Posted by
Gamecock on Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:58:55 PM
(Gamecock's second dead tree MSM column of February 13, 2007 is reprinted with permission of The Charlotte Obsever)
Democrats have lost the compassion and will to bear burden for liberty
MIKE DEVINE
Special to the Observer
"I don't care about the people of Iraq."
I was shocked when that statement was made to me last year by a Democrat friend.
I shouldn't have been!
That quote pretty much sums up the moral bankruptcy of modern-day liberalism and my former party today.
The sentiment expressed in that quote is consistent with the giggles I heard from fellow liberal Democrats in 1983 in reaction to President Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech.
I was also shocked then. I shouldn't have been!
The best reason for why I should not be shocked occupies the receptionist chair in my SouthPark office.
She is a descendant of the Hmong people of Laos who were allies of the United States until the government of South Vietnam fell in 1975. Massive slaughter of millions followed at the hands of the North Vietnamese communists and Cambodia's Pol Pot. More than 300,000 Laotians, mostly Hmong, fled. But thousands of Hmong continued to fight against the evil of communism; hundreds of their guerilla fighters surrendered only last month.
In 1975 I was an idealistic teen animated by the "Bear any burden for the cause of liberty" rhetoric by President John F. Kennedy, complimented by the "Love they neighbor" rhetoric of Jesus Christ, but quite ignorant of the details of the Vietnam War. I was a self-identified liberal anxiously awaiting my 18th birthday so that I could actively participate in my grandfather's party.
Eyes averted from slaughter
Sadly, almost from the beginning of my political activism, I had to reconcile the irreconcilable, i.e. the rhetoric of JFK with the reality of the words and actions of the flower children of the 1960s and the McGovernites who took over the party. Democrats cut off funds from our South Vietnamese allies, averted their eyes from the slaughter and celebrate their role in "ending the war" as one of their greatest accomplishments even to this day. I shamefully averted my ears from the liberal Democratic giggles at Reagan's notion of good and evil until the summer of 2001.
The "conservative epiphany" came as a result of confronting what I knew in my heart was true as I read Reagan's letters and speeches and books about his long war against communism. Reagan cared so much for the oppressed that he even deemed the policy of containment to have immorally sentenced half the globe to slavery. He told the so-called "realists" in 1981 that henceforth, American policy toward the Soviet Union would be "We win, they lose."
This was the liberal I had been looking for.
Did liberals stop caring about the oppressed when their hero was assassinated in 1963 or when they faced the draft board in 1968?
When I was an idealistic teenager, it was a given that America was good, that totalitarianism was evil, and that what America should be most proud of was our liberation of the oppressed. I still consider this a given.
The post-Watergate liberal Democrat Congress was warned of the likelihood of falling dominoes of slaughter in 1975, but they chose to avert their eyes. Many warn that the same fate will await the Iraqis if we abandon them a second time.
Will we betray Iraqis?
One of the most credible is John Burns, war correspondent for The New York Times, who covered genocide in Bosnia.
Asked to compare the situation there with Iraq, he said, "There's all likelihood if the United States withdraws its forces that there will be a great deal more killing."
Of course, I don't need Burns to tell me that betrayal is wrong, especially when greeted daily by my Hmong receptionist.
My eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul tell me that the most powerful nation on earth must love its neighbors enough to bear any burden for liberty, especially when it is so inextricably tied to our own liberty and, especially, our honor.
I care about the people of Iraq and my country's soul.
This conservative never lost his liberal heart.
Mike
DeVine
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Observer community columnist Mike DeVine is vice president of Intequity Inc., a Charlotte-based marketing firm, blogs as "Gamecock" at http://gamecock.townhall.com, www.race42008.com, and http://www.theminorityreportblog.com and is legal editor for http://www.hinzsightreport.com.
Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at mikedevinelaw@yahoo.com.