Lunacy Of The Left, Embracing Dictators

ARRA News Service Editor's 
friends sharing a great laugh!
Eric Golub  & Stephen Moore
(Photo by Judson Phillips)

by Stephen Moore: The idea of American exceptionalism has been embedded in our DNA for generations. It is the faith-based belief that, as Ronald Reagan put it, America is a "shining city on a hill." Do modern liberals believe that?

I almost never try to get into the other side's head or ascribe ill motives to those on the left. They are, I've always believed, misguided, not malign.

But I'm having second thoughts after listening to President Obama's defense of communism/socialism a little over a week ago when he was in Argentina. He advised young people to get behind "what works" economically - as if there is some deep mystery here. Mr. Obama didn't misspeak. The modern left in America really has come to believe that communism, socialism, Marxism, totalitarianism, or whatever "ism" you want to call the monopolization of power into the hands of a ruling elite, is superior to free market capitalism.

The president of the United States is supposed to be the global spokesman for free enterprise. But instead of traveling to Cuba to point out to the world the decades of stagnation, deprivation, and dehumanization at the hands of Castro, and instead of using this moment in history to showcase the triumph of capitalism 90 miles away, as Mr. Reagan did so memorably at Moscow State University, Mr. Obama praises Castro's health care and education systems.

He might as well have been praising Mussolini for making the trains run on time. Even more unbelievable: the media applauded.

How far the Democratic Party has fallen. Can anyone imagine Mr. Obama, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders having the gumption or wisdom to tell Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall?" Today's Democratic leaders and many who support them probably secretly lament that the wrong side won the Cold War.

It wasn't so long ago that leading Democrats - JFK, Harry Truman and even the AFL CIO - were staunch enemies of communism. Today there is no place for such beliefs within the "progressive" Democratic Party. If it involves power to the state, the left is all for it - as evidenced by the rise of Bernie Sanders.

But for every action, there is a reaction, and the left's lunacy has given momentum to the tumultuous uprising on the right this year. Millions of voters who support Donald Trump want our government to put America first, and focus on our own mounting problems here at home, then worry about Europe, Israel, the melting ice caps, Aids in Africa, and so on. If your house is burning down, you put out that fire and save your own children that are trapped on the second floor, before you go down the street and put the fire out at your neighbors.

Here's just one observational data point that is admittedly anecdotal but speaks volumes about the left-right divide in America. At a typical Trump or Ted Cruz rally you will see American flags waving everywhere. These are patriotic gatherings. At Sanders events you will see some flags, but not many - because if you are a leftist it's not cool to love America. What is much cooler is wear a Che Guevara T-shirt.

At a Republican rally you typically meet many veterans who served our country with honor and valor. The leftists who protest at Trump rallies detest those who are wearing military uniforms and call them fascists and give the Nazi salute. I've seen it happen. I want to grab these brats and shout at them like Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men": "A simple 'thank you' would suffice."

Trump voters see America losing here at home both the economic and cultural wars vital to national survival. We have a $19 trillion national debt that has doubled in the last decade. We have wages flat or falling for most Americans. We have a political class that is actively trying to destroy whole industries - coal production, oil and gas, community banks and so many others.

We have a president (along with the intellectual class) pushing a radical climate change agenda that will cost the middle class millions of jobs, but won't change the global temperature one-one hundredth of a degree. Trade deals seem to be drafted to benefit foreign workers and businesses over our own. America pays far more than its share for programs like the United Nations and NATO. Our schools put teachers, not kids, first, and they don't educate.

We have courts overturning the will of the people in state after state on issues like gay marriage and if you are - God forbid - for traditional marriage and refuse to bake the cake, you are chastised as a bigot. We have speech police. We have illegal immigrants who work here and live here and then wave the Mexican flag at rallies, as if to be intentionally offensive. (And I'm in favor of immigration.) Then they wonder why Americans want a wall. We have the TSA searching the underwear of infants, but let Muslims slip right through because we wouldn't want to be accused of racial profiling. We have a Justice Department that wants to put people in jail for questioning the climate change "consensus."

This is the same crowd that seems to prefer the economic systems in Sweden and Greece and Cuba over America's. They preach human rights, but they don't seem to understand that economic freedom is a core human right.
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Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore)  formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for the The Wall Street Journal is a distinguished visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with Freedom Works. He also served as president of the Club for Growth from 1999 to 2004. Moore encouraged the ARRA News Service editor at SamSphere Chicago 2008 to blog his articles. This article was shared at The Washington Times.

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