The disappearing ReaLiberal
Posted: 12 July 2004 at 03:03:32
I would hate to be a “real liberal” today. Let’s call them ReaLiberals just for fun.
I’m talking about people who really believe in the liberation of blacks and other minorities living in poverty, who fight for the right of a woman to have the choice to do what she wants with her body, who lobby for more sensible drug legislation, and who wish for for sensible, protective environmental policy.
I feel sorry for these kinds of ReaLiberals because they are associated with the likes of John Kerry, Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore, and Ted Kennedy. It is because of these dipwads (and the Clintons) that being labelled a liberal is akin to being called a leper.
These RadicaLiberals hate America. They’re not proud of the sacrifices the country’s founders made for the freedom to practice religion. “Relgion?” they ask puzzled. “You mean the pilgrims and many of the founding fathers of this country were unenlightened conservatives?”
I was at my parents’ house today for dinner and noticed a John Kerry sticker on a car at the house across the street. Aside from the fact it’s plain silly to think you could make a difference for the Utah electoral votes in November, it’s interesting to note that the family living across the street from my parents are black. Real nice folks, too. Do they seriously believe Kerry is the candidate for the black Americans?
Tammy Bruce wrote a book a few years ago called The New Thought Police in which she writes about her experience as the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women. Bruce is a pro-choice lesbian feminist and she feels betrayed by the “groupthinking” liberals of NOW, the NAACP, the ACLU, and other liberal organizations.
Ms. Bruce is what I’m talking about when I refer to a ReaLiberal.
Tonight, I ran across a rebuttal to Michael Moore’s Independence Day opinion piece which ran in the L.A. Times. Mr. James Lileks of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis does a great job of dissecting Moore’s “logic” and boils it down to its rubbery essence: The reason Moore is so damn fat is because he’s full of contradictions that have nowhere to go.
No, Mr. Lileks didn’t actually say that... that was my interpretation of his blog entry. But Lileks does a great job of pointing out that Moore has no respect for men and women who serve their country under controversial circumstances. If you’re in the military and a certain military conflict makes you wonder if you’re on the right side of the fight, Moore seems to think you should just desert your post. If you don’t, he seems to contend, you’re not a patriot.
Doesn’t this just fly in the face of what patriotism is?
This reminds me of another story I ran across last week about a parade on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, WA. The citizens of the island were holding their annual 4th of July parade and a 23-year old veteran home from Iraq marched in the event. Perhaps it wasn’t so much that he was marching in the parade as much as it was that he was also carrying a “Veterans For Bush” sign. He was yelled at and harrassed. People were calling him a murderer and a baby-killer.
Gee, I wonder what they would have said if Saddam Hussein was marching in the parade.
Here is that story.