I’m sure that many of you have had the (dis)pleasure of debating with ideologues of the leftist variety, especially given their prevalence in the revisionism-saturated society in which we live today where current presidents extol the virtues of appeasement and reach out to holocaust-denying demagogues bent on acquiring nuclear arms. The problem with these individuals is that they hold on to their political beliefs as absolute fact and twist and bend truth in order to fit their world-view. It happens on the right too. In my life, I have argued with my own father, a victim of the communist Castro regime, who ardently supported the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet simply because he was not a left-wing dictator while I denounced him for simply being the other side of the coin of despotism. The denial of freedom, whether by a right-wing or left-wing dictators, results in the same thing. While it is a fact that left-wing ideologies, particularly communism, have killed more human beings in the history of our species than any other ideologies, the right-wing varieties also have their fair share of bodies. But even Hitler, often called a right-wing dictator, was the leader of the Nazi party, the National Socialist Party of Germany, which has many similarities to communism: race conflict (class conflict), authoritarianism, militarism, primacy of the collective rather than the individual, etc. Historically, it seems that Communists are those that embraced Marx and Fascists simply reject Marx, while creating very similar types of authoritarian governments. The danger of these ideologies is simple: the disregard for individual rights eventually leads to the violation of individual rights in the name of the collective good or some grandiose goal or destiny.

This brings me to the issue of ideology in general. A dogmatic view of how the world should be is the fastest way to remove logic from a discussion. This is an important lesson for conservatives. Conservatives in America must become more pragmatic, especially since conservative principles are more in line with practicality than liberal ones. Conservatives must reject an approach that posits the absolute infallibility of one argument. An example is free markets, to merely claim that a free market system is superior to a centrally planned economy because it is “free” does a disservice to the philosophy of freedom. A historical account of capitalist success plus a common-sense economic approach can easily destroy any argument from the Left that posits that only a large bureaucratic government can adequately manage the distribution of goods and satisfaction of individual needs. This is why the Left must use slogans instead of arguments. They say “change,” “choice,” “hope,” “progressive,” and a slew of other terms that mean very little. On the other hand, we conservatives use words like “freedom,” “limited government,” “national security,” “fiscal responsibility,” “life,” etc. to describe our positions, words that mean much more to nearly everyone. Of course, party slogans themselves are not enough, a rational explanation of the policy we advocate is what people need; at least in a representative democracy where the voter is, ideally, informed. Often, ideology is the enemy of representative democracy and reasoned argument.

The reason I speak of ideology is because in my personal life, I have known individuals whose perception of the world has been hijacked by certain circumstances and experiences in their lives. In my life, my family’s experience with communist totalitarianism has influenced my view of the world by providing me a clear example of how communism destroys lives (as would fascism), but this example has not influence me enough to denounce any liberal as a cold-blooded murderer nor to denounce any left of center person/government as criminal. I simply believe that they are doing a disservice to individual liberties and should be nudged in the right direction. I believe that a reasoned discussion can persuade the reasonable elements of the Left to see the benefits of protecting the individual and realize that a bloated government simply costs Americans more money and gets very little done. I believe that the inherent optimism of a philosophy of freedom, the optimism that anyone can achieve anything if they try hard enough, can save people from the alternative: the pessimism that people cannot do anything for themselves and need a nanny or big brother to take care of them. Other people, though, are too far gone to be reasoned with.

A perfect example is a recent discussion I was having with a colleague about issues of constitutionality, democracy, and socialism. This colleague of mine comes from a family that lived in a country that was under right-wing military rule for decades, at least one of this person’s family members was persecuted by the government for exercising their right to criticize the government. Due to this family history, my colleague now equates “military” and “right-wing” with “evil” and regards American foreign policy, historically, as being equally “evil.” My colleague has even expressed that if forced to choose between living in a fascist or communist state, that the communist would be preferable. The fact that the crimes of one authoritarian regime that was “right-wing” would make left-wing totalitarianism “preferable” is offensive to logic, especially given their body counts. What bothers me is that there are many individuals like this who have made Blame America First or anti-right-ism a way of life and would stand next to terrorists, criminals, and tyrants simply to make political points. They are indoctrinated early in life, disregard fact and reason and go on to become lawyers, politicians, teachers, and journalists. They take advantage of a free society to advocate for a society that would deny freedom in the name of historical justice or some abstract concept of “equality.” They do not realize that if they lived under a communist regime, their counter-establishment mentality would lead to incarceration, exile, torture, and/or death. They hide behind the first amendment while taking shots at every human right. They denounce our servicemen and women who risk life and limb to defend the very freedoms they enjoy and try to eradicate. They seek to destroy the achievement of the individual for the sake of the mediocrity of the collective. They mistake our freedoms for tyranny and mistake real tyranny for freedom. They are unreasonably convinced of a worldview that will take facts out of context and subject others to a uniformity of opinion. As a conservative who tends towards pragmatism first, as we all ultimately do, I welcome dissent, for it is through the fires of debate that truth can arise. Liberals wish to squash dissent (see the(un)Fairness Doctrine). Liberals have, as of late, become even more entrenched in Leftist ideology openly advocating policies that weaken America abroad and damage the economic engine that has made us a Superpower. This leftward movement of American liberalism has made me increasingly worried over the state of our republic… and to be able to counter this threat, we must be willing to call this political movement its true name: COMMUNISM. So what would that make the politicians and officials that are moving America toward a state of increased government and reduced freedoms?

-AG