The hatreds of the left

I ran into this post on Blogs for Bush in which Mark Noonan quoted an article in the Telegraph about why the Left in the United Kingdom still seethes with hatred for Margaret Thatcher. Here is a sample of the Telegraph piece:

However, last week a light was shone in on my ignorance. A long-time servant of the BBC explained to me, in a moment of stunning insight, why the Leftists in that organization, and the Leftist contributors to it, are so bilious and angry even 16 years after Lady Thatcher left office: it is because they lost. They were wrong. They were humiliated. They have become bores with nothing else to say. They were not, of course, defeated just by Lady Thatcher: the coming down of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War defeated them, too.

Their defeat was then compounded by the speed with which the party of the Left - Labour - abandoned many of its historic principles and, in order to be elected, adopted what can only be described as a Thatcherite consensus. And finally, Mr Blair put the icing on the cake by (we are told) promising that, at her death, Lady Thatcher will be granted the state funeral she deserves.

Consider how angry, how seethingly, dribblingly, incontinently, steamingly angry, you would be if you were a Leftist, as you reflected on the past 25 years or so. First, Lady Thatcher had policies that, after a period of bloody but necessary economic restructuring, improved not merely the growth rate and prosperity of the private sector in general, but also helped create wealth for millions of people who had hitherto owed everything to the state. People suddenly owned their homes, owned shares, and had the freedom to spend more of their disposable income.

Second, her example flashed around a world benighted by socialism, so much so that she remains a heroine in those nations liberated from it. Freedom, choice and prosperity have replaced oppression, uniformity and poverty. Do these people ever ask Poles, or Latvians, whether they wish the clock could be turned back to the age of socialism? How do they explain that things in such lands are so much better, and people so much happier, now?

Finally, why hasn't "their" party undone all the "damage" of Thatcherism? Why do trade union laws remain unrepealed, and industries privatised? Why has there been no uprooting of the property-owning democracy? It is because she was right, and they know she was right. They cannot, however, bear to admit it. All they can do instead is tell lies, call her names and spit with rage. Don't laugh at them. Pity them.

Mr. Noonan draws a parallel between the UK’s leftist elite’s hatred of Lady Thatcher and the American Left’s hatred of Presidents Reagan and Bush:

I actually have met some Brits who, being leftists, assert boldly that Thatcher ruined Britain...what they mean, of course, is that she ruined the British welfare State which the left used to keep people under leftwing control. The left hates being beaten at election time (and thus there frequent resort to voter fraud to prevent same), but they really hate being proved wrong on policy - so, they still hate Thatcher 16 years after she left office, still hate Reagan 18 years after he left office; and they will hate President Bush for decades after he leaves office.

What President Bush has done over the past 5 and a half years is to drive the last few Reaganite nails in the leftwing coffin - by boldly changing US foreign policy in a liberation direction, by cutting taxes, by lifting burdensome regulations - by doing all this while also getting a boom economy without a market bubble or corporation corruption, President Bush has shown once and for all that leftwing policies are wrong - there's just no chance that anyone is ever going to be elected majority powe0r by advocating leftwing ideals...everyone knows they don't work, and that just ticks the left off no end. You'd think that it would make leftists change their minds - and a few do; but most are armored from ear to ear against anything contrary to leftwing ideology.

I tend to agree. The Left will never forgive Reagan for being right in his belief that the Soviet Union should be confronted rather than appeased. They will never forgive him for being right about SDI. They will never forgive him for being right about tax cuts.

In like manner the malignant left hates President Bush. After the first bombing of the World Trade Center President Clinton prattled about criminal prosecutions and asked people not to “overreact”. After 9/11 President Bush moved the battlefield from American cities to the Middle East and liberated two nations with tens of millions of people.

Thanks to President Bush democracy is taking hold in a region which was once home only to despotism and the terrorists (who’s numbers are dwindling due to attrition and demoralization) are fighting our armed and highly trained military forces on Middle Eastern ground rather than our civilians on US soil.

For this the American Left will hate him until the sun is a burned-out cold cinder.