What Has Happened to the Left?

The new constant of any political event is the thousands of protesters descending on the scene to take advantage of their 1st Amendment rights (while at the same time denying those same rights to any who disagree with them). I'm sure a few of the protesters are thoughtful people who truly disagree with the policies of the Bush Administration. On the whole, though, these protesters are spoiled, know-nothing kids who lash out at the very society that creates the conditions for their comfortable lives (in the words of a friend: "smelly hippies with Daddy's credit card"). This article perfectly describes the inanity of today's "progressives" out on the streets of New York.

In my day, protesters were mostly bearded, lithe and sensitive. Now they are bearded, fat and smug. Back then, demonstrators had firehoses directed at them, not fawning television interviewers. Did you see those jolly marchers in New York, staging their anti-Bush carnival of absolutely safe, no-risk, self-congratulatory dissent?

When we marched against the Vietnam War, and the young men among us publicly burnt their draft cards, we could expect real punishment and victimisation, not lionisation by the Cannes Film Festival. The draft-defying men were committing a federal crime and risking imprisonment. Some of them had to live in exile in Canada for years - a truly awesome punishment - as the price of their youthful conscience.

But the biggest difference between then and now, of course, is that we marched against our government when it supported dictators, not when it removed them.

These "humanitarians", so enamored with human rights and justice, support the vilest, most brutal dictators in the world. They do not have the excuse of not knowing what Saddam did to his people, or the conditions imposed on North Koreans by Kim Jong Il, or the genocide openly advocated by Arafat and his thugs. Yet they still support these mass murderers. The only possible thing that may teach these half-wits what it is they are supporting, is spending some quality time in the dictatorships that they seem to love so much.