Thursday
The Left chases a collective Utopia. While the Utopia constantly changes, it always conforms to some imagined perfection of human existence. The Left’s politics is evangelical and anyone who opposes it must be silenced or, better still, disposed of. There can be no tolerance of divergent points of view.
True believers zealously aspire to a purity of deed and thought. Laws are changed to facilitate the Utopian journey. Anything is justified if it furthers the cause – thus, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and many others. Mass murderers one and all. The Utopian end justifies any means.
The Right believes in individual freedom; even more sinful in the eyes of the Left, it denies the possibility of collective Utopias. Its politics aim toward a balance of individual freedoms and the civic order (law) necessary for those freedoms to flourish. The end never justifies the means. The means must always be judged against the right to the maximum freedom possible of all individuals.
Tolerance of the views of others and support for human rights are not only necessary, they are celebrated virtues. The right of each and every individual to go about their lives in peace is protected by law. Thus, Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
It is far less cool and exciting to promote real freedom than to promise imagined Utopias. That is why the young are so inclined to the Left.