The Wolf Unmasked
As I was coming of age throughout high school and college, my favorite classes were always literature and those that involved the social sciences – history, psychology, and sociology. Consequently, I always had a vague interest in the dichotomy of Left and Right as it applied to the manner in which people identified themselves. I’d very often hear many of those around me refer to themselves as a “Liberal” (growing up in Rhode Island will do that), as though this were the proper, enlightened way of viewing the world. I never much immersed myself in trying to get to the root of their way of thinking, however. They always struck me as those who were more interested in the abstractions of life rather than everyday common sense. Above all else, though, it seems to me that we were all taught that those on the Left were those who were “peaceful”, put more emphasis on “understanding” those who viewed the world differently, were those who stood on principles and ideals, and were, of course, those of true intellect. Those who were considered “conservatives” on the Right were angry, intolerant, selfish, mean, in addtion to being people who wanted to shoot others, went to church every Sunday, and were, of course, quite stupid.
As I grew and matured, I came to realize that my values – which certainly struck me as being much more aligned with what America historically represented – were decidedly conservative. As such, I often found myself troubled, because I have never been an angry, intolerant, selfish, mean person who wants to shoot people – though I do go to church. As a thinker, I spent years trying to resolve this seeming obvious contradiction.
The first decade of this century has now validated what I saw as a serious socio-political misunderstanding – one might venture to say deliberately-crafted misunderstanding – in the minds of the American populace, so much so that those who identify themselves as “Liberals” or Leftists don’t even realize what it is that they’ve been led into following. As I began to read more and more about politics and more closely to observe the behavior of those around me, one of my first observations was that those on the Left were just as intolerant, if not more so, than the people to whom they objected. It’s just that they were intolerant of the people to whom they objected. Of course, in their mind, that didn’t seem to matter, because in the end, they were right.
