PrintJanuary 10, 2011
Murders, Lies, and Liberal Fantasies of Conservatives
The leftist predisposition towards irresponsibly blaming every act of violence with political connotations on the "climate of bigotry" created by right-wingers speaks volumes about the ideology of liberalism.
After the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ, and the murder and injury of several others, the liberal media commenced their annual "Let's Silence Conservatives" campaign. Preposterously, liberal journalists decided to pen uninformed pieces attacking Sarah Palin as being responsible for the shooting due to the "assassination rhetoric" that she engaged in during the midterm election.
At a time when people should be prayerfully considering the victims of the attack and having important debates about how politicians need to be protected from the few homicidal crazies in a country with hundreds of millions of people, liberals see nothing indecorous about instantaneously using the dead bodies of victims as expedient agitprop to silence the voices of their ideological opponents.
Presumably incensed at the revelation that Jared Lee Loughner is not a resolutely conservative Tea Party activist and Bible-believing Christian, the media is intentionally ignoring these facts:
a) Jared Lee Loughner cited the liberal bible, Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, as one of his favorite books;
b) Loughner was intrigued by flag-burning videos;
c) Loughner, in one of his YouTube videos, said, "No! I won't trust in God"; and
d) if listing The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books wasn't enough proof of his political inclination, one of his friends confirmed his left-wing views.
The idea that patriotic Sarah Palin or any conservative influenced such a perverted mind is risibly fallacious.
Presumably incensed at the revelation that Jared Lee Loughner is not a resolutely conservative Tea Party activist and Bible-believing Christian, the media is intentionally ignoring these facts:
a) Jared Lee Loughner cited the liberal bible, Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto, as one of his favorite books;
b) Loughner was intrigued by flag-burning videos;
c) Loughner, in one of his YouTube videos, said, "No! I won't trust in God"; and
d) if listing The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books wasn't enough proof of his political inclination, one of his friends confirmed his left-wing views.
The idea that patriotic Sarah Palin or any conservative influenced such a perverted mind is risibly fallacious.
Although Loughner isn't a conservative, you wouldn't know that if all you watched was Israel-hating Christiane Amanpour's "This Week" on ABC, who was tenaciously repeating the phrase "tone of our discourse" like a broken record.
There are three fundamental points about liberalism that one can extrapolate from the liberal media's reaction to this tragedy. Firstly, liberalism is a worldview devoid of rationality and impervious to facts, which operates with the assumption that truth is subjective.
It's True Because We Say So
The leftist denial of reality while advancing imaginary narratives can be clearly seen in the liberal talking points on the economy, where Obama's stimulus is said to have worked, even when the country is still experiencing close to 10% unemployment -- after a trillion dollars of federal spending. Despite the fact that Keynesianism has indubitably failed, the didactic pontifications of Beltway Democrats stating otherwise are thought to have more merit than facts, reason, logic, and evidence.
Similarly, the left's fondness for decrying "tax cuts for the rich" as not being effective for job creation -- despite the fact that they have led to job creation in the four administrations where they have been properly implemented, as noted by genius economist Dr. Thomas Sowell -- is further evidence of the liberal impulse to make phantasmagoric proclamations while turning a blind eye to reality.
Additionally, the liberal approaches to both terrorism and crime demonstrate the same neglect for facts in favor of ideological Utopian chestnuts. From the left's hobby of releasing murderous felons to rake leaves, rationalized via the use of pseudo-academic phraseology like "rehabilitation" and "furloughing," to the left's idea of granting Islamic terrorists constitutional protections, their policies are markedly based on dreamy subjective truths as opposed to common sense, facts, and reality.
Putting in perspective the left's continued and wanton disregard for truth in favor of ideological biases in all areas of political discourse, it makes perfect sense, then, how liberals can turn a shooting by a madman with no stated political grievance into a rationale for putting extra-adhesive duck tape on the mouths of the nation's talk radio hosts, and cutting the power supply on FOX News studios.
The modus operandi of liberals is to demonize their ideological opponents while self-righteously claiming to be both above the partisan divide and against the polarization of the political discourse -- a polarization they are instrumental in causing by constantly slandering conservatives by erroneously linking right-wingers to violence and racism.
The Classic Illiberal Liberal
The second point about liberalism is that its core contains two things:
a) trenchant hypocrisy, and
b) irrepressible intolerance.
Liberals are so unaware of their own intolerance that they do not understand how irrationally blaming their ideological opponents for heinous acts of violence committed by mad people causes the very polarization of the political discourse they claim to repudiate. The earnest pleading of liberals for a civilized national debate while relentlessly looking for microscopic links to accuse right-wingers of being complicit in murder is both frighteningly hypocritical and pathetically partisan.
Pointing accusing fingers at conservatives for promoting an atmosphere of violence when liberals are guilty of creating that very atmosphere is no more hypocritical than every other political position that liberals have ever taken -- from riding expensive, high-powered cars and planes while screaming that the earth will end next week due to global warming to championing the virtues of socialism while casually sipping Dom Perignon champagne in the faces of their impoverished constituents.
Moreover, the conclusion that must be drawn from the mainstream media's view of this event is that they believe that conservative speech automatically leads to murderous behavior, since their most consistent first reaction to any act of violence by a mad person is to formulate reasons why conservative speech is responsible. Liberals aren't even bothering to do their "vitriol on both the left and the right" shtick anymore. It's just a full-on unwarranted assault on conservatism.
The Liberal Cult of Collective Culpability
From the media's treatment of this event, the last thing we learn about liberalism is that the insidious notion of collective culpability is an integral part of liberal ideology -- it is, indeed, the leftist "cult of collective culpability." This is based on the liberal obsession with diminishing the idea of personal responsibility in all aspects of people's lives and actions.
Rarely in the news coverage do you hear any single person denouncing Loughner as a homicidal maniac; rather, that discussion has been replaced by liberal appeals for political civility and clear attempts to pin his actions on Sarah Palin and others on the right wing.
What happened to the days when someone who killed someone was simply a cold-blooded murderer -- regardless of his political affiliation?
Again, this is chillingly consistent with the left's attempt to explain away murderers' actions by talking about the role of the communities they grew up in fueling their actions and by explaining terrorists' actions by talking about their inability to succeed in a capitalist society.
When murderers are held in less contempt than others whom liberals wish to blame for the murder, we see major steps towards the steady dismantling of personal responsibility in American society. The notion of collective culpability is a major tool used by liberals to justify government power-grabs -- as we saw from the health care debate. In this case, however, it is being used as an attempt to shut down conservative voices.
Loughner -- not the right wing -- is responsible for the killing. To use this tragedy for political advantage like the Democrats are clearly doing is flagrantly irresponsible, but certainly not surprising.
Mr. Okeem is a fledgling writer. His blog on politics and culture can be read at voiceofchid.com.
