Prager: "Who has been made a better person after joining a union?"

Yes, but I'm sure Prager would concede that that's not the point of the union. As for its making people into "me me me me me" monsters, I doubt that it does that to more than a limited degree. It does, however, make the total pool into a pool of "me me me me me" monsters, which is bad. The individuals can be credited with teaching for the love of it, but the pool is a hideous thing. What's more, the pool admits renegades who ARE "me me me me me" monsters. They're the ones sitting in the rubber rooms reading comic books.

One of the great moral puzzles of the twentieth and twenty-first century

Prager asks why the left (communism and socialism, he means) does not wear the label of evil that they have so rightly earned.

Stated simply, it's because the left are the ones doing the labeling.

Then he asks if you can name anyone on the left who has lost credibility because of something they said?

There are a few. Generally whenever someone on the left says something horrible, all that is requested of them is that they apologize. Usually when they apologize, they throw in a few "you blockheads misunderstood my wonderful intentions or misinterpreted my innocent words"-type accusations and then all is well, because now it is clearly demonstrated that it's the right wing's evil core that is to blame in the issue.

But let a right-winger misspeak, and we get out the tar and feathers.

Liberal demonstrators and conservative demonstrators

Demonstrators in Wisconsin made it impossible for the elected representatives to get into the capitol and do their job.

It is apparently the first time the public has ever succeeded in shutting down the functioning of a state government. Six million dollars worth of violence, vandalism, and damage. Who is surprised at this?

Police said they "pleaded" with the demonstrators to leave. Pleaded? I've never heard a police officer plead. I don't think the spokesman was lying, I believe they really were pleading.

How come no one carried them out of the building? I can remember a time when demonstrators blocked access to a third-trimester-abortions clinic. They were beaten and their arms were broken and they were dragged, broken and bleeding, into the paddy wagons.

As Prager said, there is NO CHANCE that the press will portray these people as the thugs that they were.

**************************

I'm delighted to learn that the interviewee was Charles Sykes. I've read some of his writing, notably this one:



His newer book, released in 2007, should be just as good:



And just based on the excellence of his writing I'm recommending both his other books:



and another of his books for which Prager interviewed him:



He's really good, and I especially recommend the first one above.

"Love your neighbor as yourself is three thousand years old; do you have a better one than that?"

When the Left apply this to their politics ... er, that's a misstatement right there. They apply their politics to their religion. When they apply what they already presuppose to their religion, they come up with, "The government needs to take your income from you and give it to your neighbor."

It usually doesn't apply to their own income. They shelter that from taxation and hang onto it, and what money they do give away goes most often to sociopolitical causes like Amnesty International or PETA. It's left to the conservatives to give to personal aid like the church food and clothing cupboard or Chrysalis.

By the way, they don't need a better moral statement. They'll quote lines from the Bible just as happily as if they understood what those lines really meant and as if they themselves actually believed them. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," drops from their lips constantly. Of course they mean "support welfare programs" when we conservatives, if we were in our neighbor's shoes, would rather that people teach us how to fish than just throw a pound of fish at us after some sixteen bureaucrats had handled it first.

And we would say we had done more good teaching our neighbor than liberals had done throwing the fish around.

notes on Crossroads School, just for the record

Prager's caller mentioned three nutty things from Crossroads. Just for the record I'm writing them down:

The school required them to call teachers by their first names.

Every year there was a school-wide "coming out" day when boys were invited to wear dresses to school. Mostly it was boys from the drama dept who did so, and the boys from the athletic teams picked on them as a result. So much for "enlightenment".

His senior year, when he was taking an elective on Marxism, the class had to write a 25-page report on the benefits of Marxism.

***

I just wonder how many of the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, Milton, Dryden, Johnson, Swift, Fielding, Twain, Hawthorne, and Dickens they ever ended up reading?

Crossroads' narrow-mindedness

Boy, I tell you, when leftists get an idea into their heads, there is nothing they won't stop at to save the world from any of its evil, mistaken notions.

Consider a conservative teacher. Yes, there are actually such creatures. They go into the profession because they love learning and they want to pass on a similar love of learning to the next generation. They are far less focused on passing on their ideas and conclusions.

Now let's step inside the conservative teacher's head. When he imagines the child of a liberal parent, he sees the parent in the evenings teaching his child that Marxism is good and that men and women are essentially the same. The conservative teacher shrugs, dismisses this unfortunate situation as "That's their right" and moves on.

Now let's look at the liberal teacher. He has gone into teaching for the sake of "fundamentally changing the world." When he imagines a conservative parent, he sees a toothless hick with values that are not just not well-intentioned but which are evil. Gun-toting, Bible-hugging, religion-clinging, SIXHIRBer, in a position to pass on these evil values to their kids. Far from shrugging and letting these values be passed on to the next generation, the liberal teacher needs to rescue the next generation from their own idiot parents. The kids must be rescued.

This extends to any school run by liberals. Crossroads is known as the artsyfartsy school in L.A. and no, it does not have a gleaming reputation as one of the best schools in the area; it's known to be a school run by nuts. When you think of Crossroads, you instinctively think of the "Tell them what you did in [your progressive] school today, Patrick" scene from the Rosalind Russell version of "Auntie Mame".

Of course, the parents who send their children to that obscene, anti-education school have a choice; they could have sent them to the Mirman School or the Curtis School or any Catholic School. When they chose Crossroads, they thought they were opting for a curriculum with creativity and intellectual freedom. They were wrong.

Prager: "They don't have that view."

Calling the president "Dude" has nothing to do with their lack of respect for the presidency. You evidently don't remember how conservative talk show hosts during the Clinton years would get a caller once a week demanding that whether they liked the man or not, they show respect for the Presidency. It was just amazing how on January 20, 2001 all these people vanished from the face of the planet and not one person was left to demand that conservatives show respect for the President.

Snips 'n snails and double standard, of course; that's what little liberals are made of.