Dear Editor,
A spectre is haunting America. We live in an age of tolerated discrimination; an age where regressive ideas are deemed progressive; an age where opinions are valued for not being based on facts or logic but feelings.
No, I’m not referring to the ignorant conservatives that popular culture loves to scapegoat. I’m referring to progressive liberals.
Let’s get something straight first: progressive liberalism, or “leftism”, is not actually liberalism; at least, not something that adheres to the original definition and fundamentals liberalism. The core tenets of the original ideology actually align closer with that of conservatism: the belief in small government, egalitarianism, and the protection of constitutional rights for all. So called “progressive” liberals have stained the reputation of liberalism to the point where it must distinguish itself from leftism as “classical liberalism” or “neoliberalism.” America was built on such values—values that are disappearing thanks to supposed “progressives”—which conservatives seek to “conserve,” hence the name. Conservatism is unfortunately associated with cultural conservatism, or traditionalism: the “religious nuts” and “science deniers” as the left calls them. In reality, most conservatives don’t subscribe to traditionalism and rightfully so. It is fundamentally contradictory to political and economic conservatism.
I remember the 2008 presidential election between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain fondly. My first grade class was holding a mock election between the candidates. This was the first time me, or any of my classmates, ever learned about serious politics. I watched debates between the candidates on TV. I would hear McCain defending American values, promising less government, tax cuts, and empowering the individual. Of course, I didn’t understand much as a first grader, but I knew who I would cast my vote for. After I proudly cast my vote for McCain, the teacher counted up the votes and, suprise suprise, Obama won by a landslide in our mock election. As my friends and I discussed the election, I was ridiculed for voting Republican. I was called ignorant, dumb, and greedy simply for defending American values.
From the point on, I considered myself to be a leftist. I thought I was wrong: how dare those greedy Republicans allow the American people keep their hard earned money, money that could be used to help the poor; how dare the bigoted, ignorant Republicans assert their discriminatory, sexist, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, doctrine? And who was I to speak up against the majority? After all, we live in a democracy where the majority rules. How I, a single person, speak up against leftist California?
But here I am, writing this. In middle school, I chose to become more open minded; after reading 1984, I became intrigued with the nature of government. I was especially surprised to find out that big government lays on the left, the ideology I was told that stood up for supposed liberty of the people.
Doing more research, I realized that being a leftist and having a rational opinion based on facts and logic are incompatible.
Especially in the current polarizing political climate, it’s important to objectively understand both sides without conforming to stigmas or strawmans. Surprisingly, leftism is actually a very violent ideology. Just look at groups like AntiFa and Black Lives Matter: they use violence against groups that don’t subscribe to their “progressive” agenda. It’s rather ironic. AntiFa claims to fight against fascism, yet they brutally suppress those that speak against them. One of the most chilling, fascist-y quotes I’ve heard ironically comes from an AntiFa member: “If a person cannot be rationally be debated, you have no other choice than to use a show of force.” That is the most fascist thing I’ve heard anyone say, fascist or not. As for Black Lives Matter, they identify as a modern reincarnation of the civil rights movement. This atheist, violent organization claims to be a continuation of the religious, peaceful Civil Rights movement. At one of Bernie Sanders’ rally, members of BlM hijacked Sanders ‘ microphone and outright called him a “white supremacist.”
One of the most intriguing stories out there is of Daryl Davis, a black blues musician, that regularly attends KKK meetings. He has managed to get 200 KKK members to renounce their membership. In an interview, he says
“Give them a platform. You challenge them. But you don’t challenge them rudely or violently. You do it politely and intelligently. And when you do things that way chances are they will reciprocate and give you a platform.”
One KKK member even said, “I respect this black man more than some white n*****s.”
Let’s get something crystal clear here: I find white supremacism just as distasteful and disgusting as the next person (and probably even more because I understand why their ideology is fundamentally flawed). But my point is, if a group bent white supremacism is more tolerant than progressive groups devoted to “equality,” something is wrong. The last thing I want to do is polarize the political climate even more, but Davis’ view on freedom of speech is conservative. The leftist majority bullies those who stand in the way with their agenda into eventual silence. Those with the courage to speak up get labeled, and could even have their lives ruined.
Of course, the leftist media focuses on an incident where two black men aren’t allowed use a Starbucks’ restaurant and completely ignores countless incidents when white supremacists are denied service at stores or even expelled from universities for simply having the wrong beliefs. Again I am not defending white supremacists (I think I should mention I’m Asian); I’m defending the constitutional right of holding any beliefs you want to without discrimination. Something the left prides itself on, yet it keeps silencing and discriminating against people that hold different beliefs. Look at Germany where it’s literally illegal to be a Nazi. In other words, you can be arrested for having the wrong beliefs. Ironic, since the Nazis did the exact same thing. And what about the #MeToo movement? One disturbing post I’ve found was one that said men need to “shut up and sit down.” Yeah, because you can only be sexually abused if you’re a women. What about the “gender equality” the left advocates for? The problem with tolerated discrimination is that it sets a precedent. Sure, it might be okay to discriminate against conservatives now with leftism being popular, but what if traditionalists come into power? With a history of tolerated discrimination, what’s to stop powerful traditionalist from discriminating against leftists. It’s like the old saying goes: treat others the way you want to be treated.
