Ok MCG it's a Conservative Site But!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why I Left The Left Why I Left The Left Politics Seth Swirsky July 3, 2006 I used to be a liberal. I was in one of the first “open” classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War. My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to “understand” the “root causes” of the “despair” he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis. I wasn’t an overtly political person – I just never veered from the liberal zeitgeist of the community in which I was raised. But when I was about 27, in the late 1980s, cracks in my liberal worldview began to appear. It started with an uproar from the Left when Tipper Gore had the audacity to suggest a label on certain CDs to warn parents of lyrics that were clearly inappropriate for young people. Her suggestion was simple common sense and I was surprised by the furor it caused from the likes of Frank Zappa (and others) who felt their freedoms were being encroached upon. It was my first introduction into the entitled, selfish and irresponsible thinking I now associate with the Left. In 1989, I remember questioning whether Democrat David Dinkins was the best choice for Mayor of New York City (where I lived) over Rudy Giuliani. After all, Dinkins hadn’t distinguished himself as Manhattan Borough President while Giuliani, as a United States District Attorney, had just de-fanged the mob. But, racial “healing” was the issue of the day, Dinkins won, and the city went straight downhill. When Giuliani beat Dinkins in a rematch four years later – Surprise! – the crime rate plummeted, tourism boomed, Times Square came alive not with pimps but with commerce. Since 1993, the overwhelmingly liberal electorate in New York City has voted for Republicans for Mayor. Yet, to this day, many of my liberal friends refer to the decisive and effective Giuliani as a Nazi, even as they stroll their children through neighborhoods he cleaned up. "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 seriously damaging and disrupting their networks." After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn’t hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city’s streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of “no justice, no peace.” And it was impossible not to notice the hypocrisy when prominent Hollywood liberals, who had hosted anti-NRA fundraisers at their homes a week before the riots were standing in line at shooting ranges the week after it. I watched carefully as Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearing, claiming Thomas – once head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – sexually harassed her after she rebuffed his invitations to date him. At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I’m ashamed that I was ever on the “side” of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not. Condoleezza Rice, during eligibility hearings for Secretary of State, also had to deal with rude people like Barbara Boxer, who seemed not to be able to fathom that a black American could embrace conservatism. I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been “stolen” even though three other elections in the American history had been won by the candidate who had not won the popular vote (John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and Benjamin Harrison in 1888). The rush to judgment by the now conspiracy consumed Left put me off. Where, I asked, were all the “disenfranchised” black voters who would have given Gore a victory in Florida? No one could produce a single name. And how exactly were the voting machines in Ohio “rigged” in 2004? I now refer to the Democrats as the Grassy Knoll party. Still, I approached the 2004 primaries with an open mind. I was still a Democrat, still hoping that leaders like Sam Nunn and Scoop Jackson would emerge, still fantasizing that Democrats could constitute a party of truly progressive social thinkers with tough backbones who would reappear after 9/11. I was wrong. The Left got nuttier, more extreme, less contributory to the public debate, more obsessed with their nemesis Bush – and it drove me further away. What Democrat could support Al Gore’s ‘04 choice for President, Howard Dean, when Dean didn’t dismiss the suggestion that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or when the second most powerful Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, thought our behavior at the detention center in Guantanamo was equivalent to Bergen Belsen and the Soviet gulags? Or when Senator Kennedy equated the unfortunate but small incident at Abu Ghraib with Saddam’s 40-year record of mass murder, rape rooms, and mass graves saying, “Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management"? What Democrat could not applaud the fact that the President had, in fact, kept us safe for what’s going on 5 years? What Democrat – even those who opposed the decision to go into Iraq – wouldn’t applaud the fact that tens of millions of previously brutalized people had the hope of freedom before them? 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 seriously damaging and disrupting their networks. 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? Iraq is the “Normandy” of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: “Why do these people get to enjoy the fruits of freedom and we don’t?” – and then topple their Mullah’s dictatorial regime. The President understands the big picture -- that if the U.S. doesn’t help to remake that volatile region, we will face a nuclear version of 9/11 within the next two or five or 10 years. He is simply being realistic in his outlook and responsible in his actions. Iraq is succeeding, slowly but surely, but that’s not a sexy enough story to lead the news with: the relatively small amount of casualities are. Don’t forget, we occupied Germany and Japan for seven years and we still have troops there, more than 60 years after World War II ended. And what have the Democrats contributed to the war effort since 9/11? Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold has suggested censuring our president; Former President and Vice President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, while visiting foreign countries, have blasted President Bush – acts of unconscionable irresponsibility; Democrat Sen. John Murtha, has invoked a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, supported by Democrat Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and Democrat House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Do they think the Middle East and the World would be safer if we had cut and run, as Murtha’s plan wanted us to do? Under that plan, our troops would have been out of Iraq by May 18th and al-Zarqawi wouldn’t be dead, but pulling the strings in an Iraqi civil war. With these kinds of ideas and behaviors, I just don’t trust Democrats when it comes to our national security. 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. Although I haven’t always agreed with President Bush, I proudly voted for him in 2004 (the only one of the four presidents not elected by the popular vote to win re-election). And I now fully understand Ronald Reagan’s statement, when he described why he switched from being a liberal to a conservative: “I didn’t leave the party – It left me!”
Good stuff. This story is akin to how I have felt about my party, beginning with Jimmy Carter's presidency. The timing of the weak Carter years parallels the age-related transition in my thinking from moderately liberal to moderately conservative. I was ready for Ronald Reagan's presidency. Today I remain a registered Democrat, but I vote as an independent. To paraphrase Reagan's quote, although the party has left me, I haven't left the party......yet.
