BY DAVID LIMBAUGH

THE PERPLEXITIES OF LIBERALISM

On certain issues I think I can at least partially understand the liberal mindset. On others I am at a complete loss.

Though I don't agree, I believe I understand, for example, why many liberals believe they have an inside track on compassion, if not a monopoly. These are a few of the things, though, that I don't understand about liberals (generally speaking, of course, and allowing for numerous exceptions):

  -- Why they have such a learning disability regarding the abject evils of Communism; how they thought the Cold War was largely a product of conservatives' irrational fear of Communsim;

  -- Even if they thought the United States had no business assisting South Vietnam in the Vietnam War how they could carry it to such an irrational extreme as to glorify the North Vietnamese and Cambodian butchers; 

  -- How they could similarly turn a blind eye to the genocide of the Soviet Union;

  -- How they can possibly romanticize Fidel Castro;

  -- How they oppose capital punishment -- even in cases when they are sure that the convict is guilty beyond any doubt-- yet register not an ounce of hesitation at the killing of millions of babies in the womb, when they know that those babies have to be the most innocent creatures of all of God's creation; 

  -- How they think that conservatives who oppose abortion (killing of the innocent) but favor capital punishment (killing of the guilty) are the ones who are inconsistent;

  -- Why their sympathies lie with manifestly guilty characters like Gary Graham;

  -- How they profess to eschew moral absolutes then turn around and enforce the rigid and twisted standards of political correctness with an inflexible vengeance; similarly, how they decry conservative intolerance, yet demonstrate unparalleled intolerance toward the conservative viewpoint;

  -- How they can characterize conservative opposition to special rights for homosexuals as hatred for homosexuals, or even more preposterously as fomenting violence against homosexuals.

  -- How those of them in the mainstream media can be embarrassingly oblivious to their liberal bias. How Bryant Gumbel, for example, can ask with a straight face whether a certain person is a liberal or a racist, implying the two are mutually exclusive and that conservatives are racists; 

  -- How that same Bryant Gumbel can say that he reports with no political bias so that his viewers cannot discern his political views;

  -- How they can fool themselves into believing that their morality is defined more by the political policies they advocate than the way they conduct their lives;

  -- How they can be so conserva-phobic that they will defend Bill Clinton, no matter what the transgression; 

  -- Why they are not at least demanding more answers from the administration about the apparent link between Chinese campaign contributions and a relaxation in our nuclear security leading to China's acquisition of most of our nuclear secrets -- it will affect their children, too;

  -- Why they are not concerned about the Department of Justice's usurpation of congressional prerogatives, especially in cases where Congress has deliberately chosen not to act, such as the government's lawsuits against gun manufacturers to coerce them into "voluntarily" adopting gun control measures.

  -- Why they are not alarmed at the government's confiscation of millions of acres of private property; 

  -- How they can possibly assume that conservatives are opposed to clean air and clean water, or are in the pockets of big-business, just because they oppose radical environmental policies based on unproven, if not junk science;

  -- Why they don't understand that by constantly playing the race card and invoking affirmative action solutions, they are exacerbating rather than alleviating unnecessary distinctions and problems between races;

  -- Why they don't have a healthier respect for the Second Amendment and choose to demonize weapons themselves rather than those who harm people with them;

  -- How they can continue to believe that throwing yet more money at education will improve its quality while opposing educational choice, a solution that would certainly enhance education and benefit minorities;

  -- How they can possibly oppose strategic missile defense considering the volatile and dangerous world in which we live.

While this list is certainly not exhaustive, if I could get satisfactory answers to even some of these questions, I might have a key to the baffling perplexities of liberalism.

©2000 Creators Syndicate