Reaction to the latest outburst of paranoia from the left (linked as an update here yesterday) continues, including Ali Fadhil's response to slander against his brothers. Ali took prejudice with calm wit, and that was worth a letter of congratulations. Sent yesterday evening, I make the letter an open one now:
Your defense of Omar and Mohammed against Juan Cole et al was well-put, Ali. What you and your brothers are beginning to understand about the left is what those of us on the right have struggled with for years, and painfully so after September 11th. Leftism — what I see to be moral relativism — has a striking adolescent quality to it.
Since the middle of the 20th Century the American teenager has been caricatured as a self-centered, contrarian know-it-all who spends most of his time feeling sorry for himself, convinced that his parents and moral authority are his enemy: to the point where he can't recognize, much less appreciate, his parents' constant help and guidance against his real enemies.
Leftists are much the same way: their contempt for America and what it stands for is so much a part of their ideological makeup that it has hardened into a pillar of their identity. I know — I was once, if briefly, one of them. This self-destruction grew to a cultural fever pitch in the 1990s and was sure to carry into the new century until al Qaeda attacked and shook most Americans awake. Many on the left, however, couldn't bear to leave their comfortable world view — again, it would mean admitting their error and losing their identity. So in order to preserve their theory that America, Western Civilization, capitalism and democracy are the evils of the world, they've begun to contradict themselves in strange, sometimes humorous but increasingly repugnant ways.
The Taliban's repression of women ceased to be a concern of so-called feminists when America deposed the Islamofascists with military force. Likewise, the suffering of your people under Saddam's oil-for-food thievery was a major topic among activists on the left before President Bush confronted the Butcher of Baghdad; now, suddenly, leftists look back on the 1990s as a golden age of diplomacy. Leftists don't seem to care about freeing the oppressed anymore, from Iran to Sudan to North Korea. The left's sociopathy in calling your peoples' liberation a "mistake" — telling us that you and your brothers and your fellow patriots were better off living life in terrified silence — is astounding. But it is the price the left is willing to pay to stay true to their obsession. It is pride; it is childishness.
But just as the terrorists will lose, so will the morally bankrupt left. Through elections and debate, we will see to that.
Give my best to your brothers and your fellow democrats, Ali. We're excited to see Iraq begin its ascent into democratic sovereignty, beginning with January's elections. Godspeed.
MORE ITM: Did I say wit?
AND: Don't forget to read accounts of Omar's and Mohammed's trip to the United States. One, first-hand and delightful, is here.
