Evil and the Left (Revised Edition)

(Here is the edited version I promised. I think it's actually worth reading now.)

Why do the Left hate George W. Bush? Why do they expend so much energy, time, money and emotion to ruin and defame him? Why do they use such roaring rhetoric of hate and fury? Why do they go so far as to embrace our country's enemies, actively working for an American defeat in a hot war for the sole purpose of damaging this President?

It's a puzzle. It's insane to burn down one's house because one is angry with one's brother.

Whence this unhealthy emotional spleen? Why are they moved to wish for the death of their opponents? Why do they react violently when confronted, cheat and lie when confounded, name-call and personally attack when challenged, criminalize political enemies when defeated?

What reduces humans to this behavior where intellect is fogged, reason short-circuited, sanity unhinged and decency jettisoned?

Only one thing: FEAR

Fear can suspend the higher mental functions and allow the "lizard brain", the basest survival instincts, to take over. In the grip of this brutish sub-humanity, people act in ways they would normally abhor. History is rife with examples of degenerate human behavior caused by uncontrollable fear.

What, then, are the Left so afraid of that they are reduced to this primitive state?

The answer is both simple and nuanced. They fear EVIL.

Their fear is twofold. It is the natural fear of evil people and behavior, but it is also the existential fear of the very existence of incontrovertible EVIL.

The central and sacred ideology of the Left holds that there are no absolutes, that everything is relative, dependent on one's perspective. In other words: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

This philosophy renders innocent any and all behaviors in which Radicals wish to indulge. It is a belief system without rules, standards, demands or limits on personal (or political) behavior.

Anything that threatens this philosophy is, naturally, antithetical to the Left. If it were overthrown by incontrovertible evidence of the existence of any absolute it would mean the destruction of the foundation and justification for their libertine and self-indulgent lives.

The existence of undeniable, unequivocal EVIL presents just such a threat. Even more dangerous is the fact that there is a logical corollary: The existence of absolute EVIL logically demands the existence of absolute GOOD.

Further, the existence of GOOD and EVIL necessitates discriminating between the two and making judgments, rendering some behaviors actually unacceptable!

The self-indulgent, self-referential, narcissistic, smug, vain, lazy, cowardly, shallow, greedy, puerile, amoral would be judged and found wanting.

Naturally, given these calamitous consequences, the Left will go to any length to deny the existence of true EVIL.

And that is at the heart of the question.

While intellectually and politically, the Left continue to deny the existence of EVIL, it nevertheless impinges upon them emotionally, spiritually and intuitively and they feel the natural human dread, horror and panic in response. Since they refuse to acknowledge, name or accept the existence of the true source, they cast about wildly for an explanation for their turbulent, chaotic and nameless terror.

The straw-man proxy they have chosen as a substitute for the true source and cause of their trepidation and anxiety is President Bush.

To the Political it is a Convenient choice; to the Childish it is an Obvious choice; to the cowardly it is a Comforting choice.

It is politically Convenient because the President is a member and leader of the opposing political party – to blame him is advantageous to their own party.

To the simple it is Obvious that because President Bush is the “most powerful man in the world”, he must be responsible for everything that happens in the world.

To the cowardly it is a Comforting choice because the true EVIL that stalks the world is inhuman, profound, implacable. To face it requires a spiritual maturity, self-confidence, courage, honor, a sense of duty and sacrifice. Qualities the Left possess in short supply. It is a dread and looming threat to our very survival and way of life. It is bloodthirsty, mindless, insatiable, monstrous.

By pretending that a single, mortal, human man is the source, the Left create a fantasy in which EVIL is de-clawed and de-fanged, domesticated, reduced to a manageable size and controllable quantity. It becomes localized, minimized, limited and temporary.

That they have convinced themselves of this is evidenced by their conviction that evil will be banished from the world when a Democrat is elected president.

This does not explain, however, the vehemence with which they hate Bush. If blaming a mere man makes evil mundane, why the odd dissonance of apocalyptic, extreme and fanatical rhetoric over the machinations of an ordinary, mortal human?

I think it’s because on the subliminal level, Liberals experience the horrific dread caused by true EVIL. But because they consciously refuse to admit the fact of its existence, their subconscious is swamped by a madness of fear to which they deny healthy and appropriate expression. As a result, it overflows involuntarily in a barbarous, uncontrolled torrent of emotionalism.

These mad eruptions manifest as extravagant, grotesque, outlandish, implausible, and ridiculous accusations, roared at the highest decibel level with fervent, if unattractive, passion.

Nothing is too absurd, too vile, too indecent, too fantastic, too cruel, too patently false to be asserted, repeated or believed.

In their desperate attempt to deny the fact of EVIL, the Left have created a demented psychological fantasy world without internal logic or emotional control in which they have transferred all their primitive, superstitious dread and fear of EVIL onto George W. Bush.

And that is why their hatred of the President is so abiding, hysterical, illogical, anti-intellectual and emotionally overwrought.

The Gunslinger