The Smart Side

Progressive Congresswoman Diane Watson puts Castro back in the news (not really - this unhappened in the eyes of the responsible press. Only irresponsible ideologues find things like this noteworthy):

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…

I wonder if this display of ignorance will be ripped on by Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, FactChecked by the organs of FactCheckery, or otherwise analyzed, or if it's just "boys will be boys", "aw, don't take it so seriously", or, even better, the reaction will be "you are a McCarthyite for highlighting it". After all, they're starting to look into Un-American Activities as we speak, so one can never be too careful about resurgent McCarthyism, can we?

Shall we set aside the bogus history and ask why it is that most people have less of an emotionally hostile reaction to dictators of the left than they do of those on the right? Why it's acceptable within fashionable, enlightened society to admire Castro, but not Pinochet?

Abnormal is the person who sees them in the same light. I'm abnormal, because my reaction to murderous dictators is the same, regardless of whether they are of the right or the left. But most fashionable people have a far more hostile reaction to, say, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge than they do to the Castro brothers, though one pair is a present problem and the others...not.

Most of what educated people "know" about Cuban health care, for example, is a Potemkin deciet, which they fall for just as useful idiots of the 30s did for the original (more here and here and here). Progressives are like the Bourbons of old: They forget nothing, and learn nothing from history, but flatter themselves endlessly about how much more intelligent and better informed they are than those who disagree with them. (Correction: I was overly generous, as Rep. Watson herself demonstrates, many of them know nothing of history, they believe a tissue of falsehoods).
Why is it that the great and the good want to believe the misinformation of certain dictators, but will readily be hostile to others?

This is a very important question. So important, I'll address it in a future post, or posts.