The Liberal Hatchery Revisited

A "moldy oldy" letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, from February 2006, in response to a George Will column. The emphasis was less on current events than on the question, "where do they all come from?" (Liberals, that is.) And of course, I had more than a clue because I attended a college which, at least at the time, ranked as one of the top "hatcheries" for egghead liberals in the country. The letter (which was published by the paper on March 1, 2006):

Every time I read a George Will column I have to admire his wisdom, perspective, and command of the language. This time, he has struck pure gold with his discussion of "Unhappy Liberals" (Feb. 23). My experience in this regard started in a small and very "liberal arts" college back in the 1960s, which was a kind of hatchery for liberals. My first observation was that most of them, to be blunt, were spoiled brats. Many were products of the "upscale" suburbs and prep schools, although there were a few genuine second- and third-generation Lower East Side "wobblies" among them. All shared the same creed: What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine. They, of course, extended this unfortunate premise into their thinking about the burning issues of the day, which is to say every far-fetched and arcane cause they could dream up. I doubt if a one of them had been personally assaulted by Joe McCarthy or insulted by Richard Nixon, and yet they acted as though every government action and business practice they disagreed with was a personal affront, designed for no other purpose than to bruise their thin, delicate skin. How they got this way at such a tender age is a question only their therapist could answer. The problem is that we have pretty much bought into their unhappy world by repeatedly electing them to office, where they can squander billions of taxpayer (i.e. ours, not theirs) money on hare-brained utopian schemes, AKA "government programs". Our response to this should not be timidity in response to the tyranny of political correctness, but -- not unlike the proper response to cancer -- detection, exposure, and "treatment" at the polls and in the free media.