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Sunday, June 26, 2005
Dinner parties of mass destruction
One of these people will die tonight... 
As you may have heard, we are losing more and more "liberals" and "Democrats" at dinner parties where the talk turns from the best ways to prepare portobello mushrooms to war, hatred, destruction, and fear, This usually happens right before dessert, particularly if you're serving crème brûlée which takes a bit more time because of the caramelizing stage. Maybe next time, a nice sorbet. Just to safe.
Anyway, it seems like only yesterday that Keith Thompson was quietly enjoying a Sand In You Crack when the unthinkable happened:
A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the preeminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan’s use of the word “evil” had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.
When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find “evil’” too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.
My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like “gulag” to the dinner table.
I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings.
Keith, we hardly knew ye...
Now comes word that another of our brothers-in-arms has taken a hit. This one happens to be a friend of Power Line Boy Band member Scott Johnson:
Everything Rove said is absolutely true. I entertained at a 50th anniversary party for a well-known feminist leader about 10 days after 9/11. Much of the liberal elite of the Twin Cities was present. I was wearing a little flag pin that elicited considerable mockery. In a post-performance conversation with 3 prominent DFL activists, they all agreed that 1) America had it coming 2) much of the rest of the world cheered the attacks and that was not a bad thing; 3) the attack was purely a "criminal" matter that required the issuing of indictments, but surely not a war, and finally and most horrifically, a direct quote, "At least we got rid of Barbara Olson."
Like racists who feel free to use the "N" word among themselves, these people felt free to be so frank and unguarded because they absolutely assumed that I shared their worldview. I was so upset I couldn't even EAT, and anyone who knows me knows how serious THAT was. I told them I disagreed completely and left. That was the final straw launching me from my lifelong stint as a Democrat to the Republican party.
Yes, one moment you're contemplating the shrimp platter and the next thing you know you're sprawled out on the floor watching as everything you've ever believed in (a world free of poverty and war; a world where you can breathe clean air and drink clean water, where workers rights are respected and the government looks out for the little guy) seeps out of your body. As your life passes before your eyes your body grows cold, your vision narrows, and tragically but mercifully your brain shuts down.
When you come to...you're a conservative.
It doesn't have to end this way. You could just stay home each night writing letters to the NY Times ombudsman complaining about that bitch Judith Miller while watching and re-watching Fahrenheit 9/11 as you burn American flags in the fireplace, but all human beings (except the Virgin Ben) require some human contact. Lets face it, we're liberals and as everyone knows we're continually rutting away like rabbits on Red Bull when we're not smoking crack and forcing virgins to have abortions. Well, you can't do that at home by yourself (believe me, I've tried) and so we nervously leave our palatial rent-controlled studio apartments in search of human companionship and maybe, if we're lucky, a solitary Christian that we can mock mercilessly. Eventually we reach our destination where we join other fellow-travelers and plot the overthrow of the government, share recipes for serving and eating the rich, and make fun of NASCAR. But there is always the risk that someone will carelessly mention Friedrich Hayek and the next thing you know another liberal will be flopping on the floor like a landed trout and you'll be thinking, "There but for the grace of a completely random sequence of events having nothing to do with a primitive and ridiculous notion of some 'god' or 'cosmic overseer', go I."
This is our burden.
So let's be careful because somewhere out there, maybe in the mail right this very moment, is an invitation with you name on it. The one you never see coming....
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