This is mainly for the benefit of those who call themselves conservatives, but other folks may feel free to tune in :o)
The cardboard cut-out picture that most conservatives have of left-wingers is so out of touch with reality as to be downright bizarre.
The obvious example is Barack Obama. Anyone whose politics are to the left of Attila the Hun laughs out loud to see him being called a radical and a socialist. If you study your history, it’s obvious that he is the most conservative President since Eisenhower. In fact, I cannot see Obama warning Americans about the dangers of the military-industrial complex as Ike did. Ronald Reagan’s social and economic policies were, on the whole, more progressive than Obama’s. Richard Nixon’s health care reforms were more radical than anything Obama has proposed. (Indeed one of the tragedies of Watergate is that if Nixon hadn’t fallen, Americans would almost certainly have had universal health insurance 35 years ago.)
To those of us on the left, Obama is a disappointment, a moderate-conservative politician who wants to be loved by everyone and ends up pleasing no one. (I also believe Hillary Clinton was cheated of the Democratic nomination, but that’s another issue.)
Anyway, forget the stereotypes, red herrings and straw men. It is because I am a left-winger that...
(1) I support the US and in particular US foreign policy. The Americans saved the world from Hitler and Tojo. As an Australian, I would not exist if American boys hadn’t died defending us against the Japanese. The decision to use the atom bombs saved (it’s estimated) half a million American lives, ten million Japanese, several million Chinese lives. Truman should be canonized for that, not demonized as stay-at-home “pacifists” like to do.
The US has been involved in (and started) some unjust wars. Just like, in the past 75 years, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Soviet Union, France, Britain, Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Spain, the Netherlands and about a hundred other nations including, of course, Australia.
(2) I am not anti-war or anti-military. World War 2 was a just war, as was the Gulf War of 1990, the war against the Taliban, etcetera. Most of those “left-wingers” who claim to be anti-war have a suspiciously “right-wing” agenda. Keep in mind that until June 1941, the so-called left (i.e. communists, who are about as left-wing as Attila) opposed the war against Nazi Germany. The people who protested against the Gulf War generally supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in which thousands of innocent civilians died.
I support the war on terrorism. I support the war in Afghanistan. (As a woman, I have one message for our soldiers fighting the Taliban: To borrow a line from Starship Troopers, “Kill them. Kill them all!”)
(3) I don’t rub my hands with glee at the impending fall of the American Empire. Mainly because it’s nonsense. Fifty years from now the US will still be the world’s commercial powerhouse. Which is good, because my country gets rich selling resources to China, which gets rich selling manufactured goods to Americans.
(4) Okay, since I’m on a Love America binge... A thousand years from now, only one event will be remembered from the lifetime of any person reading this – the moon landings.
(5) I believe in free enterprise. I don’t believe in state capitalism or crony capitalism.
Free enterprise means, surprisingly, FREE, as in free and equal opportunity for everyone, not just those born on the right side of the border, with rich parents, pale skin and a penis.
(6) I support immigration (unlike faux left-wingers) because immigration is GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
(7) I support environmental protection and resource conservation, not because I am a tree-hugging greenie but because it’s GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
I am a left-winger because I don’t like being poor.
(8) I fear Islamic fundamentalism, unlike faux left-wingers who embrace it because they’re too stupid to realize that the Islamists hate them as much as they hate America The Great Satan.
I am not anti-Islam. Unlike most of the Islamic terrorists (such as bin Laden, who was nothing more than a mobster protecting his Sudanese slave plantations), I have actually read the Quran and other Muslim literature and it can be a beautiful faith.
Well, I could go on, but if some people haven’t got the message by now, they never will.