The Know Nothings

 

It is interesting to scan the comments on the latest column by Xerxes, my leftist columnist friend. They are a window into the leftward mind.

The first reader writes, most revealingly, “I cannot see any MAGA Republicans subscribing to your columns.”

This shows us that leftists only read opinions and columns with which they agree.

This means they can be easily led about by the nose. They do not want the truth, they want whatever comforts them. They risk being easily blindsided.

I am not a “MAGA Republican”: I do not live in the USA. But I read Xerxes’s columns precisely because I disagree. This is typical of those on the right; you need to know both sides of an argument.

Next comment:

“I think Biden will go down in history as one of the most successful Presidents ever. …. He brought in policies that people liked, like increases in health care and forgiveness of student loans. He got things done.”

It does not occur to this commentator that these policies could have been disliked by anyone. Another artifact of selective reading. After all, it’s free money. Right?

Instead, of course, it has to be taken in taxes. The government takes it from one pocket, deducts some of it as operating expenses, and returns the remainder to the other pocket.

Apparently the left does not grasp or want to grasp this simple dynamic. “Free money” is more comforting.

            “I think that most Americans were tired of the drama and divisiveness of Politics.  They voted for quiet efficiency and national unity instead. I think they’re telling their politicians to scrap the divisive rhetoric and get on with the job they were elected to do.”

The shambolic evacuation of Afghanistan does not look like quiet efficiency. Neither does a government that boosts spending to unprecedented levels during a supply chain crisis, and denies that inflation is possible. Wars, fuel shortages, and recessions do not seem quiet or efficient.

As for national unity, it is not much helped along by pitting ethnic group against ethnic group, gender against gender, class against class; or by declaring those who support your chief opponent a “threat to democracy.”

Spending endless time and resources on impeachments and collusion investigations against your opponent, all of which turn out to be based on false accounts and trivialities, instead of spending that time on legislation, does not look like getting on with the job they were elected to do.

Another reader writes: “I don’t understand why so many on this planet continue in awe of a nation that is so destructive, that pretends to have other nations’ well-being at heart when it is the exact opposite.  We need to realize that, even without the U.S., the world continues to rotate.”

This is akin to the leftist drive to “Defund the police.” For the sake of world peace and prosperity, it is a good thing for one power to be dominant, for the same reason it is better to have any government than anarchy. A dominant power enforces peace: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana.

Given one dominant power, there is no luckier choice than the USA: a nation uniquely founded on the principles of human rights and human equality. With no modern territorial ambitions.

As Leonard Cohen observed, “You’re not going to like what comes after America.”

Another respondent wrote of Trump’s making another run, “Trump isn't interested in anything except himself. Any political operative would seek other's opinions before announcing a run for office.”

This assumes that Trump asked no one for their opinion before declaring. Why?

Another artifact of the leftist refusal to read anything they disagree with. This writer presumes that “everybody” was saying Trump should not run. Those blinders never come off.