By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
There are many liberals who lead thoroughly decent lives.
And there are conservatives who do not.
But that is not the whole issue.
There is something about liberalism that is not nearly as
true about conservatism. The further left one goes, the more one finds that the
ideology provides moral cover for a life that is not moral. While many people
left of center lead fine personal lives, many do not. And left-wing ideals
enable a person to do that much more than conservative ideals do.
There is an easy way to demonstrate this.
If a married -- or even unmarried -- conservative
congressman had texted sexual images of himself to young women he did not even
know, he would have been called something Anthony Wiener has not been called --
a hypocrite.
Why? Because conservatives -- secular conservatives, not
only religious conservatives -- are identified with moral values in the
personal sphere, and liberals are not. Liberals rarely called Bill Clinton a
hypocrite for his extramarital affair while president. George W. Bush would
have been pilloried as such.
Simply put, we do not generally judge personal conduct
the same when it comes to liberals and conservatives.
Both liberals and conservatives know this. As a result,
as noted, liberal social positions can provide moral cover for immoral behavior
in a way that conservative positions cannot.
Though there are many sincere liberals, it is likely that
this ability to provide moral cover for a less than moral life is one source of
liberalism's appeal.
I first thought about this when I saw how the left-wing
students at my graduate school, Columbia University, behaved. Aside from their
closing down classes, taking over office buildings, and ransacking professors'
offices, I saw the way in which many of them conducted themselves in their
personal lives. Most of them had little sense of personal decency, and lived
lives of narcissistic hedonism. Women who were involved with leftist groups
have told of how poorly they were treated. And one suspects that they would
have been treated far better by conservative, let alone religious, men on
campus.
My sense was that the radicals' commitment to
"humanity," to "peace," and to "love" gave them
license to feel good about themselves without having to lead a good life. Their
vocal opposition to war and to racism provided them with all the moral
self-esteem they wanted.
Consider the example of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
He had been expelled from college for paying someone to take his exams. His
role in the death of a woman with whom he spent an evening would have sent
almost anyone without his family name to prison -- or would have at least
resulted in prosecution for negligent homicide. And he spent decades using so
many women in so public a way that stories about his sex life were routinely
told in Washington. Read the 9,000-word 1990 article in GQ by Michael Kelly,
who a few years later became the editor of the New Republic.
When this unimpressive man started espousing liberal
positions, speaking passionately about the downtrodden in society, it recalled
the unimpressive students who marched on behalf of civil rights, peace and
love.
It is quite likely that Ted Kennedy came to believe in
the positions that he took. But I also suspect that he found espousing those
positions invaluable to his self-image and to his public image: "Look at
what a moral man I am after all." And liberal positions were all that
mattered to the left and to the liberal media that largely ignored such
lecherous behavior as the "waitress sandwich" he made in a
Washington, D.C. restaurant with another prominent liberal, former Senator
Chris Dodd.
In addition to knowing that liberal positions provide
moral cover for immoral personal behavior, liberals know that their immoral
behavior will be given more of pass than exactly the same behavior would if
done by a conservative.
Women's groups provided Bill Clinton with enormous moral
capital because he supported their feminist agenda. One leading feminist
famously said she would be happy to get on her knees and pleasure Clinton
thanks to his pro-choice position on abortion.
Conservative politicians have the same sex drive as
liberal politicians, the same marital problems and the same ubiquitous
temptations and opportunities. And some will therefore engage in extramarital
sex. But every conservative politician knows that should he be caught, his
positions on issues not only do not provide moral cover for his conduct, those
very positions condemn it. There is no benefit to the conservative sinner in being
a conservative. There is great benefit to the liberal sinner in being a
liberal.
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