Strange Bedfellows: Liberals and Bullies

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Reprinted from NewsMax.com

David C. Stolinsky
Monday, June 3, 2002

As I recall the schoolyards of my childhood, there were four kinds of kids – bullies, victims of bullies, those few who fought bullies, and the rest of us, who tried to stay away from bullies but sometimes secretly envied them.

Is a subconscious admiration for bullies a major part of modern liberalism?

Before the 1960s, liberals stood for limited government and individual freedom. We now call them classical liberals, to distinguish them from post-1960s liberals, who stand for big government, high taxes and ever-shrinking individual freedom.

Consider the vast number of government programs that have been instituted since 1960, versus the minute number that have been ended. Consider the host of laws and regulations that have been enacted, versus the tiny number that have been repealed.

Why is it that those who call themselves liberals love big government so much? Could there be psychological reasons as well as political ones?

A characteristic of what passes for liberalism today is an inability to confront evil. This is true especially for communism. But at least there is the excuse that communism is considered part of the Left, as is liberalism.

That is, there is the excuse that it is difficult to criticize members of one's own group. Though it may be difficult, it is also a mark of a person of integrity that he can criticize his own when they deserve it.

But what of other dangerous movements? What of other groups that threaten violence to those who disagree with them? What explanation is there for the tolerance shown by those who call themselves liberals?

For a few, the cause may be the Stockholm syndrome, where one identifies with enemies who threaten him. For others, there may be self-hatred: "I'm no good, and I'm American, so America must be no good, and those who hate America must be right."

"Taliban" John Walker Lindh may fall into one or both of these categories. But these examples of psychopathology are probably uncommon.

Cowardice is a more likely cause. As Churchill said, when we are confronted by a crocodile, there is a temptation to feed it, in the hope that it will eat us last.

Before World War II, the British and French tried to satiate Hitler by feeding him Czechoslovakia. But Hitler's appetite was whetted, and he proceeded to ingest most of Europe before he was stopped.

More recently, then-Prime Minister Barak of Israel attempted to feed Arafat over 95 percent of the West Bank, and for his efforts received only an outbreak of bombings of markets and pizzerias.

Feeding crocodiles can be a risky business. Offer them a meal and they may get the idea that you are on the menu. They see the offer as a sign of weakness.

Bullies are cowards themselves. They rarely fight each other; they gang up on other kids. Elian Gonzalez was seized at the point of submachine guns, and then he was dressed in a communist Young Pioneers uniform and returned to his "father," Castro.

The photo of the gun-toting agents and the terrified child defines "bully" exactly.

Related to cowardice is nonviolence. Ostensibly a noble quality, it easily degenerates into a cold indifference to the suffering of one's neighbors.

Some people are truly nonviolent. They live peaceful lives and have peaceful thoughts. They wish to injure no one. If everyone were like them, the world would be a peaceful place. Regrettably, such people appear to be in the minority.

On the contrary, some people who claim to be nonviolent may actually have violent fantasies. But they repress these thoughts and live vicariously through the violence of others.

They are nonviolent not because they believe it is wrong to be violent, but merely because they are afraid to be.

During the Vietnam War they wore Ho Chi Minh T-shirts. And now Europeans reportedly are wearing bin Laden T-shirts. Partly this is due to hatred of America. But also there may be genuine admiration for these apostles of violence and mass murder.

Liberals favor dictatorships over democracies abroad, and criminals over victims at home. This may be why so many on the Left favor the Chinese regime over the Tibetans, the Palestinians over the Israelis, Castro over democratic Cubans, and even Saddam Hussein or bin Laden over George W. Bush.

When liberals were students, their walls were plastered with posters of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Ho, Che and Fidel, just as their counterparts on the Right displayed posters of Hitler and his henchmen.

But fanatics of the Right openly admit their love of violence, while those of the Left rarely do. Instead, they claim to be peace-loving while admiring some of the most violent men in history. How hypocritical.

And why do professors so often favor brutal dictators abroad and criminals at home? Could it be because they feel powerless themselves, so they identify with the powerful and the brutal?

Universities are filled with people who consider themselves the elite, who look down on ordinary citizens as ignorant oafs, and who believe themselves capable of running the world. But their lives actually revolve around giving poor grades to students expressing contrary views, and arguing with colleagues over who teaches which course.

