"WHY I LEFT THE LEFT"

Excerpt from an article by Seth Swirsky

What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the '80s hadn't, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda and crushed them in short order. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.

I supported President Bush's hard line against the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, remembering that Bush's predecessor hosted Arafat at the White House 13 times, more often than any other world leader. I applauded Bush's unequivocal support for Israel, which every day faced (and faces) suicide attacks against its people. But I was most disappointed with liberal Jews who don't understand that their very existence is rooted in Israel's existence and that George W. Bush has been the best friend that Israel has ever had. But because they are less Jewish than they are liberal, they didn't reward Bush with their vote in 2004.

Finally, I supported President Bush's decision to oust Saddam and make possible the only democracy (other than Israel) in this crucial region of the Middle East. Post 9/11, we had to figure out a way to lessen the chances of more 9/11s. Democracy is a weapon in that war. If people are free to build businesses, buy homes, send their children to schools, pursue upward mobility, live their lives without fear, read newspapers of every opinion, vote for their leaders, resolve differences with debate and not bombs, they will have no reason to want to harm us.

In response, the Left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the U.N. and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services affirmed that Saddam's WMD were a vital threat - a threat, that post- 9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war - but now the Left says they were "scared" into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the "dummy" they think Bush is can scare them so easily?......

And so, as any reader of this article can well understand, it became impossible for me to relate to the modern Democrat Party which has tacked way too far to the left and is dominated by elites that don't like or trust the real people that make up most of the country.

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Brookes News Update

Australian economy: Is falling unemployment signalling recession?: Paradoxical as this might sound our falling rate of unemployment could be a symptom of an emerging recession. Although this phenomenon directly challenges orthodox economic teachings it does have empirical support and an economic theory to explain it
Why rising oil prices will not fuel US inflation: It is a commonly held among the public and economists that rising oil prices are inflationary. They are not. That the man in the street believes this is to be expected - that professional economists adhere to it is an intellectual disgrace
Greg Combet attacks labour market reform while Liberal Party officials do nothing: Greg Combet is Secretary of the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) and the curse of the unemployed. Fortunately for Liberal Party's incompetent hacks there are those among us who are able and willing to undertake the necessary task of dealing with union propaganda
Is the US military returning to Vietnam?: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with Vietnam's Defense Minister Pham Van Tra and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in Hanoi. It was noted that a US Navy ship will soon be visiting a Vietnamese port for the fourth time in four years
Taxes for dummies: The first lesson of capitalism is that the more capital available to support growing the economy the better; the better off everyone is, both rich and poor and everybody in between. The more money that is available the more economic activity will be generated
The world according to Dean: or Howard Dean backs Democracy for America: The tendentiously named Democracy for America is being supported by Howard Dean. The last thing this self-righteous organization believes in is those fundamental values that form the building blocks of American democracy

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ELSEWHERE

Is It Low Prices or High Prices that Are Bad for Us?: "It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that opinion makers were obsessing about Wal-Mart's negative impact on the United States. Wal-Mart's offense? Low prices! Then the drum-beat stopped. This coincided with concern about rising gasoline prices. Low prices, high prices -- its all the same, and it's all bad, as far as our pundits, professors, and preachers are concerned."

Hurricane Aid: The usual vast government waste and inefficiency: ""Of about $6 billion in emergency aid intended for Gulf hurricane victims -- including those infamous $2,000 debit cards, as well as emergency housing and other payments -- an estimated $1 billion was lost to fraud, according to a devastating audit released yesterday by the U.S. General Accounting Office."

Government "security" again: "The Department of Homeland Security allowed a man to enter its headquarters last week using a fake Matricula Consular card as identification, despite federal rules that say the Mexican-issued card is not valid ID at government buildings. Bruce DeCell, a retired New York City police officer, used his phony card -- which lists his place of birth as "Tijuana, B.C." and his address as "123 Fraud Blvd." on an incorrectly spelled "Staton Island, N.Y." -- to enter the building Wednesday for a meeting with DHS officials. Mr. DeCell said he has had the card for four years and has used it again and again to board airliners and enter government buildings, without being turned down once. But he said he was surprised that DHS, the agency in charge of determining secure IDs, accepted it. "Obviously, it's not working," Mr. DeCell said."

Chris Brand has been blogging up a storm again. Excerpt: " The Health section of the New York Times (15 vi, Amy Harmon) carried for its NYTwit readers a virtual admission that America�s version of Pravda had been duping them for a generation. Apparently, labs all over the USA (e.g. at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle) were finding and believing in substantial genetic control of risk-taking, obesity, cigarette smoking, dieting, aggression, accident-proneness, life expectancy, dancing ability, sex drive, attention deficit disorder, Nobel laureateship and alcoholism � though the dread topic of intelligence was not directly mentioned."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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