I wish I could write as well as The Editors, but I can’t. They do raise an interesting question though. Exactly what defines a ‘left-wing whacko’ or a ‘far-left radical’? I suppose everyone has their own definition. I don’t spend much time thinking about it because the most salient fact about American politics is that no-one of an even medium brand of leftness has any power anywhere. But, the most freakishly right-wing whackos are running all over Washington DC and my teevee making every decent person’s skin crawl.
Take Michael Savage for example. Or the fact that there are dozens of graduates of Pat Robertson’s university running around the federal bureaucracy. I never see the press asking Republicans to apologize for their whackos. Look at our President. Look at our Vice-President. They are whackos ya know. It’s not really a matter of dispute at this point. Being monumentally corrupt and bloodthirsty doesn’t make you ‘serious’…it makes you a sociopath.
But, anyway, we might as well ask the question. What the hell defines a left-wing whacko anyway?
I’m probably the wrong person to ask, since I think people that want to ban smoking every damn place are in the lunatic brigade. But then I meet them in person and they seem quite normal despite their totalitarian tendencies.
Anyone still clinging to communism, or who thinks it was just implemented badly? They fit my bill. I just want a government that takes care of the sick, the aged, and the poor, and that minds its own business. If I had my way, we wouldn’t have fought the first Gulf War, we would not have intervened in Kosovo, we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, and we wouldn’t be intervening in Darfur. Let the Swedes do that. Or the people of Liechtenstein. A coalition of the non-American affluent. But, if we must be the world’s policemen, let’s make Canada take the steering wheel for a few decades. We’ll take their health care system, and they can have our wars of choice. They’re a bit quirky sometimes, but I am more than willing to trust their judgment. We’ve clearly lost the right to trust our own.
