Central Library
An Insidious Ideological Trap
RECEIVED Mon., April 14, 2008
Dear Editor,
Neo-leftism is an insidious ideological trap. Louis Black’s recent “Page Two” piece is a clear example [April 11]. It is obvious that he is struggling against being identified as a leftist. However, notwithstanding his claims that he is less “through ideology and more by way of history and contemporary events,” his obfuscations and ad hominem musings cannot hide his confused ideology.
Postmodern groupthink created by decades of cynical propaganda condemning American exceptionalism and favoring fashionable global collectivist populism is the core of contemporary leftism. It legitimizes moral relativism and historical revisionism. The results are credulous pernicious toleration of malevolent ideologies ranging from Marxist socialist servitude and lowest-denominator equality, suicidal pacifism, anarchic multiculturalism, and Islamist revolutionary chic.
It requires no objective moral or intellectual honesty, advocating denial of actual evil while supporting delusional dogmatic utopianism. And frighteningly, it now drives the Democratic Party as a factionalized subsidiary of the extreme left-wing establishments, e.g., academia, unions, mainstream news and entertainment organizations, legal industry, and gender- and race-based special interests.
For the free world to survive, moral and historical clarity is required. And in practical terms, that means acknowledging that stoic individual accountability, free association, limited Republican federalist constitutional government, and robust resistance to tyranny are required to perpetuate liberty – the exact opposite of leftism. It is obvious that Mr. Black has limited understanding of these precepts or is in denial. His positions on Iraq, illegal immigration, and the social safety net reveal this.
Just as world communism and Nazism lethally threatened humanity, so does contemporary Islamist and Marxist fascism. And make no mistake; if our guard is let down, the devotees of those tyrannies will prevail. Neo-leftism is their ideological enabler. Mr. Black, Democrats, and all so-called progressives own that.
Neo-leftism is an insidious ideological trap. Louis Black’s recent “Page Two” piece is a clear example [April 11]. It is obvious that he is struggling against being identified as a leftist. However, notwithstanding his claims that he is less “through ideology and more by way of history and contemporary events,” his obfuscations and ad hominem musings cannot hide his confused ideology.
Postmodern groupthink created by decades of cynical propaganda condemning American exceptionalism and favoring fashionable global collectivist populism is the core of contemporary leftism. It legitimizes moral relativism and historical revisionism. The results are credulous pernicious toleration of malevolent ideologies ranging from Marxist socialist servitude and lowest-denominator equality, suicidal pacifism, anarchic multiculturalism, and Islamist revolutionary chic.
It requires no objective moral or intellectual honesty, advocating denial of actual evil while supporting delusional dogmatic utopianism. And frighteningly, it now drives the Democratic Party as a factionalized subsidiary of the extreme left-wing establishments, e.g., academia, unions, mainstream news and entertainment organizations, legal industry, and gender- and race-based special interests.
For the free world to survive, moral and historical clarity is required. And in practical terms, that means acknowledging that stoic individual accountability, free association, limited Republican federalist constitutional government, and robust resistance to tyranny are required to perpetuate liberty – the exact opposite of leftism. It is obvious that Mr. Black has limited understanding of these precepts or is in denial. His positions on Iraq, illegal immigration, and the social safety net reveal this.
Just as world communism and Nazism lethally threatened humanity, so does contemporary Islamist and Marxist fascism. And make no mistake; if our guard is let down, the devotees of those tyrannies will prevail. Neo-leftism is their ideological enabler. Mr. Black, Democrats, and all so-called progressives own that.
Vance McDonald
