Stephen Hawking once speculated that aliens, when we encounter them, might not be at all friendly — nothing like the E.T. alien in Spielberg's film of that name.
I happen to agree with Hawking, who advised caution in responding to any alien signals we may receive. But there is another sort of alien already among us: the radically alienated and antagonistic left-wing radical belonging to the Democratic Socialists of America.
The DSA member is truly alienated and antagonistic by nature — not alienated from anything in particular, but alienated at his core. He enjoys — actually needs — being set apart from others, getting the attention, creating disruption and perhaps violence. His very nature is antagonistic, with all that that implies. He is against not just President Trump, but every document and institution in this nation's founding (including the Supreme Court as we have known it and the presidency), against every sort of authority, against every tradition, against every form of order and goodness. That is the nature of antagonism.
The antagonist, as Roger Scruton pointed out years ago before his untimely death in 2020, is common on the left because the left believes that it must deconstruct our civilization before it imposes a radically new order based on the fiction of equity — "fiction," because in every socialist or communist society ever attempted, all power and wealth goes to a small number of rulers (e.g., the "Central Committee" of the Communist Party in whatever state you wish to name) and not to the people.
One of the consequences of socialism wherever it is tried is demoralization and economic collapse. Mayor Mamdani's experiment with socialism in New York is already beginning to collapse as tens of thousands of affluent New Yorkers have left or plan to leave the city and take with them tax revenue and overall prosperity. Mamdani's plan of discounted groceries is still a pipe dream, since no state-run grocery has yet opened. When they do, it is doubtful that they can remain solvent without large government subsidies — in other words, giving groceries away at taxpayer expense. The same can be said for every other promise of affordability, whether it be socialized health care, free college tuition, free housing, or free transportation. None of these has come about in the past because of the low quality and high cost involved.
The aliens among us also oppose every form of normality, which they view as repressive. They oppose protecting women in sports because they reject conventional definitions of gender. For the antagonist on the left, gender is not defined by "male" and "female." James Talarico, Democrat candidate for U.S. senator in Texas, has stated that there are at least "six sexes," and presumably he would have them all occupying the same locker room, since in the past, he has stated his support for male athletes in women's sports and still maintains that position except in qualified circumstances. Only a very alienated person could support the idea of males competing against women and then entering and undressing in women's changing rooms.
Hawking's aliens would also eliminate our ability to defend ourselves, just as alienated leftists wish to do. Open borders have brought with them horrific crimes — the murder, abduction, and rape of hundreds of people and widespread looting of stores and fraud of public funds. I suspect that a cosmic invasion would bring about more immediate destruction, but the end result would be the same: death, torture, and destruction of property. The left wants to bring about this sort of destruction, especially with regard to the affluent, whom it despises for their ability and success. The affluent in America build comfortable homes, amass wealth, provide advantages to their children, and save for their retirements. The left possesses a very different vision of what life should be. To their way of thinking, all Americans should be punished for their "hegemonic" past — which means their success as a nation in defending itself and providing opportunities — and all should be stripped of their savings and reduced to the same level of poverty.
At the heart of leftism is a death wish that hopes to reduce human beings to a squalid, hungry, defenseless, dependent position. Those who have achieved success, such as Elon Musk, are particular targets of leftist rage, not just because Musk is a conservative, but because he was successful and innovative to begin with. In the left's mind, all should be reduced to wearing the drab gray clothing of the revolution, and all should survive, if they do survive, on a minimal handout from the state. There was no private property in Soviet Russia or, until very recently, in communist China, and in our country there are already "wealth seizure" proposals on the ballot in several states including California. Leftists envision a society in which all are assigned a corner of a room, fed a crust of bread, and conform without objection to the orders of the state, whether in terms of property, health care, education, or gender definitions.
Unlike E.T., the left, whether in America or anywhere it has been tried, is not a friendly alien. It is alienated from every positive feature of our civilization. It rejects capitalism, religion, law and order, secure borders, traditional concepts of gender, effective policing, and all else that makes our lives safe and comfortable. Its very nature is to cause harm. Its ultimate goal is to kill all those who are not alienated and, in the end, all those who are. There is no place for the DSA in America if we wish to preserve what most Americans consider good and normal.
The alien from outer space, as Stephen Hawking imagined him, would be menacing and cruel, with no sense of humane values. Does the DSA pretend it is different?
Image via PickPik.
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