A long time ago, I read about the treatment some people in the United States received in the leadup to and early days of World War II. Those were the people who saw, earlier than others, the threat Hitler and Mussolini posed and decided, on their own, to speak out (and in many cases, go abroad to fight) against it. They were quietly labeled as “premature anti-fascists” and viewed as little more than Communists — because at that point, nearly all of those opposed to fascism were Communists.
I am reminded of that today as I look around and I see so many liberals suddenly coming to the shocking realization that several of the things conservatives have been saying for a decade or more just might be true. And instead of admitting that the (the liberals) might have been wrong, they seem to be toying with the same sort of twisted logic that came out of the Roosevelt administration.
A lot of people — not all conservatives, but mostly — have always said that the Clintons are not motivated by lofty principles, but pure, base self-interest. That they will say and do anything, abandon any principle, jettison any person, repudiate any action, that furthers their ends — and those ends are acquiring and keeping political power. We were denounced as kooks and hate-mongers and accused of being part of some “vast right-wing conspiracy” for saying these things.
Well, now the Clintons have discovered a new obstacle in their way, and it’s someone who has won the hearts and minds of a hefty portion of the Democratic Party (as well as quite a few non-Democrats). But Barack Obama has the misfortune of trying to win the presidential nomination in the year that Hillary Clinton has chosen to make her last stab at glory (let’s be realistic here), so he must be destroyed. And destroyed in the way the Clintons do best — by treating him like any other political enemy. By treating him like — of all things — a Republican.
The mask has been torn away, the scales have dropped from the eyes of many of the Clinton’s supporters, and they find themselves moving as fast as a First Lady under Bosnian sniper fire to distance themselves from their former heroes.
Likewise, a large number of us have said for decades that Communist regimes are bad things. That they tend to brutally oppress their own people, and they are eager to conquer liberate other peoples and share with them the glories of totalitarian dictatorships, freeing them from the dreary burdens of liberty and freedom and choices and prosperity. For that, we were scoffed at and mocked and condescended to and written off as paranoid kooks.
Well, all of a sudden a vast many people have drawn the connection between the oppressed and occupied and enslaved people of Tibet with the fact that the people doing the oppressing and occupying and enslaving are the Communist tyrants of China. And they are coupling that with the notion that this summer’s Olympics in Beijing are a chance for those decrepit old Commies to put a big, shiny smiley face on the jackboots they use to keep not only the Tibetans down, but their own people as well — and also use to threaten the people of Taiwan, Japan, and most of their other neighbors.
Oh, the shock and dismay.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “welcome to the club, folks.” Only this time, please don’t punish us for being right too soon about these things?
