Rosie O’Donnell’s latest foot-in-mouth outburst got me thinking. She says she “supports” the troops, but disparages them in the same breath. This is normally considered “cognitive dissonance,” but I think I see how it works — and it gives me a bit of insight into the workings of the liberal mind.
It’s because of how people define “support.”
To the left, it seems, “support” is what you give to those who need it. One does not “support” the troops because we owe it to them, that we appreciate what they do, but because they are needy. They are poor, they are oppressed, they are uneducated, and they need the public’s support because they have no choice but so throw themselves into the maw of the War Machine and hope to survive long enough to get some benefits for their sacrifices.
They also “support” the poor. They do this by giving them what they need, never noting that they are instilling a culture of dependence in the poor, making them rely on the handouts from the government and even setting up the system to punish those who try to better themselves. They put ceilings on how much money they can earn on their own without endangering their benefits, setting up situations where many people simply can not afford to work. They make it more economical for parents to not marry. They set up an educational system where more and more money is funneled into bureaucracy and red tape and less and less actually goes towards educating children, to the point where there is an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent on children and actual test results.
They “support” crime victims. They do this by passing more and more laws stripping them of the right to defend themselves, try to scare them into depending on the government for protection, while at the same time fight for the rights of the accused. They denounce tough laws as “draconian” (you can pretty much count on the left to oppose laws like Megan’s Law and “Three Strikes” measures), and talk endlessly about “rehabilitation.”
They “support” illegal aliens. They are fighting to sustain the status quo, where literally millions of illegal aliens are exploited ruthlessly and sustained as a permanent underclass, while Americans and legal residents find themselves having to compete against those who are unfettered by laws governing pay, working conditions, liability, and a host of other factors.
To the left, “support” seems synonymous with “helping those who can’t help themselves, and keeping them helpless.” It’s a gilded cage, and far too many are willing to climb in and pull the door shut behind them.
