Seeing Evil: The Arms of John McCain

Over in The American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord has just come up with another must-read masterpiece, "Seeing Evil: The Arms of John McCain." This magnificent piece begins with these almost child-like questions:

What did Chamberlain do? What is appeasement?

And what happened to John McCain's arms?

Lord then proceeds to answer the questions in simple, clear, elegant words that should – but won't – be able to penetrate the skulls of even the most doctrinaire liberals.

Read it for yourself, and see if you don't agree. But then picture the reaction that this piece would elicit from, say, a Jimmy Carter, a Nancy Pelosi, or a Barack Obama. THAT's our problem. The liberal mind is different from yours and mine. It operates solely upon emotion, being impervious to both facts and logic. It never learns from its mistakes. Worst of all, it craves power above all else – the kind of power that allows liberals to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.

I suppose some of us could accept that if the results of their meddling were positive. The trouble is, though, their results inevitably range from ineffective through counterproductive all the way to disastrous. The history of the 20th century is strewn with the wreckage of calamities which were allowed, encouraged, or even directly caused to happen by disastrous liberal policies. As Jeffrey Lord reminds us, those liberal policies were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people – because liberals cannot or will not recognize evil when they see it. Nevertheless, given the opportunity, their remedy for our present afflictions would be more of the same.

For several reasons originating from their inordinate love of government, the majority of politicians are liberals. No doubt, it was that type of politician that the inimitable P.J. O'Rourke had in mind when he wrote "Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

Frustratingly for those of us who helped to elect them, even the majority of conservative politicians, who generally go off to Washington or their respective state capitals full of idealism and imbued with conservative common sense, tend to become more and more liberal with time. Apparently, it takes an uncommon degree of strength of character to resist the many temptations and pressures that motivate the majority of "our guys" to gradually become "their guys."

Despite his unusual strength of character as proven by his heroic behavior in circumstances few of us can even imagine, John McCain has most definitely been affected by this liberal drift. Nevertheless, come November, I intend to give him my vote because he is far more likely than his opponent to recognize evil for what it is, then act accordingly.