Reply #111: I like your enthusiasm, but...

[Temp]

I agree with some of your statements, but I have a hard time connecting some of the dots. Muslim fundamentalism is definitely a right wing ideology, but to my dismay, the left in America are taking a serious back seat to conservatives in the war on terror. I'm just disappointed in our lack of effort to fight Muslim extremism if for no other reason than their political views. Their treatment of women is appalling, their irrational faith is beyond me, their lack of tolerance is unacceptable, yet it's the American right that leads the fight against them! Where are we on this?! Do we only champion right and wrong when the enemy is a fellow American?

And as much as I love to make the comparison, a dictatorship, like Hitler's, is a government with total power- it is the extreme version of progressivism. Conservatives want a less powerful centralized government- that doesn't describe Hitler at all. A gun without a brain, a fearful zealot following orders, eliminating all which he doesn't understand, kill rather than learn and live- you're right in that this description paints a picture of Hitler, but be warned, Hitler wasn't the enemy of left wing policy, he was the epitome of it. Think about it, WWII was not a fight against a man who wanted his citizenry to be privately armed, have the freedom to conduct business without regulations, and force their religions on each other. It was a fight against a man who took his government WAY too far left. We all need to remember the consequences of fighting blindly for progressive achievement, rather than fighting sensibly for what's best for America and the world.

Again, the breakup of Yugoslavia was definitely caused by the right, but unfortunately, those uprisings were the result of left-leaning policies that left the country unable to fulfill its promises to angry mobs of people. Blaming the right for the demise of Yugoslavia is like blaming the firemen for getting your house all wet.

I recommend looking to Mexico for a great view of what happens when conservatism goes too far. There, it's basically every man for himself. No health care, little police protection, and a military that extorts vacationers for beer money. That sounds like conservatism gone awry. That's what we're fighting to avoid as much as we fight to maintain our freedoms. We have to be careful though. "The world" as you mentioned, has a history plagued with atrocities resulting from both left and right leaning extremes. If we don't learn to tell the difference, then we're really just calling each other names.