3/11/2005

It's time for Liberals to ditch the tinfoil hat and reach for the Whig...


It came as a bit of a shock to me last year that my stance as a political centrist has made me a right-winger by default. Which is an odd development considering my stand on gay marriage, and other issues, but it happened nonetheless.
"How?" you may ask.
That's a good question. And to paraphrase Ronald 'The Gipper' Reagan, I didn't leave liberalism, liberalism left me.
As much as I'd like to think of myself as a progressive thinker, what the political left considers progressive has gone from the merely knee-jerk to the positively screwy. Let's take an objective look at many issues and how the left has divorced itself from reality and the American electorate.
  • The Left declares that it's bad to kill a serial murderer or a cop killer, but it's good to kill a 'fetus' just weeks before it's considered a full term infant.
  • The Left declares that freedom of speech is essential to a free society. But if someone says something they don't like, they're the first to start the public burnings.
  • The Left hit the streets to defend and protect a mass murderer like Saddam Hussein, and then has the unmitigated brass balls to declare that their freely elected president is somehow 'worse than Hitler' because he wants other nations to be free.
  • The Left claims to want to protect the rights of women, yet they won't lift a finger to do anything to protect the hundreds of millions of women who are abused and mistreated around the world in the name of 'cultural sensitivity.'
  • The Left claims to be against racism, but then go around telling the world that certain ethnic groups aren't smart enough, civilized enough, or 'white' enough to enjoy the rights and privileges of democracy. That's damned nasty.
  • The Left criticizes the right on social issues, but then refuses to offer their one alternatives. They think that just stating that their enemies are wrong is enough. They've forgotten that you can't be progressive without the word progress, and progress needs ideas, not complaints.
  • The Left claims to be the political vision of the future, yet all they see is gloom and despair, based on a mindset that's firmly rooted in the past. To the Left we're still economically in the 30's, sexually in the 50's, and racially in the 60's. It's time for them to realise that the future is now.
That's why I'm suggesting that American Liberals who haven't completely lost touch with reality quit the sinking ship called the Democratic Party and create something new. A real viable and loyal opposition that can challenge the government with logic and facts instead of outdated stances, empty rhetoric, and in some instances: blatant treason. They need to create a truly loyal opposition.
They need THE WHIG PARTY.
They can make stand for real alternatives over complaints, for freedom over the coddling of dictators, for true equality over the empty gestures of tokenism, and for a Protestant succession in England....
....ooops...
...looks like that platform could use some updating, but its heart is in the right place.
So heed my call loyal liberals, ditch the moonbats and bring back the Whigs!

1 comment:

St Wendeler said...

Vox - I have to echo your sentiments. The Left has shown its illiberal side and has failed to join the right *strike that* correct side of history.

I think that many of the saner Democracts really do need to form a new party. The trouble is, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is supposed to be that Center-Left voice, and it gets shouted down anytime it puts out an opinion by DailyKos, MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore, etc. The Greens and these folks are pulling that party to the left... I don't see much in the way of stopping it.