Blair & Lileks Q&A
Tim Blair has the question on his site today (Or tomorrow. Or yesterday. He's in Australia. It's a whole thing):
My own childhood leftism involved the standard “destroy the state” yowling, as well as loathsome, almost Gonzalez-like opinions about anyone in uniform -- indeed, about anyone not on the Left. It’s time to confess, people!
And, coincidentally, Lileks provides his own unforgettable answer in today's Bleat:
[A]t the college paper we lived in a warm capacious womb, dogpaddling in the amniotic fluid of our unexamined assumptions, writing sentences as bad as this one and thinking ourselves quite clever. These things we knew: Soviet influence in Central America could be blunted by a complete withdrawl of American support; Ronald Reagan was indifferent to the possibility of nuclear war; Europeans were wise rational Vulcans to our crass carnivorous Earthlings, except for isolated throwback horrors like Margaret Thatcher. All new weapons systems were boondoggles that wouldn’t work and would never be needed, and served as penis substitutes for Jack D. Ripper-type generals who probably went home and poured lighter fluid on toy soldiers, lit them with a Zippo and cackled maniacally. A nuclear freeze was the first step to a safer world, because if everyone had 10,237 ICBMs instead of 10,238 we might be less inclined to use them. The Soviets were our enemy only because we thought they were, which forced them to act like our enemy. Soldiers were brainwashed killbots or gung-ho rapist killbots who signed up only because Reagan had personally shuttered the doors of the local steel mill, depriving them of jobs. Of all wars in human history, Vietnam was the most typical. Higher taxes on the rich resulted in fewer poor people. The inexplicable mulishness of big business was the only thing that held back widespread adoption of solar power.
Yep. He omits the fact that government responsibility for people's well-being started at the cradle and ended at the grave, and those who would demand that people actually earn the money to buy their own groceries must just enjoy seeing people starving in the streets. Always in the streets.