Frankenstein's Monster in the real world
The recent edition of Rolling Stone had an interview with '60s radical and gonzo artist extrordinaire Robert Crumb. If you've never heard of Crumb, he's known for his outlandishly weird and often sexually explicit comic art. See the link for examples.
It seems that Mr. Crumb left American shores some years ago, disappointed with the rise of neoconservatism in the '80s, and has spent the last two decades living in France. From there he still creates his zinging "indictments" of American culture (a culture he no longer knows anything, really, about, because he stopped living in it years ago). According to a quote in the article, what we have over here just looks, from there, "like good ol' fascism." Well, of course he'd say this...he was one of those radicals in the '60s who would likely see anything other than perhaps near anarchy as an infringement on our rights. He said that we seem to backsliding toward McCarthyism.
One of the lines in the article really stood out for me:
"It's hard to imagine this after all the changes we made in the Sixties. We thought we had made a revolution, and it would never be the same again."
Spoken like a true liberal.
Crumb and his fellow '60s liberals will, purposely, never realize that it was exactly what they did in the '60s that caused the conservative backlash in the '80s.
By 1980, the segment of the population that wasn't completely enamored of all those changes (most of us, actually), began to realize that the policies created ten or fifteen years before simply weren't working as promised. They demanded changes. The result was a complete repudiation of everything the '60s liberals stood for. That gave us twelve years of conservative Republican leadership (and, I think, would have limited Clinton to one term, if the GOP had produced a stronger candidate in '96).
It often seems to me that liberals are kind of like Victor Frankenstein, chuckling maniacally as they happily go about patching together their creations, absolutely certain in their knowledge that what they're creating will be wonderful and good. Unlike Dr. Frankenstein, however, who realized in the end the monster his creation truly was, and rejected it, liberals studiously refuse to see the faults and problems with their monsters, and how they're damaging our society. They prefer pretending, instead, that nothing is really wrong, and continuing to pat themselves on the back for their good work and progressive policies.
Problems with Affirmative Action? Jobs being unfairly handed out based on race or gender rather than merit or competence?
Feh. Forty years ago, they'd have had no chance to get those jobs at all. Success!
Public schools lacking discipline in the classrooms, scholarship and true scholastic achievement?
Feh. Which is more important: high self-esteem or knowing that the capital of West Virginia is Charleston? Why should we damage our children's self-esteem with such things as low test scores, failing grades and unfair competition? And why punish them for merely testing the limits of their independence? Success!
Profanity edging its way onto television? Sexual content growing more and more explicit as time passes? Self-censorship breaking down?
Feh. Do not attempt to hinder the First Amendment! Success!
Welfare system being abused? People finding ways to game the system and living on public relief for years, even generations? People taking unfair advantage of the very system set up to help them? Taxpayers getting tired of this drain on public funds and of footing the bill?
(This one did trouble them a little, so they tried to make a few small changes in the '90s, which didn't really come to much)
Well, gosh.....that wasn't supposed to happen....they were supposed to simply take the help for a while and then get back on their feet....what happened? Oh, well...Feh. Forty years ago, they wouldn't have had the help at all. Success!
What happened in all these instances was that people took advantage, as they are going to do. It's our nature, sadly, to take advantage of what we perceive as a good thing (it's also been proven that welfare damages the precious self-esteem of its more morally-grounded recipients, but that seems to make no neverminds to its proponents). Liberals, however, simply refuse to include good old human nature in their calculations.
From a full-blown Communist government on down to a simple welfare state as we have, the idealism of the Leftists that support it will always be foiled by simple human nature.
Also, the people who structured the Welfare System designed it to be a almost a trap that is virtually impossible to get out of once you're in it (thus giving themselves job security), but that's another article.
We won't have a sane, easy-flowing system again until the radicals and Leftists of the '60s finally retire and get out of the places of power and influence they now hold (academia, influential government positions, media).
On a more upbeat note, they are getting older, so that will be sometime in the next 10-15 years. On a more downbeat note, they still have 10-15 years more to damage our system and way of life.
"It's alive! It's aaaliiiiive! Ah-hahahahahaaaa!"----Dr. Frankenstein