Why Liberals Think as They Do: A Story That Must Be Told
Why is it – I’ve been asking myself – that most of my liberal friends believe some of the things that they believe? Why, when faced with so much evidence to the contrary, on an entire range of issues, do they come down on the side that they come down on? Why do these folks, all of whom I either love or respect a great deal, so consistently come up with non-solutions to so many problems facing us all?
To try and answer this extremely vexing question, I started out on a long journey of research – one that would take me to places that I had not known about prior to this. Finally, after months and years of work and effort, I’ve found what I believe to be an important part, but only a part, of the answer.
What my journey led me to is, as it turns out, Ideology.
But, more than merely finding ideology at the end of my quest, I found a true story about people, conflict, war, espionage, sexual excess, intellectual dishonesty, incredible misfortune, a “school of thought” known as the Frankfurt School, and lot and lots of individuals, all with their own ideas about life and happiness, but all who share a common connection – to ideology.
Everyone thinks about their own happiness (or lack thereof) and everyone is in one way or another trying to gain more happiness as they go through life. However, what I’ve discovered is that when your primary guide to happiness is ideology… YOU’RE BOUND TO GET LOST! In the end, Ideology is just a delusion.
We may have seen ideology in action shortly after the attacks on 9/11 when the Bush administration, some would argue, was manipulated by a group of Neo-cons over the idea that Saddam Hussein (leader of Iraq) possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Whether he possessed these weapons is still not entirely clear, as many analysts say that Saddam simply shipped them over to Syria in the run-up to the war.
Either way, in George Bush’s mind, American’s needed to be convinced that war was the only option to Saddam’s continued threats, plans and aggression. If the US citizenry would not support the idea of invading Iraq, the Neocons might have thought, then maybe it could be made more palatable if someone yelled “He’s got a gun!” as the US Army burst through the Iraqi door. Without the “gun” being present, there is less reason (or possibly no reason at all) to go in.
