Leaving the Left

Posted May 25, 2005, 11:57 a.m.

I saw this on Sunday, and haven’t gotten around to mentioning it until today. I thought I’d let a [former?] liberal explain my feelings about the so-called ‘progressives’ that seem to have completely lost their bearings in this country. Give it a read; Keith Thompson says it better than I can (although I’m about to say it anyway).

Many say that the country is ‘moving right’—some have said the same about me as my views fall more and more in line with the ‘conservatives’—but that’s not the case at all. The Republican Party is largely run by moderates today (pro-immigration, pro-equality, and generally quite progressive as compared to their predecessors), while the Democrats ramble on about racial quotas and how spreading freedom and prosperity is somehow bad.

Leaving the left (San Francisco Chronicle).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Should one point out that, from ancient times, decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

We hear only half of what is said to us, understand only half of that, believe only half of that, and remember only half of that.

Without justice, mercy would be indifference to wrong: without mercy, justice would be vindictive.

You have to risk failure to move forward.

Then all explanation arises a posteriori; once the picture already exists as phenomenon.

The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.

And he who lives a hundred years, idle and weak, a life of one day is better if a man has attained firm strength.

Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value.

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.

Arrogance and reproach have now become strong; it is a time of ruin and furious anger. Now, my children, show zeal for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of our fathers.

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle, the sheet-anchor of American republicanism.

They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess.

Thus while walking along the road one needs not to be thinking of the end at every step.

Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensable contribution of marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple.

In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.

Simplicity is the sign of truth.

Wherefore, any good or evil, done to the member of a society, redounds on the whole society: thus, who hurts the hand, hurts the man.

God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor.

We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.

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