by David Werdiger

Created on: April 18, 2009   Last Updated: April 20, 2009

I might have finally understood the Left. These days, the stance of the Left is best explained by one of my favourite jokes - the social worker joke:

Two social workers are walking down the street late at night. As they turn a corner, they see a man lying in the gutter. He is bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn, and moaning with pain; clearly he has been attacked. He sees the two people and calls to them "Please, someone help me!

And one social worker turns to the other and says: "Who ever did this to him needs help!"

This joke epitomizes the seemingly inverted attitude of the left to so many things today.

For the left, there is no such thing as a terrorist. They are "militants" or "freedom fighters" - heroes fighting for the most noble cause of freedom. Can there be a greater calling? And of course, they are fighting against those people who are depriving them of freedom. The deprivation of their freedom causes "despair", which forces them to do terrible things, like murder innocent civilians by blowing themselves up.

If David Hicks is a terrorist (and that is a big "if"), it must be that he's really just misguided and fell into the company of some other misguided people. He bears little or no blame for how he has ended up. By extension, if someone commits a crime, it is society's obligation to help rehabilitate them because they are a product of society. They need our help, more than anything.

Those Bali bombers that were just executed as punishment for mass murder didn't deserve such a barbaric punishment. The threat of death is no deterrent to other would-be murderers; rather it's more important to address the root cause of their desire to kill many people.

If someone hates me and openly declares their intent to kill me, it could not be because they have some twisted ideology, or are just plain bad folks. Rather, it must be because of something I did. Therefore, the onus is on me to change, and/or to appease them.

Where does this bizarre inversion come from?

It really comes down to a view on the nature of people. If you believe that all people are essentially good, then you are stuck with a question: why do essentially good people do really bad things? The only possible answer is that it's because they have been provoked; because some root cause has led them down this path.

This ties in well with our social worker. The victim here has done nothing wrong, and is remedied with some medical assistance and perhaps some counselling for trauma. But what of the perpetrator?

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>