The (Guilty) Conscience of a Liberal

In the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech to Columbia University, there have been a raft of columns excoriating Columbia as giving evil a venue. What's interesting is that there have been a raft of articles which basically say "Liberals are children doing what feels good." Today's article, by Dennis Prager, hits those notes with the amount of force we've come to expect from the jerk who prophesied the second Civil War.

But intentions matter little in policy making. Wisdom matters infinitely more. And there is little wisdom on the left.

. . . just as in the disastrous invitation to Ahmadinejad, liberals feel good about their intentions and therefore about their decisions. But few, if any, of those decisions are wise.

So rather than do what feels good (and is dumb) you should do what feels bad (and is smart). No you can, of course, quibble as to the wisdom of creating huge deficits or invading Iraq (and now Iran), but if Conservatives know that their plans are good, why do they feel bad about them.

Because Conservatives know that their plans are going to make life harder on Soldiers, the Working Class, the Lower Middle Class, small business owners, minorities, women, gays, and so on and so forth. Their plans, no matter how wise, are going to entail a certain amount of suffering. Suffering they won't participate in, as it turns out.

So it's no wonder they make a virtue of doing things that feel bad. That feel wrong.