An Open Letter to a Dearly Beloved

Look, the Left, we need to talk.

I'll admit, I haven't always been the best partner. When you were shouting about Social Justice, I was more concerned with Civil Liberties. When you wanted to experiment with centrally planned economies, I insisted on acknowledging realistic market values. And then there's the whole Abortion thing (but I know you don't like to talk about that).

It's natural for an interfaith marriage to have some friction. I'm a Christian, and last I checked, you were an Atheist Wiccan. A Sufi Buddhist? It's hard to keep up with what religions you find acceptable.

But even if I might forget what your belief of the day is, I will always remember those early, exciting years when we would stay up all night, just cuddling and hurling insults at each other.

There was also plenty that we agreed on. Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Religion. That people should be judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin or the style of their genitals. That the Pharisees who care more about lining their pockets than washing feet are not true Christians. The good stuff that made your barbed insults sting like kisses.

I don't know where along the line things changed. Maybe it was when I graduated college and had to start working for a living. That certainly had a strain on our relationship. My days no longer had enough hours to listen to your latest outrages and rambling discourses. Results and real-world applications started to matter.

You encouraged me to go back for a graduate degree, but that only made things worse. When you're an undergrad, professors keep up the façade of caring about truth. They keep their nihilistic existential nightmares tucked safely beneath the bed. But being a grad student meant rubbing elbows with the profs on a more intimate basis. The masks started slipping.

Yes, there were professors who cared about truth behind their professional personas, but I can't count the number of times I was told the truth didn't matter. That collecting evidence and looking for answers based on that evidence was missing the point.

You see, I romanticized you, the Left. I always thought it was the Republican Wall-Street types that wanted money for nothing. We were the ones who cared about Truth, Justice, and if not the American Way, then the Nobel Path. Grad school wanted to take my money and give me nothing in return. Worse, they wanted to take away my evidence and replace it with Nothing. And while I was foolishly ready to part with my money, I could not accept their Nothing.

I remember when you used to call me out on my belief in God because it was based on faith instead of evidence. Evidence was everything, you said. It's where the rubber meets the road, where Philosophy becomes Science. We could speculate all day, but a theory that cannot survive contact with reality was not worth a damn.

It was one of the few solid arguments you had. I could not prove God. I could not scoop Him up in a jar to show you or point a telescope towards Him. He was neither beneath the microscope nor among the stars. I had no direct, scientific evidence.

I loved your insistence on evidence and Science. The facts kept me grounded when I was tempted to fly off into mystical revelries. It reminded me to treat my opponents like human beings, as rational creatures that deserved evidence. I kept my faith, but acknowledged that not everyone shared it.

When did you give up on evidence, the Left? When did you decide it no longer mattered? These days, it's like I don't even recognize you. Last time we talked about Science, you denounced it as a mind-control tool of White Heterosexual CIS Shit Lords. The Left I remember could spend hours rhapsodizing about the egalitarianism of Science, how its reliance on objective facts meant that no race or gender could monopolize it. What happened to that, the Left?

Yesterday you told me that asking a Person of Color to explain their point of view was "privileged and gross." You told me that asking for evidence that a female video game character was a Male-to-Female transsexual proved that I hate transsexuals. Every time I try to understand you, you push me further and further away.

I love you, the Left. Ever since we stood up together to protest the censorship and unjust wars, I have loved you dearly. But I don't know what's happened to you.

What happened to the feisty, passionate one that I loved? I remember a time when you could not argue enough, when I thought you would never have your fill of debate. Once you thundered challenge and swung your fists without rest. You wore a dazzling suit of armor and bore a bloody battle flag. And though we bickered at times, I fought beneath your flag without hesitation.

Who has silenced your thunder, oh Left? Who has stilled your fists? Who has stripped you of your armor and exposed your nakedness, that you should shrink from your enemies? Why does your banner lie ruined on the ground? It is no longer a flag of blood and battle, but a torn and muddy rag.

I do not know this shrieking violet who can only hurl insults from behind a wall. I do not know this Scientist who hates evidence, this Academic who hates facts. I do not know this Warrior who dares not leave the Safe Spaces.

I look upon you as the corpse of a dear friend. While others may shrink back at your rotten putrescence, I wish only to cradle your broken head in my arms.

I would split the Red Sea for you, that you might march out boldly from your Safe Spaces. I would give you cold facts instead of warm fuzzies. I would teach you again the glory of defeat and the shame of retreat.

There is no glory in battle with straw men, and even less with shadows (I have seen the Shadow Hunts in the walls of your Safe Spaces). You told me once that reality has a Liberal Bias. Why do you flee from it? You told me once that it was your duty to Transgress. Why won't you step beyond the walls of your prison cell?

I love you because of who you are, but I cannot love what you are doing to yourself. How can I support your decision to cut yourself off from the world? How can I love what harms you? That love is reserved for your enemies.

This is difficult, but I think we should go on break for a while. Maybe start seeing other ideologies. You need to figure out what's really important to you - equal rights or procrustean laws. I will wait for you. Not forever, but I will wait. And I will never forget who you were - who I pray you can be again.