Why the Left Hates Families

Melanie Phillips was a born and bred liberal who had the scales fall from her eyes. She writes about the reproach and vilification she has suffered from people she thought were friends in an article for the UK Daily Mail. The piece is titled Why the Left Hates Families but probably should be titled How the Left Hates Apostates.

For some people ideology is religion, it's the key to salvation, and infidels, particularly those who were once firmly in the fold but who subsequently fell away, are to be treated with contempt, or worse. Here's Phillips:

For the Left, I am the target of deepest hatred.

For my trenchant views, expressed in this newspaper, they call me ‘insane’, ‘reactionary’, ‘racist’, a ‘Nazi’, a ‘shroudwaver’, a ‘witch’ and a ‘warmonger’.

I have been accused of ‘unmatched depths of ignorance and bigotry’ and being the ‘queen of mean’. It was even suggested (in a particularly extreme spasm of hyperbole) that I eat broken bottles and kill rats with my teeth.

This resort to crude insult against anyone who dares to challenge their shibboleths is typical of the Left. It doesn’t argue its case. It simply tries to shut down debate by bullying its targets and labeling them as extremists and enemies of humanity in order to frighten people away from listening to them.

But they reserve a special loathing for me. This is not just because I refuse to be cowed.

It’s because I was once one of them, one of the elect, a believer.

Phillips operated under the delusion that she could convince her former friends through reasonable argument why she could no longer share their views and why her present convictions are much more sensible.

Unfortunately, reason and argument are considered superfluous, even treacherous, by those who just know that what they believe has to be true. When one's dogmas are based on emotion rather than facts and evidence, reason will be unavailing against them. When one's experience of life eventually leads one to reject those dogmas those who still cling to them will regard the conversion as a personal betrayal and indictment. Thus the bitterness.

Read the rest of the piece at the link. It's not only a compelling indictment of the left from a former devotee, it's also a fascinating if sad glimpse into the mindset of those who can't abide anyone who disagrees with them, especially those who were once ideological comrades.