Pig Herder

Belief in a higher power is not always the starting place for a leftist in recovery. For some, it is intellectual honesty. Most recently, the Iraqi election came under attack from the far left in the United States and abroad. British Prime Minister Tony Blair rightly opined that anyone believing in liberty and self-rule could not possibly oppose the election. But leftists were able to do so because of intellectual dishonesty and their belief in ends-justify-the-means politics. Since a successful election in Iraq means a victory for the hated Bush and a vindication of the military, the left must oppose it.

But in opposing Iraqi self-rule, the left must abandon one of its core positions: freedom from tyranny for the oppressed. Those on the left cannot have it both ways, and in continually trying to do so, they expose themselves as the intellectually bankrupt people they really are. Leftists ready to recover must use what recovering alcoholics call rigorous honesty to rid themselves of the habit of “dual think.” The fourth step in AA is a fearless moral inventory, and the folks on the far left who dare to take a fearless intellectual inventory will realize that their dual-think positions are untenable.