October 25, 2005
The Difficulty of Intellectually Engaging the Left
By Dennis
Prager
One of the more appealing
aspects about being on the Left is that you do not necessarily
have to engage your opponents in debates over the truth or falsehood
of their positions. You can simply dismiss your opponent as "anti."
Anti-worker: It all
began with Marxism. If you opposed communism or socialism, you
were not merely anti-communist or anti-socialist, you were anti-worker.
This way of dismissing opponents of leftist ideas is now the norm.
Anyone, including a Democrat, who raises objections to union control
of state and local politics is labeled anti-worker: "anti-teacher,"
"anti-firefighter," "anti-nurse," etc. This
is how the unions are fighting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
attempts to rein in unauthorized union spending of members' dues
to advance leftist political goals. He is depicted as an enemy
of all these groups.
Anti-education: Those
who object to the monopoly that teachers' unions have on public
education and to their politicization of the school curricula
are labeled "anti-education." Of course, the irony is
that if you love education, you must oppose the teachers' unions.
Anti-intellectual:
If you object to the dwindling academic standards at universities,
or to the lack of diversity in ideas there, you are dismissed
as "anti-intellectual." Given the universities' speech
codes, the intellectually stifling Political Correctness that
pervades academia, and the emotionalism that characterizes most
leftist views on campus (American "imperialism," Israeli
"apartheid," "war for oil" are emotional outbursts,
not serious positions), if any side seems to express anti-intellectualism,
it would be the Left.
Anti-Semite: Leftists
who attack Israel frequently claim that they are shut down by
irresponsible charges of anti-Semitism. The claim is that people
who criticize Israeli government policies are labeled anti-Semites.
I have never come across a normative conservative or any other
pro-Israel source that has labeled mere criticism of Israel as
anti-Semitic. It is those who single out Israel of all the nations
of the world for intense criticism, those who argue that Israel
has no right to exist as a Jewish state (that it is, by definition,
a "racist" state) who are sometimes charged -- and sometimes
validly so -- with anti-Semitism.
What is rarely noted
is how often the Left will label anti-liberal comments as "veiled
anti-Semitism." A left-wing Jew at a Jewish seminary sent
out an e-mail charging Ann Coulter with anti-Semitism. His grounds?
All of her attacks on liberals were really attacks on Jews. That
she herself never made such a connection and that the vast majority
of liberals are not Jews mean nothing to those who believe that
"anti-liberal" often means anti-Jew.
Anti-black ("racist"):
Perhaps the most common of the Left's "anti" epithets
is "anti-black," i.e., "racist." If a person
opposes race-based affirmative action, for example, he is likely
to be called a racist. And, of course, the recent libeling of
Bill Bennett as a racist was a classic example. Though he and
his wife have done more for blacks than most people in public
life, black or white, Bennett implied while making another point
(about abortion) that blacks were disproportionately involved
in violent crime. This is a statistical fact and a sociological
tragedy. But because a conservative made the point, the charge
of racism permeated the (liberal) media.
Anti-woman: If you
oppose any aspect of feminism, you are likely to be called anti-woman
or "misogynist." If you oppose "equal pay for equal
work" because you believe it undermines economic freedom,
you're anti-woman. If you oppose abortion on demand because you
believe that the human fetus has a right to live, you are against
women's rights.
Anti-peace: The very
fact that anti-war and "peace" activists have labeled
themselves "pro-peace" and "anti-war" renders
their opponents vulnerable to charges of opposing peace and even
loving war. Again, no intellectual argument is needed. According
to much left-wing rhetoric, those who support the war in Iraq
do not love peace. Of course, there was no peace in Iraq prior
to the American deposing of Saddam Hussein, and there would be
far more bloodshed if America now left Iraq. But it is far harder
to engage those arguments than to label those who make them "anti-peace."
Anti-gay (homophobe):
It is the rare proponent of same-sex marriage who acknowledges
that it is possible to oppose this redefining of marriage yet
affirm the equal humanity of gays. Overwhelmingly, the response
to those who wish to maintain the normative way of forming a family
-- basing it on a married man and woman -- is to simply declare
them "homophobic."
The same is true
for conservative policies on the economy -- "anti-poor"
-- and for opposition to any leftist policy on the environment
-- "anti-environment."
The "anti"
arguments are effective. Conservatives have to spend half their
time explaining that they are not bad people before they can be
heard. But the Left has paid a great price. Because they have
come to rely so heavily on one-word dismissals of their opponents,
they have few arguments.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
