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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive.
Editorial: 4/27/2000 Ever wonder why the Banana Republicans insist that Elian Gonzalez doesn't
belong with his father? It all started started 25 years ago. On April 30, 1975, the
last Huey lifted off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, only an hour or so
before Ho Chi Minh's troops crashed through the gates of South Vietnam's Presidential
Palace.
Vietnam started the era of government mistrust. First, it was the lefties who said
Uncle Sam was a liar as they marched against the war. As the veterans dribbled
home, they felt dishonored and betrayed by a population and a government that abandoned
them waist-deep in rice paddy muck. And, as Dire Straits noted, "Right become wrong,
the left become the right."
LBJ packed it in, and Richard Nixon ran for office against the government. So did
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Each set of candidates,
incumbent or challenger, ran against the evil, corrupt government. For a quarter of a
century, we've been convinced that everyone in public service--except whichever
candidate we supported--was a grasping, greesy, conspiratorial Satan.
The political circle has come full circle. The left, except for minority Democrats
and labor unions, has almost disappeared into the woodwork. Conservative political
thought has been ascendent for 20 years now, and has shifted the entire political
debate. Limited government, lower taxes, welfare reform--any candidate, Democrat or
Republican, opposes them at his or her peril. It's been nothing short of a revolution
in American political thought.
But as everyone from Lenin to Che could tell you, revolutions always eat their
young. For years in the 60's and 70's, liberals made apologies for the violent,
anti-government, loony left. It finally sent them down in flames. Now comes the
loony right, and the G.O.P., having re-written history, now wants to repeat it.
Marxist thought takes the world and bends it to fit the ideology. Extreme
conservative thought does the same thing. The same family-values-parents-know-best
crowd that hoots about parental irresponsibility is now more than willing to jerk
Elian Gonzalez away from his father. Hypocrites? Obviously. But they, like the
left, have become defined not by what they propose, but by who they oppose.
Extreme conservatives despise Bill, Hillary, Al, Janet, and their house pets
for breathing. They say Elian should stay in the United States (and with the
Cuban-American political cult in Miami) because the Clinton Administration thinks
otherwise. They know what's best for the child, they bray. Don't send him back
to Cuba because the government there is awful. Take him away from his father and keep
him here.
So what about the several thousand other unaccompanied minors who sneak into the
U.S. every year? What about the Chinese and Filipinos stuffed inside cargo containers
in Seattle and San Francisco? What about the Mexicans, Hondurans, Colombians, and
Guatemalans who slide across the border in Laredo and San Diego? What about the
Haitians and Dominicans who sail to Miami inside rustbucket freighters or leaking
rafts?
Ahem, well, ahem, that's all different they hem and haw. Right. What's different
is that this is a perfect excuse for them to try and portray Clinton as a storm-
trooper leader in bed with Fidel Castro. Even Rudy Guiliani, the man who made New York
safe again, calls them storm troopers. This from a man who defends his cops for
buggering an unarmed Haitian with a nightstick, putting 40 rounds through an unarmed
Nigerian, and blowing away another Haitian, this one a well-known musician.
Like Jody Powell once said, this is like being called ugly by a frog.
This rabid nonsense goes straight back to the roof of the Saigon embassy. The left
has, indeed, become the right. While they make sure their brains are engaged before
popping the clutch on their mouths, they should also consider the damage they're doing to
the conservative cause. But then, why let common sense get in the way of ideology?
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