No wonder many academics empathize with ruthless tyrants. No wonder they enjoy the ruthlessness vicariously. They live in their minds, and their squabbles are petty, so they admire men of action – even brutal action.

Liberals' sympathy is used up on criminals; none is left for victims. They agonize over the tiny possibility that an innocent person may be executed. But they are unmoved by the certainty that imprisoned murderers may kill guards or other prisoners, or may be released or escape and kill citizens. This happens so often that it is hardly news.

Surely liberals' exaggerated concern for criminals should raise a suspicion that they empathize with criminals. For people who are supposedly sophisticated and familiar with psychology, they are surprisingly unaware of the implications of their views.

They want to disarm law-abiding citizens in the hope that, eventually, fewer guns will be available to criminals. But they oppose laws requiring the jailing of armed criminals. To them, the former is "gun control," but oddly, the latter isn't. Why?

Why does disarming law-abiding citizens rank so high on liberals' agenda? Is it merely because they find weapons repulsive? Or do they fear that others share their own repressed desire to kill those who disagree with them? They don't trust their fellow citizens – is this a projection of their own fear that they are not to be trusted?

And, of course, armed citizens are hard to bully – by criminals, by terrorists or by governments. Arming citizens disempowers bullies, which is why liberals oppose it. They subconsciously identify with the bullies, not with the citizens. And these are the people who claim to represent the weak.

Liberals tend to favor state government over local, national over state, and world government over national. As with all bullies, the biggest one rules. And these are the people who claim to be for the little guy.

Many liberals (not all) rationalize the cultural genocide of Tibet by claiming that China is "more advanced" and entitled to teach the "backward" Tibetans "modern" methods. And these are the people who claim to believe in multiculturalism.

They rationalize Castro's 43 years of dictatorial rule over the Cubans by noting that he kicked out Batista. So what? John Gotti became a Mafia boss by killing his predecessor, who was surely not a nice man. Does that justify Gotti's crimes?

They can rationalize and excuse nearly anything, no matter how brutal, so long as the tyrants are anti-American, and especially if the regimes call themselves "people's democracies" ? as if a name could wash away the brutality.

Perhaps some liberals subconsciously want to kill those who disagree with them. Perhaps that is why they often call political opponents "Nazis," "fascists" or "Klansmen." Perhaps they assume their opponents want to do to them what they want to do to their opponents.

They would never watch boxing. That would be too "working class," which they profess to admire but in fact despise. Lenin, their hero, called peasants "cattle."

But they furtively enjoy the brutal suppression of political and religious dissidents in China – and fantasize what they would like to do to the "religious Right" here.

They shrug off the 15,000 dissidents killed and the 100,000 jailed by Castro. When I pointed this out to a liberal friend, he quoted Lenin: "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." Yes, but why have so many eggs been broken, and so few omelets been made? It is past time to get rid of the cook.

Liberals see photos of anti-Arafat Palestinians who were shot and hung upside down from telephone poles in the West Bank, but they remain backers of Arafat. Perhaps that is what they subconsciously want to do to people who disagree with them.

All the while, this vicarious savagery is cloaked in the mantle of nonviolence, liberalism and progressive thought.

If an Israeli criticizes Prime Minister Sharon in the harshest terms, he is likely to be given newspaper space – and even may be elected to parliament. Outwardly, liberals admire the democratic process. But inwardly, they may see it as weakness, while Arafat's methods appear more "efficient" by comparison.

After all, how many Israeli premiers have been in and out of office since 1969, while Arafat remains in power as "chairman"? I've lost track. But there have been 10 American presidents since 1959, while Castro remains as Cuban "president."

To a classical liberal, these tyrants-for-life are disgusting throwbacks to primitive times. But to those who secretly admire bullies, they're not so bad at all.

One should be careful for whom he expresses admiration. It is a clue to what he really thinks and what he considers important. It is a window into his mind.

Those who show tolerance or even support for bullies are open to the accusation that they are would-be bullies themselves. And I really can't stand bullies.

Dr. Stolinsky is retired after 25 years of teaching in medical school. He writes from Los Angeles on political and social issues. He may be contacted at dcstolinsky@prodigy.net.

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