Chronicles of Self-Destruction

By David Prentice

....... the left’s “new” ideas.... America was being described as racist, heartless, warlike, imperialist, and rotten. The speakers were animated, confident, bold, and they were swaying many with their message...... the strident anger of these people was disturbing. In every speech, in every action, they were more intense and extreme......New Left people had deep personal problems. Someone held a bullhorn and started chanting the following. “Vote with your feet, get to the street, vote with your feet, get to the street!” I was in my line, looking both ways, and there we were, supposedly intelligent students, chanting mindlessly. I tried. Honestly, I never felt so foolish in my life. Rather than empowerment, I felt deflated. Instead of thinking I was doing something good, I felt like a total doofus. Materially well-off college students pretending we were the proletariat to take power from the eeevil capitalist bosses was full-on absurd..... asked what that was all about, getting a blank stare for an answer.

The leftist message was ugly; authoritarian, angry, ingrown, hyperbolic, self-righteous, untrue, and yes, violent. if these people ever came to power we would be in huge trouble. The left was a strange cult, a group that believed in things that weren’t true. They were an unrelenting set of true believers that excluded all others who didn’t agree with them as ignorant and immoral. They were angry, doing nothing helpful, just venting and yelling. They were intellectually shallow, they were much ado about nothing. By their juvenile tactics, they drove tremendous numbers of people from their message. Violent, self-righteous, and banal, they have returned with a vengeance......left’s transparent self-righteousness, their bent towards anger, towards violence, towards destructiveness, and yes, towards the grotesque.

The violence in the name of moral superiority is hard to overlook. The demands to be heard, the demands to force all others to see their narrow viewpoint, these are hard to see without cringing. It’s the same very uncivilized, quite grotesque, and yes, banal attitudes from years before. “Stop! You are making fools of us all,” you know they are in trouble. They can’t help themselves, it’s who they are, it’s who they’ve become.

Tone deaf, shrill, and on the edge of sanity. My moment of never wanting to listen to the left again has returned for a new generation; they are metaphorically watching the lines of chanters, wondering if the emperor has no clothes. Yes, it’s disturbing to watch these people, and yes, it’s sad they think so highly of their opinions that they can act like two-year-olds who believe they are winning because they are so loud. Unfortunately for them, it didn’t work years ago, and it’s not working now. The right is finally seeing just how terrible an enemy this is, maybe they’ll even stop saying we should reach across the aisle and work with these people. We can hope so, and surely, it’s been a long time coming........... Read more