| As I watched jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets on CNN, free to vote for the first time in 50 years, I couldn't help but feel their joy. They are a brave and fine people, not letting bullets and death threats stop them from practising their new freedom. I remember the last Canadian federal election, where I asked a liberal friend of mine if he would vote. "I'd like to, but I have my routine. I need my Tim Horton's in the morning, I'm working in the day and I'm watching Friends tonight." Over here, in Calgary, in our safe, pampered suburban reality, the threat of missing a double-double in the morning is enough to keep voters away from the polls. In Iraq, where they are a little more familiar with the value of freedom than we spoiled Canadians, since they have lived with the reality of brutal oppression, bullets wouldn't stop them from exercising their freedom.
Then I remembered the inane, left-wing article Fast Forward published last week, "All about George," by David Bright (Viewpoint, Jan. 27-Feb. 2, 2005). The piece slandered Mr. Bush's "curious vision of the world" and obsession with "ending tyranny." Yeah, real curious, like people being free to elect their own leaders, to control their own destinies. How curious it is that even with American guns in their faces, and their country devastated by American bombs, ordinary Iraqis still seem to agree with Mr. Bush's curious vision of the world – and put their lives on the line to prove it.
The political left in Canada not only missed the boat on this one, but they are still on the dock, wondering where the boat is. Using a bit of Jesuit logic, since the left is against someone trying to end tyranny and allow freedom to vote, the left must be, then, for tyranny and against the freedom to vote. How curious. Or could it be that their own anti-American prejudices run so deep, it clouds their view of reality? Oh, wait, I thought the left was against prejudice. Not anymore, apparently, so long as the objects of contempt are white, religious American males, like Mr. Bush. How curiously revolting and narrow-minded.
Even more curious is that I am old enough to know from experience that a generation ago, the political left was the vital centre of political intellectual life, with many progressive policies, like women's rights and rights for minorities. Now they are brain-dead reactionaries on international geopolitics, taking their cues from social leaders like Ben Affleck and Britney Spears, and such assorted Hollywood intellectual luminaries and profound thinkers on international geopolitical trends and ideas. Myself, as a conservative, I prefer Natan Sharansky, an intellectual born in the old Soviet Union, who spent some time in the Russian gulags, and is a little more familiar with the true nature of dictatorships than shopping mall intellectuals. Lest Mr. Bright still think this war is all George Bush's doing, he should try reading The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, where Mr. Sharansky laid forth the ideas that Mr. Bush, his disciple, follows religiously.
As a conservative, who believes in conserving freedom for all, and as a Canadian, I was deeply embarrassed by Paul Martin going to China and failing to mention the many brutal human rights violations by the Chinese government – against their own people and against the peaceful people of Tibet. Voices within the federal Conservative Party are the only ones who speak out against dicators anymore. Having a strong preference for courage and freedom over gutless appeasement of brutal oppressors, I am surprised to find that, at middle age, this old liberal has become a conservative. The great British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, once said that if a man is not a liberal by the time he's 20, he has no heart. If he's not a conservative by the time he's 40, he has no brain. I wonder how old Mr. Bright is?
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