Power Line: Who's The Liberal?

November 15, 2004

Who's The Liberal?

Reader Alfred Fluehr sent us the flyer reproduced below. He writes:

First, there was the flyer from Tennessee Democrats that depicted Bush as a special Olympian. Mentally handicapped people probably aren't on the liberal list of those to be tolerant towards. Then there was the pamphlet which depicted whites using fire hoses on blacks. Obviously a ploy to stir racial hatred using images out of context that were forty years old. [Ed: Plus, the ones doing the spraying were all Democrats.] And now, we have this beauty of a flyer, posted around Penn State, depicting a boy jumping on a swastika. The clear implication being that anyone who voted for Bush is a Nazi. Even more surprising, this flyer is from Amnesty International. You always wonder why groups like Amnesty International always seem to hold War Criminal Tribunals for Bush, but somehow missed holding one for Kim Jong Il or Hussein.

This is the flyer; click to enlarge:

Here is what is really striking to me about this: Amnesty International was once a great organization, notable for opposing tyranny of all stripes. Amnesty was founded by some Englishmen, as I recall, after they read a newspaper account of an incident in Spain. Some young Spaniards were drinking in a bar; at some point, they drank a toast to liberty. For that, they were arrested and jailed.

How far have we come from the days when liberals instinctively rallied to the cause of freedom? President Bush's policies have freed 50 million people. His grand aim is to liberate the Arab world, not only because freedom is desirable for its own sake--which it is, of course--but because he believes, we think correctly, that only by bringing liberty to that part of the world can we reverse the cancerous growth of terrorism.

Today, the liberals' response to the spread of freedom is one of sour disapproval. They attribute the liberation of 50 million to a weird "neocon" conspiracy. They call President Bush a "liar" when he speaks of his desire to help Arabs and Muslims realize their God-given right to be free.

Whatever happened to the left? When did it give up on the cause of freedom? I don't know. But the American left's abandonment of the cause of liberty is one of the saddest facts of modern history.

Posted by John at 09:04 PM |

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