The Problem With Liberals

For the past few years I have been participating on and off in political discussions in the USENET newsgroup alt.politics.libertarian. Within this newsgroup, I get to see a wide variety of posts, some coming from cross posting from other news groups. But among those post I see a great deal of hate and discrimination by modern day liberals against anyone who dares to point out the flaw in their sacred cows (Affirmative Action, Government Controlled Welfare, Gun Control, etc.). From some of these post it makes me wonder if the modern day liberal is stupid or just blind. Being generous in nature, I think they are just blind.

Why do modern day liberal believe the way they do? I have several theories, but not any one of them fits any one modern day liberal.

Here are four types of modern day liberal that I run across most frequently during various public political discussion on BBS' and the Internet.

Benign Thief Liberal:
This is the "take from the rich and give to the poor" attitude many modern day liberals have. They like to think of themselves as "Robin Hood" not realizing that Robin Hood was fighting against his own government's abuses of power and taxation. In my humble opinion, this attitude comes from a deep-seated jealousy of anyone more successful than himself or herself.

Saint Francis of Assisi Liberal:
I named this one after St. Francis of Assisi, who cautioned the religious leaders of the time to stop looking at worldly wealth as it took their attention from spiritual matter. These types of liberals expound the virtue of being poor. To them the money is the root of all evil, never realizing that money is just a tool that gives you options. Personally, I can not see any virtue in being poor.

Ivory Tower Intellectual Liberal:
This type of liberal lives in an illusionary ivory tower. He or she believes they have the answers to it all and that the rest of us should defer to their wisdom. These are the types that like to treat the rest of us as uneducated and unsophisticated children. They know what is best for us and want to run our lives for us based on some social theory that has no bearing on reality or human nature.

Government as God Liberal:
This type of liberal is the most dangerous. It is a combination of the Robin Hood Liberal and the Ivory Tower Intellectual Liberal with a twist, they believe in the cult of big government, and that individual rights are derived from government. They have no problem using governmental force to violate your individual rights to correct a perceived inequity. Before anyone thinks that I am stereotyping liberals, your wrong, these are the types of liberals that I have personally run across the most often.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
-- Robert A. Hienlien, Notebooks of Lazarus Long

The one thing I have found with all modern day liberals is a deep-seated need for victims. Or, more specifically a need to be needed by the down trodden. This altruistic bend all liberals have gives new meaning to the axiom, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I am not denying that their heart isn't in the right place, but it is the price they want the rest of us pay that I have trouble with.

Why is the need in them so important? According to a friend of mine in the psychology field, it is a need to feel important, to feel they are helping everyone become as enlightened as they are to the needs of the common man or woman. In my more cynical moments I keep reflecting on an old Doonesbury cartoon, Duke had just received news that he was to be relieved as chargé de affairs in China by Leonard Woodcock.

Duke:  Leonard Woodcock! I just can't get over it! What could have possibly possessed Carter to pick Woodcock for China.

Honey [Dukes Chinese interpreter]: Well, sir, maybe it's because Mr. Woodcock's career has been one of great sensitivity to the plight of the working class.

Duke:  Honey! All labor leaders are sensitive to the working class. That is how they avoid belonging to it.

For as cynical as the preceding was, there is quite a bit truth in it. Many modern day liberals support social programs that in no way affect them. Then comes the ultimate irony, they can't understand why their programs do not work, so their response is to throw more of our tax dollars at the problem knowing full well, even if they are not willing to admit it, money will not solve the underlying cause.

What about the money spent on these programs? Where does it all go? Well, if you take a look at Congressional Budget Office (CBO) number anywhere from 35 to 65 percent of the money goes just to running these federally controlled programs. More than once I have been called a liar for pointing out this particual fact.

What can we do about the modern day liberal? Best we can do is politely disagree with them point out the flaws in their logic using facts they can not refute and watch them loose their mind entirely. Sometime in the future our descendant will look back on all of this and wonder why we didn't just shoot the liberals and put them out of ours and their misery, because in the end we shoot rabid dogs don't we?