Five Great New Books In 300 Words

In Nick Cohen's book, "What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way", he tells of how he grew up in a typically bigoted left wing European household where it was considered morally superior not to support apartheid in South Africa, fascism in Spain, Israeli occupation in the Middle East , or capitalist oranges from Florida. But, by 9/11 he had concluded, "leftists are likelier to excuse fascist governments than conservatives. The failure of socialism/communism/ liberalism has freed the left to go along with any movement against the status quo in general (the revolutionaries mindless default position) and specifically, America". According to "The Economist" the example in Cohen's book that preponderates is, "the unholy alliance between the left wing movements in the West and Islamic extremism.

"Not coincidently, Dinesh D'Souza makes an almost identical point in his new book "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its responsibility for 9/11." He says the Islamic terrorists and the cultural left are like two blades of a scissors both necessary to cut the paper or, in this case, win the war. The terrorists work to blow people up in Iraq and the American left works with them to make voters believe the terrorist efforts must prevail and any Republican measures to the contrary, must be undermined or discredited. He further makes the point that the American left, led by the hapless Jimmy Carter, gave Iran to the terrorists and thereby started the world down the path that led directly to 9/11 and Iraq. They did this, he claims, because in their hatred for American freedom they failed to see the wisdom in a Republican foreign policy that supported pro American autocratic regimes (like the Shah of Iran's) over anti-American Communist or totalitarian regimes like that of the Ayatollah's.

In the end, why do liberals often feel a greater allegiance to fascists (let's always remember that when the Soviets wanted spies they looked among the liberals) than to freedom loving Republicans? It is mostly because they are good hearted but simple minded utopians. They and fascists of various stripes believe in bold collectivist or totalitarian action to solve humankind's problems, whether real or imagined, while Jefferson and the Republicans merely believe in freedom. Freedom is not utopian. Rather, it is way to empower and enlist every human being with the responsibility to shape his own life, and solve his own problems in his own way and in his own time. It builds a better society though, because each individual is then obligated to contribute his own efforts to that society and to take full responsibility for them rather than be side lined waiting on the efforts of a few genius bureaucrats who manage a supposedly miraculous and distant federal gov't. To a liberal, freedom is tantamount to neglect, to pragmatic Republicans it is the only thing that has ever worked and, moreover, the only thing consistent with each human beings central need to fully employ his body and mind to create his own life. Liberalism offers welfare of various kinds that paralyzes the human soul, depriving it of self-sufficient purpose, meaning, and employment.

To make the point from a slightly different direction another Republican intellectual, Jonah Goldberg, has written a new book titled- Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton. His basic point is similar, namely, liberalism is similar to, or supportive of, fascism, and opposed to freedom. But why, again (actually the millionth time since Jefferson), is it similar to fascism? It is similar because it relies on empowering gov't to solve problems while America has transformed human history based on the prescient Jeffersonian idea of empowering individuals or freeing them from gov't in order that they solve their own problems and perhaps those of their immediate family and neighbors.

But, weren't the gov'ts of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao bigger than the gov't liberals propose? Answer: we don't think so because liberals will not say how big is big. What we do know is that since the Jeffersonian American Revolution against gov't, and since every revolution in human history, the temptation has always been to see gov't as magical and so to expand it more and more until it produces disasters like The Civil War, WW2, The Gulag, The Cultural Revolution, and The New Deal or Great Society. In light of this perfect Democratic trajectory designed to always concentrate more and more power in fewer and fewer hands, there is no reason to assume American liberals will ever stop short of fascism or short of disasters like the New Deal or Great society, unless of course Republicans stop them or they happen to have a "road to Damascus" conversion that mysteriously leads them to respect Lord Acton's pronouncement, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

"The fourth book of the five is written by a brilliant liberal (at least in terms of IQ) who is a Senator from NY and a Harvard Law School Graduate to boot. It is called "Positively American". The Senator has hit the nail on the head with his nefarious title designed to promote the necessary lie that liberalism, which presumably (that is if you are willing to consider the obvious lessons of world history) will lead to some form of fascism or serfdom, is "Positively American", while freedom somehow is not. Then, the Senator moves on to confront the problem of which kind of liberal gov't to present to freedom loving Americans. After all, human history has given him many examples from Caesar to Ayatollah all of which turned out to be pure evil; so it must, understandably, be a huge problem to pick from among the deadly liberal alternatives. Here is what Schumer said about the quintessential liberal Democratic dilemma in a moment of confused honesty: "the truth is the eight words (describing the Democratic Party) are far more elusive than you might imagine. I've spent two years trying to find them. It's not possible for Democrats to boil down our core ideology to eight words." What he really means is that focus group research designed to help him subvert American freedom has not been very successful. What a surprise !

Why doesn't Schumer just rely on the American Constitution to define what Democrats stand for? As a Senator, doesn't he take an oath to defend and protect the Constitution? Barack Obama, a liberal Harvard ally of Schumer's, had a neat answer for this one in his latest book: "even the framers didn't agree on what they meant in the Constitution." Translation: "since the framers didn't know what they were talking about, liberal socialism can be "Positively American" too. The real answer is simple: none of the Santa Claus gov't flim flam schemes that Schumer, Obama and the Democrats advocate are found in or supported by The Constitution Of The United States; so they are not American and, when honestly described, don't sell to Americas.

The complete astonishing oblivion of Schumer was highlighted recently, apparently for the first time in his life, when, in an unscripted moment, he was confronted with the Republican premise. His Harvard Law School trained mind blurted out, "sir, do you want the gov't to fight wars for you?" Answer: "Mr. Schumer, Jefferson was a Republican for limited gov't, not an anarchist". Yet, Democrats cling to their intellectually amorphous ideas with the certainly of any bigots who are absolutely certain that they have no responsibility, whatsoever, to think beyond their most primitive "do gooder" emotions. In fact, the American Constitution is specifically designed to protect us from Democratic liberalism and its' eventual conclusion. America has grown to be the greatest county in human history only because Democrats have not yet been allowed to destroy large parts of the Constitution. Schumer's megalomaniacal moral bigotry that his big gov't will finally be the one big gov't in all of human history that will really be all sweet and fuzzy is exactly as megalomaniacal as all those that have come before. And that is exactly what finally led Thomas Jefferson to manumitingly stand astride all of human history and say, "STOP", let's try freedom.

Ted Baiamonte
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