Features

The Stupidity of the Political Left By MICHAEL LARRICK Letter to the Editor

Friday January 28, 2005

THE STUPIDIPTY OF THE POLITICAL LEFT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As our great nation marches steadily to the Right, the political Left is scratching its’ collective head trying to figure out why. They stubbornly blame their consistent and substantial electoral losses on the supposition that they are not getting their message out. The fact is that the Lefts’ melancholy and always predictable message is getting out loud and clear, but being rejected. 

The American public is maturing beyond the Left’s naive approach to social ills and is increasingly dismissing pillars of Leftist ideology such as political correctness, which most often requires the complete suspension of reality to be believed. Accepting personal responsibility is considered taboo as “society” is faulted for everything and the honorable badge of victim hood is draped around the necks of everyone from criminal junkies to the obese. 

Your story on the long troubled Harriet Tubman Apartments illustrates beautifully, at the local level, why the Left is not trusted on national security. Political correctness trumps common sense and denies reality, which then makes it impossible to identify and solve a problem. 

I have not had a Leftist lobotomy so I am still able to ask a tough question and accept the answer. How is it that the sweet and gentle old folk of Berkeley live in a senior housing project which is, and has long been plagued with crime and drug problems? Are the residents causing the trouble? Are the children of the residents or other family relatives responsible?  

In fine Leftist tradition, neither Max Anderson or Kriss Worthington demand any accountability or explanation from the seniors. Apparently the greedy, for-profit (dirty word) Century Pacific Housing Partnership was getting them hooked on drugs to maximize profits. Perhaps they were forced to sell drugs to make up for the money that George Bush stole from them. Common sense (dirty word) tells us that the residents of the apartments cannot all be innocent victims. For these conditions to prevail their must be some culpability. 

But let’s suspend reality and accept that they are all innocent victims. Then the blame for not protecting the most needy and vulnerable among us falls squarely on the shoulders of the Berkeley Housing Authority and the Berkeley Police Department. What type of system could allow such a horrible situation to fester and grow? It is shameful! What has rendered the police impotent to stop criminal behavior and provide security? Could it be that their hands are tied by the Leftist policy directives which promote “tolerance” to the point of absurdity? Who are the drug dealers and who are the criminals responsible for the problems? If you can’t ask the question because you may not like the answer you can never solve the problem. Thankfully there are those in this country who have not lost their common sense and they are beginning to make their voices heard. The Left in this country today, do nothing but whine, complain, and make excuses. The only answer they provide to today’s problems is a demand for more money to feed their failed and corrupted programs. The message which the Left is sending out is the best recruiting tool the Republicans ever had.  

Michael Larrick