How the Left Got Dumb

Charles Rangel, portly Mussolini of the left, argues for the draft. He bases his argument on his claim that the military is primarily comprised of minorities from poor backgrounds. But the Heritage Foundation has had no trouble uncovering facts that flatly refute Rangel's claims. The proportion of Whites in the military is roughly the same as in the nation as a whole, and recruits come from neighborhoods that are slightly more affluent than average. In other words, Rangel's arguments are dumb.

David Smick, writing in the Weekly Standard, reports that Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, argues that it is naive to believe in "comparative advantage" anymore. Yet Gary Hufbauer estimates that the United States is one trillion dollars richer each year because of globalized trade. Perhaps Secretary Rubin also argues that it is naive to believe in the law of gravity or the laws of supply and demand these days as well. In other words, Secretary Rubin advocates dumb economics.

Gateway Pundit reports that Nancy Pelosi states that she doesn't believe that much of the violence in Iraq is perpetrated by al Qaeda although al Qaeda takes credit for it. Ms. Pelosi does not offer any convincing theory as to who is perpetrating the violence, demonstrating utter ignorance of the realities of the Middle East. It is sad that the Democrats do not seem to be able to absorb the simplest historical and religious scholarship about the Middle East. In short, Nancy Pelosi's ideas about the Middel East are uninformed and dumb.

Flopping Aces Blog reports that the Associated Press has been describing a source, Police Captain Hussein, as a police captain. But the individual is not a police captain. The AP cannot get its sources straight. Isn't it sad that the AP is so dumb.

In today's New York Sun Marcus Plieninger provides an explanation. The left has dismissed reason and community and replaced them with narcissism and nihilism. The left is not just disloyal to the United States; it has rejected the possibility of loyalty to anything other than its own peer group. The left does not just refuse to tolerate conservatives; it aims to suppress and destroy rationality itself. This can be seen in its most refined form in our universities, where courses are offered on the subjects of cartoons and hip hop music; and terrorists are heroes. After decades of arguing that facts are unimportant; that difficult courses are irrelevant; and that mathematics is culturally biased, the left no longer produces thinkers or leaders who are capable of rational thought.

The psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg has argued that people go through stages of moral maturity. Kohlberg claims that there are six stages of moral growth. The most infantile is fear of punishment, followed by an emphasis on exchange agreements with friends, followed by conformity to peer groups. This third level is associated with adolescence. It is also characteristic of the liberal/left, the Liberal Borg.

Is it possible that left wing ideology is associated with stunted mental and moral development? It would seem that the left's emphasis on unfettered utilitarianism ("the ends justify the means") is indeed symptomatic of stunted mental, moral and emotional growth.