Brain Lemon

In yet another reminder of why conservatives should be happy we don’t have most celebrities on our side, the other day no less a luminary than Barbra Streisand penned a piece in the HuffPo, essentially charging the Republican Party of being on the wrong side of history.  In language that could have been mustered by a fourth-grader, Barbra makes the case that the mean ol’ Republicans are standing in the way of “progress,” an intentionally inchoate term that is generally a stand-in for progressive policies.  Get it?  They’re for “progress,” so by opposing them we’re against that.

The vapidity continues as she claims Republicans are against “bettering the lives of the American people.”  Streisand’s case basically comes down to this – by being on the “wrong side” of health care, global warming, financial regulation, etc., Republicans are ensuring they will go down in history as being against all of these wonderful things.  She thinks these positions will cause the GOP to lose elections as voters realize that Democrats are the sole purveyors of Good and Light and thus represent the very definition of “moving forward.”  This is a common theme among liberals in general – that only their ideas are even valid as they alone hold the key to progress.

Now, by itself this column is just standard liberal silliness.  It is by no means well-written, thought-provoking, or worth reading.  However, I think Barbra unintentionally raised an interesting question – who will be on the right side of history?  Will it be the Leftists who endeavor to expand the role of government, or the Tea Party Right who wish to limit it?  Will it be those who think freedom is something dangerous that must be controlled, or something powerful and wonderful that must be protected?  In short, as Michael Barone notes in this piece at NRO, will it be the Progressives or will it be the Founders?

I find it interesting that liberals are so certain they will come out on the right side.  Historically speaking, those who have been in favor of giant government have one thing in common – they tend to produce oppressive societies that are really horrible to live in.  The very best they can hope to achieve is the moribund stagnancy of Europe.  But even in those societies, there still remain vestiges of freedom, and it is by those that they survive at all.  The true realization of the dreams of progressives is in societies like Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela, none of which are especially brilliant beacons of liberty and prosperity.

I also find it intriguing that liberals think they are on the right side with regard to attacking dissent.  People like Frank Rich seem to think that the winning strategy is to slander political opponents and try to vilify honest activism.  In their mind, I suppose, the goal is to so terrify people to speak ill of their goals that people won’t even try.  They seem to desire a slavish society where we all are drones following our Leftist leaders into the future.  That is the only conclusion one can reach by reading the numerous attempts to link decent, hardworking people protesting against government spending to terrorism and violence.  The goal is to scare us into shutting up.

It is my conclusion, then, that those who love freedom have a much better chance to end up on the “right side” of history.  In contrast, the leftists are the people who want to arrest those who disagree.  They wish to impose all sorts of taxes and laws on us and don’t care the slightest if we wish them.  The patriots of today stand on the side of the patriots of then.  By standing up for limited government, we are sticking to the principles of the great men who founded this country.  And we all know how that whole situation turned out.