Thursday, December 10, 2009

He Left The Left & Tells Us About It

Here's his story. And his views on stuff.

He's not alone. But many of you already know that. Wink!
Anomalies started to occur, things that didn’t fit into what I thought of as a “liberal” world view. The Bakke case, in which the Supreme Court supported affirmative action – that was a big one: I thought it was a clear sign that the left – my side – had signed on to racism. Feminism, political correctness, the disaster of welfare, the appeasement of the Soviet Union – I kept saying, “Well, that’s no good,” but I thought they were anomalies. I still didn’t realize there was an alternative philosophy that described the world more accurately. Then the Berlin Wall fell down – everything Reagan predicted – stupid Reagan, cowboy Reagan, dumb old movie actor Reagan – every single thing he said would happen, happened. And it finally began to dawn on me, “Oh, I get it: it’s not this and this and this that’s wrong. It’s ALL wrong.” And I started the long, difficult process of changing my mind.

(...)

A lot of friends dropped away and a lot of business opportunities disappeared. Working in Hollywood became much, much more difficult. The worst time, I think, was during the Bush/Kerry election when passions were running so terribly high. Liberals would say things to me, like, “I hope the war goes badly so Kerry wins.” When I would point out that they were essentially wishing Americans dead so that their candidate would win, they felt I was being cruel and uncivil. The left is fine with calling you racist, sexist, a pig, a Nazi – but if you point out the simple inarguable consequences of their words and actions, they feel you’ve just gone way too far!

(...)

It’s a lot like the Matrix, you know: once you take the red pill, once you see that leftist virtue is an illusion created by an ideologically driven media and academy, once you see what leftist policies have really done to black people in this country, how they’ve appeased and encouraged tyranny, destroyed cities, ruined economies, blasted cultures it’s just impossible to re-submerge yourself in the left’s self-righteous illusion. Was it difficult to have people I liked or even loved reel back in moral horror and disgust when they learned I was a conservative? Sometimes, I guess. But I’m a hard guy about stuff like that. There’s so much true love in my life – the love of God, my wife, my kids, my friends – it’s an embarrassment of riches. That hasn’t changed.

(...)

(...) what a lot of people do is try to escape their sense of shame dishonestly by constructing elaborate moral frameworks that allow them to parade their virtue and their lavish repentance without any real inconvenience to themselves while simultaneously indulging in self-righteousness by condemning others for their impenitent evil. That’s the bad version of religion – the sort of religion Jesus came to dismantle. And that’s exactly the sort of religion leftism is: an elaborate system for hiding shame behind a cheap mask of virtue. That’s why they demonize any opposition. To them, we’re not just disagreeing with them, we’re threatening to tear off the mask of their virtue and reveal them to themselves. Which, without God or sufficient whiskey, would be unbearable.
The truth liberates. A truly open mind accepts, understands and embraces the truth, including about themselves as they are and have been... and thus begins to change, to heal and grow strong.

It's irrational to fear the truth. It's irrational to believe that it will hurt, for the pain that may come from accepting the truth is an illusion, as, after all, it's all in one's head; it isn't real. One must face one's illusions and defeat them in brutally honest intellectual combat.