there is some reason they are saying and doing these things other than the reason they give. What is it, exactly, that they're trying to gain by doing what they do?
Anyway, even though you didn't want to hear it, that's why I'm skeptical of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid et al. They're the pawns and front men for people even more radical than themselves, and what they have in mind for my children and grandchildren is not what I hope for them.
RLC