PARANOIA

I live in Seattle, and it seems to me that many of the liberals in the Pacific Northwest are awfully suspicious folk.  Perhaps the right word is "paranoid."

Take some of the liberal environmentalists, for example, who complain about corporations and development.

Sure, there are sometimes excesses in development sometimes - but there are often excesses in the other direction, from the side of those who claim to be environmentalists.

They are wrong to assume that "corporations" are automatically evil, and automatically out to ruin the environment.  After all, "corporations" are made up of people, who in a capitalist society are free individuals.

Corporations are no worse - and no better - than the people who comprise them.  Each project for development, like each project for environmental protections, should be decided on its own merit - not on the basis of anti-business paranoia.

Paranoia does not advance the cause of freedom.

Speaking of paranoia, may I say a few words about Senator Kennedy?

SENATOR KENNEDY

Senator Kennedy sees only doom and gloom in Iraq.  He says we are in a "quagmire."

Let me say that I can respect a political opponent, and I have a lot of respect for many people with whom I sharply disagree.  But not Kennedy.

I have no use for him, I have no respect for him.  He has no moral standing with me.

Iraq is no quagmire.  It is a success.  And it will be even more of a success in the future.

Let's look up the word "quagmire" in the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster Online, "quagmire" is defined as follows:

1 : soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot
2 : a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position : predicament

Kennedy, from his own life experiences, and from his own past mistakes, knows about real-life quagmires.  He has first hand experience.  And I think he is engaging in a bit of projection in his views on Iraq.

He thinks the war is a ... mistake; that we are in a ... predicament; that we did something ... wrong; that, having done something wrong, we're now in trouble and ... sinking; and now that we're "sinking," it is time for an "exit strategy," no matter what the cost to the Iraqi people. 

Back in February, not long after the January 30 Iraqi elections, in a televised hearing, Kennedy - this proponent of an "exit strategy" - commented about American casualties in the war, and complained, "when are some Iraqis going to die?"

Well, of course, many Iraqis have already died.  But many more Iraqis would die if Kennedy's policies were followed.

Kennedy and the liberal elites just don't get it.  Howard Dean, who says he "hates Republicans and everything they stand for," just doesn't get it.  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel and Al Gore and Barbara Boxer just don't get it.

"WORK WITHIN THE SYSTEM"

I was a leftist antiwar radical starting in the late 1960s, and I remained a supporter of the Socialist Workers Party until I resigned in 1990.

But most of the 1960s radicals did not follow my path of 22 years as in a communist faction.

Instead, most elected to, as the phrase went, "work within the system."

We see the fruits of their efforts in the disproportionate and distorted influence of the liberal left in certain fields and in certain industries.

The field of journalism is corrupted, and the mainstream media is hopelessly biased.

We see the liberal elite wield its power through the ACLU, and through the Hollywood establishment, and through the National Council of Churches, and through leftist professors, and especially, most ominously, through activist judges.

This liberal elite does not get the truth about moral values.

And, irony of ironies, in order for them to lecture us on moral values, they now send out a Congresswoman from San Francisco and a Senator from Las Vegas.

I don't think so!

MORAL VALUES: HELPING THE OPPRESSED

The liberal elite has this stereotype of people who voted in the 2004 elections on the basis of moral values.

Their stereotype is of a redneck, backward, ignorant voter, to whom "moral values" means gay bashing and second class citizenship for women.  That's the stereotype.

So they now intend to lecture us that moral values also means helping the poor and oppressed and exploited.

Their approach won't work, because their assumptions are wrong, and because their stereotypes are wrong.

We already know, far better than they do, that "moral values" means helping the oppressed.

For them, it is just a slogan, a gimmick ... just lip service.  But we are sincere.

There is great "moral value" in liberating the poor, oppressed, and exploited people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is great "moral value" in promoting liberty and freedom throughout the world.

There is great "moral value" in recognizing evil, and confronting evil.

There is great "moral value" in waging a war against Islamic fascism.

There is great "moral value" in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

LIBERTY

As President Bush said in his second inaugural address:

"From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and every woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth....  We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right."

Our work in defending America and in spreading democracy and freedom remains ahead of us - we have remarkable and important challenges in the future.

Each of us will be called upon to step forward with our heart and our soul, with our time and our energy and our resources.

Let us not hold anything back.  Let us never forget how high the stakes are.

It all boils down to this:

There is no greater cause than fighting for liberty.

(For part two, the conclusion of this article, CLICK HERE)