When A Man Shows You Who He Is...

...your wisest and best course is to believe him:

As you can see, the intrepid Michelle Fields isn't bashful about bearding a lion in his den:

(My word! Challenging a useless, over-privileged sprat from a politically connected family on his totalitarian views, and a know-nothing movie star on the inconsistency between his stated convictions and his behavior! What cheek! She could be stripped of her White House Press Pass for that...if she, an honest investigative reporter, were ever to be granted one.)

In a grand reversal of the usual guideline, if this were truly exceptional stuff, it wouldn't be worth discussing. It's because it's become the modus operandi of the Left that it's important and worthy of reflection. His Supreme Mightiness the Emperor Misha tells us why:

Name us one, just one example of a leftist, any leftist, at any point in recorded history, who wasn’t a full on authoritarian. Just one. Go ahead. Take as much time as you need. We’ll be here until we croak, and you’ll need at least that long and then some. OK, so here’s a tip to save you some time: There wasn’t one. Not ever. Do you even know what leftism IS, you blinkered Pollyanna? No, you don’t. Because then you’d know that leftism IS totalitarianism. It’s right there at the core of it. It couldn’t exist without totalitarianism, anymore than water could exist without being wet.

So tell us, then: How can adherents to an ideology that is founded on authoritarianism (a nicer word for what it really is, we guess, because let’s don’t be beastly to the totalitarian Prozi thugs) ever drift towards a point that they already not only inhabit, but pretty much own?

It may seem like we’re splitting hairs here and picking on semantics, but it really IS important, you know. If you can’t call the enemy by its real name, if you can’t even adequately describe the suspect, then what hope do you ever have of apprehending him, much less defeating him?

Exactly.

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Some points cannot be overemphasized. Some truths cannot be repeated too often. And some human failings, despite the dangers that accompany them, nevertheless retain an indisputable patina of goodness. One of these is best expressed in an old phrase that was once heard fairly frequently in the old South:

"Aw, he don't mean nothin' by it."

He didn't? You mean he tackled you around the knees, ripped off your blouse and brassiere, and fondled your bosom while yelling Woo-hoo! by sheer random chance? Or was it a longstanding habit, perhaps?

There are bad people out there, Gentle Reader. When one of them allows his viciousness to slip its bonds and reveal itself in word or deed, you mustn't reflexively assure yourself (or others) that "he don't mean nothin' by it." His behavior proceeds from one of the following assumptions:

1. You're exceedingly stupid and need to be taught a harsh, public lesson; or:
2. You're evil and must be put down like the unmitigated villain you are; or:
3. You're an obstacle to what he seeks: power over others.

This flows from two well established facts about those who bind themselves to a cause that would require oppressive government action to fulfill:

1. The great majority of such persons pledge themselves to their cause not out of intelligent conviction or moral insight, but because of a profound anomie and a concomitant, overwhelming need to belong. Such persons have no need to comprehend what they're agitating for; indeed, they're highly unlikely to possess the intellect and information required to do so.
2. Those who possess the necessary facts and cognitive power to know and understand better have another agenda: the acquisition of power, prestige, and the perquisites of high status. They are the vanguard of such causes; they regard their dimmer followers as voting-booth fodder at best, shock troops at worst.

Those in category 1 are likely to be ineducable and thus, unpersuadable. Those in category 2 are exactly what they accuse us of being: villains of the blackest stripe. In short, they do "mean somethin' by it," and should not be given the benefit of the smallest imaginable doubt.

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Left and Right are locked in a battle for the future of this country. If we are, as Abraham Lincoln said, "the last, best hope of Mankind," there can be no retreat and no surrender. But beyond that, we must never ever shy back from calling the enemy what he is, for a refusal to label is indistinguishable from the refusal to see...and to judge.

The enemy's motives are not good ones. He's either a congregant in "a compact and unified church" (Eric Hoffer), or he's one of the prelates thereof. What he seeks is evil and must not be accommodated to the least extent; therefore, there must be no truce, and no "negotiated settlement." If, after we have won, we should elect to pardon him, it must be on the wariest of terms, for such persons seldom repent and reform in this life. Given an opening, they will return -- and the memory of their earlier defeat will sharpen and intensify their resolve.

I have no idea whether the oft-heard conviction that sex offenders never reform is factually accurate. Yet that is the model to follow: once a totalitarian, always a totalitarian. The root of the thing hardly matters: Communism, Nazism, Islam, Enviro-Fascism, what have you. They all embrace the totalitarian ideal; indeed, without it they would hardly have gained the purchase on our public institutions they have today.

Do not contemplate compromising with them.
Do not imagine that they can be satisfied.
Do not concede their integrity.
Do not trust them.
Ever.

And keep your powder dry. I fear that we'll all soon need to use it.