Liberals see our culture as ideologically entrenched too far to the right.  We are too much a nation of "rugged individualists."  Why can't we just co-exist?  Aren't we all in this together?  Doesn't it take a village?  Do you really have a right to say anything you like?  Why does anyone need a firearm?  Why don't you just get with the program?  Where's your mask?  Life should be a love-in, not a rugby match.

What they are really saying is that if you'd just do things my way, I'd feel a lot less threatened, a lot safer.

Leftists take it a step farther.  I'll rely on your apathy, tolerance, and guilt to make things go my way.  If that doesn't work, I'll just have to force my agenda on you.  Total control, not just tenuous compliance, will make me feel safe.  Liberals nod in agreement.

In either case, this unjust Darwinian, capitalistic individualism must be replaced with collectivism and unwavering compliance with the moral imperatives of the leftist agenda.  That, in the eyes of the left, is the only road to liberty and happiness.

ET, orbiting earth in his UFO, would probably formulate a different perspective on the issue.  He would see racism masquerading as equity, debasing of religious tenets, assaults on the nuclear family, declining patriotism, divisive identity politics, suppression of free speech, pessimism about the future, contrary opinion defined as hate speech, biological entities defined as social constructs, homelessness and crime viewed as elements of diversity, encouragement of gender dysphoria and mutilation of young bodies, depression, anxiety, drugs, violence, and casting of humor as politically incorrect and offensive.

He would see individual liberties assaulted by cancel culture and by a burgeoning leftist insurgency toward the establishment of an authoritarian, totalitarian state that seeks to impose its concepts of equality and justice upon the proletariat.

He would have trouble understanding how such cultural and political upheavals could rescue the society from erosion of its liberties and happiness at the hands of oppressive right-wing individualism.  He had thought — from review of the chronicles of prior ET orbiters — that America had been pretty much on track with the intent of its founding principles.  He might come to conclude that, to the left, chaos, disruption, dissidence, paranoia, victimization, and vengeance are what happiness is all about.  And that liberty is attained through subjugation of the oppressors by authoritarian control freaks.  Even back home on Brodo Asogi, happiness and liberty meant something different than that.  He fears that the earthlings in America are headed in the wrong direction.

Maybe that's why he chooses not to land here.  "ET go home."

Image via Pixabay.