Dear Hillbuzz,

A strange thing happened today. I was surfing around the ‘net and came across four articles – two from the Right and two from the Left – all dealing with how the Left views the Right. Each is interesting in its own right, but taken together, I think they’re not just interesting, but also truly illuminating.

1) The Weird Failure of the Left By Robin of Berkeley – March 03, 2010

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/the_weird_failure_of_the_left.html

Robin (a recovering Leftie psychotherapist) fom Berkeley (yes, that Berkeley) is one of my all-time favorite authors at American Thinker. If you haven’t read any of her stuff, I recommend you go to:

http://www.americanthinker.com/robin_of_berkeley/

and read from the bottom up. She’s writing in a kind of diary form, so it’s helpful to follow her narrative from the beginning.

In her latest piece, she describes how and explains why the Left demonizes the Right as a bunch of violent, whacko Enemies of the State.

The expression “weird failure” comes from the last line of a favorite poem of hers by the Sufi poet Kabir that was written 600 years ago, which she feels captures the radical Left. I’m not sure I entirely understand the poem … but, hey, it’s poetry, so maybe I shouldn’t worry about understanding so much as just feeling it.

And what I feel is this:  God willing, Robin and Kabir are correct and the seeds of the Left’s destruction are built into everything they do.

2) The Smartest Guys in the Room? By Carol Peracchio – March 2, 2010

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/the_smartest_guys_in_the_room.html

Carol Peracchio is an RN who writes here about the anger and contempt that Leftist Joe Klein expresses for all Tea Partiers in:

3) “It’s Her Party: The Brilliance of Sarah Palin” by Joe Klein

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1963564,00.html

And finally,

4) Why We Need to Have Empathy for Tea Party Lunatics By Michael Bader – March 2, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/news/145848/why_we_need_to_have_empathy_for_tea_party_lunatics

Bader is a not-recovering Leftie psychotherapist from San Francisco, so the perfect counterpoint to Robin.

And right from the get go, he makes not a lot of sense.  I mean … “empathy” for “lunatics”? What does that MEAN?

  • empathy: (n) Understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts, and motives of one are readily comprehended by another.
  • understand: (v) To comprehend the meaning intended or expressed by another.
  • comprehend: (tr. v.) To grasp mentally; understand or know.

Okay, that’s pretty clear. To have empathy for another, one must first seek to intimately understand — to comprehend mentally — the feelings, thoughts, motives and meanings of the other.

  • lunatic: (adj) Insane.
  • insane: (adj.) Of, exhibiting, or afflicted with persistent mental disorder.

Umm … SERIOUSLY?  He thinks Leftists should seek to intimately comprehend the motives and meanings of crazy people? Diagnose with the intention of helping, I can see. But climb inside the heads of people who are out of touch with reality? I don’t think so.

And in fact … it is obvious from reading the article that he doesn’t mean “empathy” at all. What he means is “patronize” or “condescend” to.

  • patronize: (tr. v.) To treat in an offensively condescending manner.
  • condescend: (intr. V.) To come down voluntarily to the level of inferiors with whom one is dealing.

Take the first sentence:

These Tea Party folks seem to most liberals — well, to most of us who live in the “reality community,” or, as I like to call it, “reality” — like crazy f***ers.

Yes, well … that really sums it up. “Progressives are sane. Tea Partiers are crazy f***ers.” I’ll give him credit for calling us partiers, not baggers, but he and the site lose points for not only using the F word, but for spelling it out.

You can go there and read the in between if you’re not suffering from high blood pressure or hoping to go to bed soon. It’s very heavy on “why I know loads about paranoia, cuz I’m a shrink” and very light to the point of transparency on “why people who join the Tea Party are ipso facto paranoid to the point of mental illness.” I’ll warn you though … THIS is what passes for intellectual discourse at this site:

INSERT GRAPHIC: 2010_03 03 Screenshots from AlterNet

I’m just going to skip to the end of Brader’s article where Mr. I’m-a-Progressive-Shrink-So-WAY-Smarter-Than-You-About-Everything-Important explains what he thinks Progressives should do to rescue vulnerable new Tea Party members before they drift so far into Right Wing “paranoid political positions that are dangerous and cruel” that there’s no longer any hope of changing them.

[Honestly, he makes it sound like we all got recruited at a bus station by the latest incarnation of Jim Jones or David Koresh. You’d think that a certified shrink would know that this kind of cult brainwashing requires isolation and close contact.]

Here it is. The Gem of Wisdom:

To the extent we want to reach people who are drawn to Tea Party, patriot, libertarian, and other right-wing movements but are not yet hard-line ideologues, or prevent others from becoming so, we have to … get inside their heads, figure out how their choices are reasonable from their point of view … get into relationship with them.

But not … and he stresses this … NOT by demonstrating

a genuine curiosity … about their paranoid theories.

Heavens no.  That would be like … oh, I dunno … trying to UNDERSTAND us, wouldn’t it?  ::snort::

What he proposes is that they (The Wise Progressives Who Inhabit Reality) figure out

the underlying pain and fear

that drives our need to sink into the paranoid, cult-like fantasy world of the Right Wing. [Who knew that holding to values that used to be standard fare for society is now proof positive of mental derangement?]

Bader then concludes,

In this way, perhaps we can figure out how to speak to that pain and fear in ways that are both authentic and comforting. Perhaps we can figure out what experiences they might need to have in order to feel safe enough to at least listen to another narrative: ours.

Wow. Is he condescending or what? And what if the experiences we had that filled us with all this pain and fear were, oh I dunno … falling for their hopeychangey “narrative” in the first place?

And umm, didn’t the Soviets have a similar system?

If you don’t agree with us you’re either crazy (lock ‘em up in the loony bin) or evil (send ‘em to the gulag).

[Lucky us, Michael Bader “has written extensively on issues at the interface of psychology, culture, and politics” and we can all go partake of his infinite wisdom at his website at www.michaelbader.com. Or not.]

Getting back to “weird failure”, I gotta say there’s a flaw in Bader’s plan that we could march the whole Tea Party through. Namely, we’re not that dumb. Patronizing condescension stands out a mile and it’s just as annoying now as it was when Great-Aunt Tessy did it to us back in the second grade.

Hugs, Chrissy