Not only are ideologies discriminated against, but also facts. Let me explain: there are some issues where the facts of the matter only correlate to one side. That side is not usually leftism.
One such issue is the supposed discriminatory wage gap. There is no evidence that men get paid more than women for the same amount of work. There is an unfortunate misleading statistic spread that women get paid 77 cents for every dollar a man gets paid. This is a common tactic of the left: they tout a superficial fact that proves absolutely nothing. Due to the biological and psychological composition of men and women, both of the sexes have different habits. Men tend to take more risks and seek higher job positions while women tend to take more morally fulfilling, lower-paying jobs. And differences in pay can be attributed to biological differences. Take for instance a study done by Uber, showing that men drivers get paid more because they drive faster than women and thus get more customers and get paid more. Not to mention that men take more dangerous jobs, thus getting higher pay would be justified. In fact, 92% of all workplace fatalities are men. I don’t see leftists arguing for safer working conditions for men. And yet they still have the audacity to claim to be the side of “gender equality.” Let’s suppose for a moment that the discriminatory wage gap did exist. Why then, would businesses have any reason for hiring men? If women can do the same work as men, why don’t they exclusively hire women to make more money (as leftists claim that the greedy bourgeois only seeks to exploit the working class for a profit)? The answer is, there is factually no wage gap.
Or how about the leftist stance on gun control? The ignorance when it comes to guns is astonishing. Like with the wage gap, there are no facts that support higher gun control. I have yet to find a person that can define what an “assault rifle” is. The reality is, no one knows. It’s a made up buzz word spread by the leftist media into scaring the public into supporting their agenda. It’s funny how the same leftists that call Trump a Nazi are the same people that want to enforce greater gun control. The Nazis seized the guns of private citizens in order to prevent a public uprising. That was the original intention of the Second Amendment: to protect the right of private individuals from an oppressive government! Leftists can call conservatives paranoid all they want, but the fact remains that liberal democracies have turned totalitarian many times in history, and to deny this is to be ignorant. And, what are leftists trying to accomplish with “common sense” gun control laws? Over 80% of gun-related murders are by pistols, which are not included in “common sense” gun control which only deals with “assault rifles.” While gun homicides total to no more than 20,000 a year, the number of lives saved by guns are anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million according to the CDC (the reason the gap is so big is because it’s hard to say if a life has been saved). Looking at Switzerland, the country where private gun ownership is only behind the US, it has one of the lowest crime rates per capita out of any European country. It’s better than that of Britain, France, and Germany which all have strict gun control laws. And if saving lives is the priority, then why don’t we ban cars? Cars kill over twice as many people as guns do per year. If leftists were actually concerned with saving lives, they would also be advocating for “car control” but they don’t. The reason is, they don’t care about deaths, they just care about taking away big scary guns they know nothing about. The problem is, this is not a problem about guns: it’s a problem of culture. We’ve had the right to bear arms fairly unregulated for 200 years, so why are mass shootings only recently becoming a problem? Could it be that guns are not the problem? It’s leftist politicians that dabble in gun control that are the problems. If we want to actually protect our schools and children, we need armed personnel on campuses. Hell, jewelry is protected by armed guards, so why not our children? What especially disgusts me is how leftist politicians use students as a way to gain empathy for the anti-gun agenda, not unlike the youth propaganda movements under Hitler and Stalin. The only reason they use our children is because their movements support the progressive agenda. If students started walking out of school demanding less homework and shorter school days, no one would bat an eye.
Leftists complain about a supposed rape culture; if such a culture existed, shouldn’t women have a right to defend themselves? It’s astonishing how hypocritical leftists can be.
The list of cherry-picked statistics goes on with rape statistics. Supposedly 1 in 5 women get raped according to the CDC. How this statistic was obtained is never mentioned by leftists though. The CDC asked people questions such as “Have you had pity sex?” and if they answered yes, that counted as sexual assault. A much more accurate statistics of actual rapes from the FBI puts rapes at about 25.2 individuals at every 100,000.
This is just scratching the surface of leftist hypocrisies.
Leftism is an ideology based in purely feelings. Our youth has been unfortunately indoctrinated in leftist teachings. I don’t expect to convince many people with a splurge of facts, but my point still stands. If leftists chose to keep their feeling-based opinions, that’s fine. However, we need to acknowledge that leftism is no better than the ignorant, religious traditionalists that they condemn.
If any of you are still hesitant about researching about conservatism, I don’t blame you. The traditionalist aspect of conservatism is usually a deal-breaker for most. However, I strongly suggest most people look into an ideology called Libertarianism. It is essentially the modern equivalent of classical liberalism. Good objective right-wing sources are Prager University, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Jordan Peterson. (Don’t worry, there’s no heavy reading. All of them have YouTube videos.)
Class of 2020
Note: This letter is that of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of The Union, students, administration, or Milpitas Unified School District.