A SLIMY AVENGER

There is so much distortion and evasion on Left/liberal blogs that I mostly do not know where to start in commenting on it so I leave the job to other conservative bloggers. But in that spirit of loyalty to friends which I regard as a major conservative virtue, I am going to say something about an attack on Keith Burgess Jackson by Liberal Avenger. I am also moved to reply because the attack does illustrate something that is quite pervasive among Leftists -- slippery standards. Leftists have no fixed principles. If a principle suits their rhetorical needs of today they will proclaim their loyalty to it -- and then cheerfully adopt the opposite principle tomorrow if that happens to suit the rhetorical needs of that day.

Some context first: One of the most pervasive themes in Leftist apologetics is that good intentions are what really matters. Leftists go into paroxysms of condemnation of anybody who is or was a Nazi but smile indulgently on people who were or are Communists. To conservatives, of course, both Communists and Nazis were brutal mass-murderers who deserve no exculpation. But what Leftists say is that Communists were really "idealistic" and "well-intentioned" so cannot be held to blame for anything. Their good intentions are all that matters in any evaluation of them. So it is perfectly proper to wear shirts emblazoned with images of the murderous Che Guevara but worthy of a fainting fit if anybody wears a swastika armband. So at the height of the Cold War the Soviet Communists were often referred to as being simply "liberals in a hurry". The obvious corollary -- that "liberals" are just slowed-down Communists -- tended not to be mentioned.

So what is Liberal Avenger's explanation of why the Left do not celebrate anything to do with the American intervention in Iraq? He says that only results count! He says that Leftists/liberals will only applaud the American intervention in Iraq when all the difficulties there have been overcome and it is a peaceful democracy with no more American troops on its soil. The good intentions of the Bush administration -- such as the removal of a Fascist dictator, the protection of America from possible WMDs and the promotion of democracy -- do not matter at all and are no cause for praise. What is cause for praise in Communists is justification for nothing more than abuse in George W. Bush. It would be hard to find a clearer example of fake principles.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

The Great Depression - then and know It's 75 years later and our economic commentators still can't get their facts straight about the Great Depression
Condoleezza Rice branded a liar by journalist Eccleston's dishonest reporting on Condoleezza Rice has exposed him as a political bigot and a malicious liar
Elian raid excessive-force case begins `It wasn't Juan Miguel who wanted Elian back,' says Elian's uncle Lazaro in the indispensable book Unvanquished, by Enrique Encinosa. `It was Fidel.' And the media made sure he got him.
High taxes cripple economic growth Conservatives tend to instinctively realise that tax cuts stimulate savings and production. On the other hand, their opponents fully grasp that significant tax cuts weaken their power to bribe and punish
The gateway to the soul Greens and so-called progressives would tax and regulate Europe into abject poverty
Great Depression: defending capitalism against anti-market myths, part I Free market economics did not deepen and prolong the Great Depression - Hoover and Roosevelt did that
Associated Press put terrorist collaborators on its payroll We now have evidence that Associated Press has been collaborating with terrorists in Iraq

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

The psychopathic Left: ""Someone who does not know the difference between good and evil is worth nothing." -- Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, Polish rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust, New York Times, Jan. 30, 2005. It took a Polish rescuer of Jews in the Holocaust, cited this week 60 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and death camp, to best describe those people who cannot or refuse to know the difference between good and evil. They are "worth nothing." Since the 1960s, with few exceptions, on the greatest questions of good and evil, the Left has either been neutral toward or actively supported evil. The Left could not identify communism as evil; has been neutral toward or actually supported the anti-democratic pro-terrorist Palestinians against the liberal democracy called Israel; and has found it impossible to support the war for democracy and against an Arab/Muslim enemy in Iraq as evil as any fascist the Left ever claimed to hate... About 60 percent of the Iraqi people went to vote despite the fact that every Iraqi voter risked his or her life and the lives of their children, whose throats the Islamic fascists threatened to slit. Yet, the Left continues to label the war for Iraqi democracy "immoral" while praising the tyrant of Cuba. Leftists do so for the same reason they admired Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-tung and condemned American arms as the greatest threat to world peace during and after the Cold War. The Left "does not know the difference between good and evil." And that is why it is worth nothing.

The put-down of the Iraq elections as similar to the 1967 Vietnam elections seems to have been grabbed as a liferaft by Leftists all over the place. I thought my post of 3rd demolished the comparison in double-quick time but if you want a really comprehensive demolition of the comparison, read Christopher Hitchens on the subject.

Capitalism is more moral: "I suggested that the application of the force needed to redistribute wealth and to enforce "positive (welfare) rights" inherent in socialist policies was what made socialism highly immoral. Of course a capitalist society uses force too, but it is a force that protects negative (Lockean) rights (such as enforcing business contracts and protecting citizens from arbitrary state intervention), so it affects only those who do not respect the freedom of others. Capitalism, I explained, is not only good for an economy; more important, it is also morally good for the whole society, which is why capitalism is sustainable and why it works as well as it does"

I deliberately did not blog on President Bush's SOTU yesterday as I knew that the rest of the blogosphere would be all over it but Taranto says most of what I would have said anyway. I did however jib at this statement of his about GWB: "If he has a successful second term, he will probably rank as the most consequential president since FDR". To my mind Ronald Reagan was the most consequential President since Washington! I suppose that view of Reagan will get me labelled as a "Cold Warrior" but I will wear that badge with pride any day. I have been appalled by the brutality of Communism since I was 13 -- and that was 48 years ago.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx had a stereotypical view of Jews. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" notes more evidence from the Hebrew that Genesis 1:1 is a lot more vague than it at first seems.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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