First of all I have never been on the solid side of the left to begin with having voted for Nixon in my first election and for Reagan vs. Mondale and George Sr. vs. Dukakis. What still irks me however is that W only edged Gore by the most miniscule of margins because of the successful witch hunt conducted by Henry Hyde against "their" nemesis Clinton. W has never done much on his own and yet he is some kind of deity for the right because he was the pawn in place that ended Clinton's run.
:?: GW Bush a deity on the right? I've never heard of that. In fact, the opposite is true. He's not even a conservative. He's conservative only on social issues, which is not good enough for most of us on the Right. He spends too much money; he's never vetoed a bill; he wants an open border and unrestricted Mexican immigration; and he wouldn't have nominated any conservatives to the Supreme Court without the right-wing of the party going into open rebellion against him. A deity? Most Republicans voted for our current president in the Republican primary elections of 2000 as a best available alternative; not a solid first choice at all. He was a compromise candidate between the conservative and moderate wings of the party, which have nearly all the votes and all of the money... re: Clinton Clinton was irrelevant in the 2000 election. The reason Gore lost was because he was ashamed of the Clinton legacy and tried to distance himself from it. Clinton himself has said this...not that we should believe an admitted perjurer... ...................JO'Co
Bush is hardly a deity to us Republicans. To me he is a disappointment, especially in his second term. Bush won 2x because the Democrats trotted out a couple of complete boobs as candidates and compounded those mistakes by running totally inept campaigns. Plus the core values of the Dem platform does not resonate in the least with an ever increasing segment of the voting public.
I think you are right on the money in that Gore lost because of the inability to figure out just what was the right Clinton formula in 2000. It was a very complicated situation and as I said it was purposely orchestrated to perfection by the Henry Hyde faction of the R-party when they took a huge chunk out of Clinton's armor. With respect to Bush...he's just a deity on this board then. With respect to 2004.....agreed the Democrats floundered in the selection process. They did a little better than in 1988 with Dudkakis but still Kerry being from the NE doesn't sell well in the 48 contiguous. The NE tends to go blue anyway so the most viable Democtatic candidate needs to come from the south or midwest. The left coast is blue too usually so it is the middle and southern states where the battle is.
I don't know where you got the idea on this BB that Bush is a deity. You are confusing the cause, which many of us believe in to varying extents, with the architect.
Hey I voted for Bush and I'm disappointed in the way the 2nd term has gone, I thought he'd get his Soc Security plan done, I thought we might even fix this damn tax system that we have, but like a lot of 2nd termers he's gotten bogged down in a lot of stuff. I was disappointed in the woman he nominated for the Supreme Court, but proud he faced down the Democrats on the other 2 and got them on the court. But that's politics. I don't blame him at all for gas prices, and I can't see what he could do or could have done other than nationalize the oil companies and set artifically low prices that would have encouraged continued increase in the use of oil at the expense of alternative fuels and the environment.
Yeah, we conservatives on this board spend all our time and posts just bowing down and worshiping W. (yawn) :roll: stu
Pretty tired reply MCG. Now Bush won because of Henry Hyde. :roll: :roll: Gore was an inept candidate who couldn't decide who he was from debate to debate. He lost inspite of being the candidate of the party in charge and a booming economy. And I know a Goverment Professor that said Bill Clinton was the Republicans best friend. Under his administration the Republicans took both houses of Congress. Kerry was an even worse candidate. And we'll see who the Dems put up next.
Well while the right is "worshiping W" the left is rooted in reality. Apparently some web sites have left "reality" folks claiming that Ken Lay was killed at Carl Rove's direction so that W doesn't have to pardon him in 2 yrs. How can you even have a rational discussion with these tin foil helmet folks?
Bush a deity?? <t>somehow, the phrase 'the best way to lose an argument is to overstate it.' come to mind here?<br/> <br/> rinse, repeat.</t>
:!: Just a reminder that Gore won his majority in just one state: California. In the other 49 states, Mr. Bush won the popular vote by nearly a million votes. That's why we have an electoral college system; so that one state can't dictate national priorities to the others, no matter how populous, rich or powerful it becomes. The system worked. BTW- before you object that the "majority should always rule" consider this... In the last 150+ years, the Democrats have achieved a majority for only three presidents: FDR, LBJ and Jimma Carter. Of those three, LBJ obtained his majority on a sympathy vote for the memory of JFK and an historic split in the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives. He was so unpopular as president, that he failed to win support for reelection in his own party just four years later. Carter's majority was razor thin by just a few votes over 50%, despite running against the Watergate Scandal, and he was crushed by Ronald Reagan in his reelection attempt, in the worst beating suffered by a sitting president since Herbert Hoover... The ONLY president from the Democratic Party who achieved a majority and was reelected besides FDR was Andrew Jackson...
Jo'Co, I don't know where you get your info but Gore won the popular vote in 21 states....not just 1 as maybe your local conservative radio station told ya. In addition...having grown up in NE Florida I want to come clean....I absolutely despise ignorance, prejudice, rednecks and backwards conservative thinking in general. Peruse the list if you will and tell me where you think the states fit in as I describe above: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm
MCG, I apologize for not making myself clear. I did not say that Al Gore failed to get a majority in any state. What I failed to make clear was that if you throw out California and add up the votes that Gore received in the other 49 states combined, it falls around a million votes short of what George W. Bush received in those same 49 states... When you add California back into the equation, Mr. Bush's million vote majority disappears and Gore wins by two million. In other words, one state, California, gave Gore a majority of the total votes cast in all 50 states combined; a majority that he wouldn't have had without it. ..............JO'Co