Setting the record straight

LARRY ANDERSON
Larry Anderson

I am aligned with the First Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees Americans freedom of speech and press. Thanks to that and Phil Cobb I get to express my opinion once a week.

My main goal in this column is to make people politically interrogative. I can be blunt, sarcastic, and intolerant of foolishness, but my aim is to provoke analysis via a personal perspective. I think that is what readers want. That and honesty. I see no value in subtlety.

I can and will back what I say. If you follow this column, you know I frequently cite sources outside myself. Also, I tend to go after politicians and politics which are absolutely open for criticism. I pummel political correctness, leftist dogma, and policies that spring from them. I do so because I don’t like them.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and wouldn’t it be troubling if everyone did?

Recently a couple of gentlemen, one a reader and the other a columnist, have gotten after me for things I have written. That’s fine. Politics thrives on open debate, and that is a primary function of a newspaper.

People write letters to the editor all the time, but it is uncommon for one columnist to go after another. It is even more unusual to write as if one knows me without a phone call, an interview, or even a direct quote from myself or from one of my columns.

One thing Tom Pinney in his column “Broad-brush Conservatism” had in common with letter-writer Paul Johnson was the assertion that I don’t understand liberalism. Said Mr. Pinney: “… there’s a certain columnist … that seeks to denigrate liberalism absent of understanding it.” Said Mr. Johnson: “Larry Anderson claims to know “lefties” well. I doubt that.”

Sorry, gentlemen, but I have a handle on it. I’ve been paying attention to politics since 1968. You?

Just know, folks, liberalism isn’t complicated. Liberals, on the simplest of linear scales, fall to the left of center with moderates/independents in the middle. Conservatives show up on the right. Hence, the reference to left or right which are interchangeable with liberal or conservative.

The supposition that liberals are somehow so complex they can’t be understood is laughable. Their ideology is demonstrated by what they do, say, pursue and achieve. All one has to do to understand liberalism is pay attention and apply some critical thinking. Ditto conservatism.

This I do, and I stand on everything I write. Those who don’t, lack conviction.

Mr. Pinney also stated: “In these pages, he (that would be me) has been known to say that the Democratic Party hates white men, is stuck in the past, and recently, has inundated college campuses with liberal brainwashers known as professors.”

I thought I had missed something, so I reread many columns to find where I allegedly said the Democratic Party hates white men. I couldn’t find it because I didn’t say it. If you have that, Mr. Pinney, then supply the article’s title and the quote. I’m interested and waiting.

I have said the Democratic Party has lost the white vote. Need proof? Pew Research, following November’s election, reported 58 percent of the white, non-Hispanic vote went to Trump; 37 percent went to Clinton. That means the white vote is lost to the Democrats. It has been trending that way for years.

That is why the left plays the race card constantly. The black vote for Clinton was 80 percent, according to Pew; Trump got 8 percent. That helps offset the aforementioned loss.

The Hispanic vote was 65 percent for Clinton and 29 percent for Trump, according to the New York Times. The Hispanic population is swelling, both legally and illegally, and Democrats go after it vigorously for political gain.

Now, the Democratic Party being stuck in the past is indeed my position but was aptly applied to the far left, the most “progressive” part of the party. The far left is grounded in socialism. Socialism is an outdated and dysfunctional political view based on egalitarianism, big government, expensive social programs, high taxes, powerful bureaucracies and class warfare.

Mr. Pinney, point out the one that doesn’t describe the Obama or Clinton position and advocacy.

Many colleges and universities have been evolving liberally for decades. That is a fact and common knowledge. Anyone who thinks Berkeley, Harvard, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan or any of a long string of influential universities aren’t working industriously to push students to the left is either fooling themselves or are supportive of it.

In many universities there is no balance between liberal and conservative perspectives. That is the part that is wrong.

Both writers seemed offended by my use of “lefties” to describe, well, the left. Don’t be. You can call me a righty if you want. That’s what I am.

Be assured, calling me such will not send me into a tizzy. I won’t need a counselor or a puppy or a coloring book to set me right.

Maybe a blanket. I like blankets.