Haight: Monomania Is Illiberal And Stupefying

worth a read.

However, as I've said many times, I find the obligatory shot at the far right tedious. Sure, there there be wackos...just like there are in the far n for all values of n. But I'm sick of this rule:

When you criticize the right, just criticize the right.

When you criticize the left, criticize the right, too.

Haight throws elbows at the (far!) right in his first and last paragraphs. It's not that I disagree. it's, well, just that I'm sick of the rule.

   In fact, basically anybody left-of-center follows another, related set of rules:

No enemies to the left.

But, if you have to criticize the left, don't criticize their ends; only criticize their means. You may say that you think that they're ineffective. Or you may say that you think that they might end up helping the right--i.e. that they are counterproductive.

But don't criticize the left.

   Those rules and the mindsets surrounding them are among our biggest problems. Almost everyone welcome in allegedly polite society assumes that, deep down, the left is good and, deep down, the right is bad. And there's not much hope for you until you get rid of that--utterly, entirely, fantastically--false belief.

   In fact, if anything, it's likely the opposite... But most probably not anything. That is: probably neither side is much different from the other...y'know...deep down... But the far right isn't an issue. Everybody hates the far right. Even the right hates the far right. The far right has no power at all--until a couple of them snap and start shooting people. And all that does is strengthen the left, really. 

   OTOH, the far left controls the left...and the left controls all our institutions. The right spends a fair bit of time letting everyone know that it hates the far right. There's no Nazi "squad" in the GOP. The far left is ensconced in academia, and in the activist class (but I repeat myself), and it sets the tone and the ends and creates the conceptual frameworks and the vocabulary of the progressive left. The far left is the vanguard of the left. The far right is hated and vilified by everyone. 

   And yet, few people even acknowledge the existence of a far left in America. In fact, the far left really just is our left now. But few people even seem to recognize that. Much less take analogous obligatory shots at it whenever they criticize the right. 

   Oh yeah...Haight has some good points, too. 

   But you know me...