By Selwyn Duke

“Modern liberalism is moral dysfunction.” When I recently made
that statement after citing leftist social-media support for murderer
Christopher Dorner, some readers thought I’d gone overboard. Surely, the
twisted rooting for a paranoid killer on Facebook and elsewhere is just the
rambling of an odd minority; there are radicals “on both sides” and one in
every bunch, right? But now more evidence has surfaced vindicating my statement
that such feelings aren’t at all unusual among the passionate left — evidence provided
courtesy of the “professionals” at CNN.

The network’s Brooke Baldwin hosted a panel
discussion on Dorner’s support involving MC Lyte of Café Mocha Radio;
Buzzfeed sports editor Jack Moore; Lauren
Ashburn, editor-in-chief at The Daily Download; and frequent O’Reilly Factor
guest Marc Lamont Hill. The consensus?

Dorner’s actions were understandable.

What follows are relevant excerpts of the conversation. When
Ashburn — the only guest shocked by the support for the murderer — said that
there has been tremendous waste (lives, police manpower, etc.) because of
Dorner’s actions, Hill replied, “There’s no waste here, though; this has been
an important public conversation we’ve had about police brutality, police
corruption, about state violence.”

This is a bit like saying that wars can be beneficial
because they help the economy (which is also
a myth). Mr. Hill, was Sandy Hook not a waste because it sparked a
conversation about guns? Perhaps it would have been good if Dorner killed 400
people instead of 4. Then we could’ve really had a talk.

Hill then said, “As far as Dorner himself goes, he’s been
like a real-life superhero to people. Don’t get me wrong; what he did was
awful; killing innocent people is bad. But when you read his manifesto, the
message he left, he wasn’t entirely crazy; he had a plan and a mission here.”

So did Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao.

Hill continued, “And many people aren’t rooting for him to
kill innocent people; they’re rooting for somebody who was wronged to…to get
some kind of revenge against the system. It’s almost like watching Django Unchained in real life; it’s kind
of exciting.”

Yep, just get the popcorn and soda and sit back. You don’t
even have to spring for a theater ticket.

What you’re seeing here is The Liberal Mind Unchained. It’s
kind of sickening.

When Baldwin then asked, “Do you think this should serve as
a catalyst for a conversation, talking about ‘racism’ in the LAPD?” Lyte (in
the head, I suppose) chimed in “Absolutely!” Moore then said, “But I think there’s
also something to it [the support] in that the narrative of Christopher Dorner
doesn’t… I mean, in some ways it resembles a Denzel Washington movie where
someone is wronged and stands up for himself and goes down in a blaze of glory.
It’s hard for it not to turn into a movie.”

Ashburn then said that such grievances should be addressed
through the law, at which point Hill interjected, “Not if the law is broken!
Not if the law is broken! …The proper channels don’t work.”

I wonder, can conservatives apply this to Democratic
politicians who violate the Constitution, the supreme law of the land? I mean,
if the proper channels don’t work….

Shortly thereafter Lyte lent her support, saying
“Absolutely. Um, everyone’s making a point that needs to be heard, I’m sure.”
She then took at face value Dorner’s claim that he was fired from the LAPD for
reporting police brutality and said, “It’s [the support is] an uproar because
people are being brutalized.”

Note here that the nonjudgmental liberals take ideological
soulmate Dorner’s claims at face value, including the claim that he was
wronged. It doesn’t matter that he was an obviously unhinged man who, according
to an ex-girlfriend, was “severely emotionally and mentally disturbed,” “twisted,”
and “super paranoid.” This mentality isn’t hard to recognize, either, if you’ve
ever dealt with a paranoid individual. Such a person will imagine out of left
field that you did him dirty and then make taking vengeance an all-consuming,
tunnel-vision goal. You do not want to be on a paranoid’s radar screen. It
would be a measure of justice, however, if that’s exactly where the CNN
panelists would one day find themselves (though it’s unlikely they’d make the
connection and learn anything).

We also can only imagine what Dorner might have done had he
been allowed to remain on the LAPD. And had he engaged in police brutality, the
same leftists now impugning the LAPD in his defense would be doing so in his
condemnation.

The truth, however, is that two factors are in play here.
First, in the cases of Hill and Lyte, who are both black, there is the “black
code”; this includes the injunction “Thou shalt not criticize another black
person” — especially in front of whites or when he can be seen an opponent of
society.

But then there is what’s characteristic of all leftists: a
pathological inability to condemn one’s own. When Republican congressman Mark
Foley was found to have engaged in sexual impropriety, he had to resign, and
his conservative constituents were so disenchanted that a Democrat won his
seat; when GOP senator Larry Craig was guilty of same, he wouldn’t run again as
it would only have resulted in a primary loss. Contrast this with Democrat
politicians such as Gerry Studds (there’s a reason his name sounds like a porn
star’s), Barney Frank, and Bill Clinton, all of whom could remain in office for
as long as their little reprobate hearts desired. Why, Noam Chomsky even
defended the Khmer Rouge while they were in the midst of killing off a third of
Cambodia, and leftists generally don’t even muster passionate denunciations of
Joseph Stalin. But there’s a reason for this. I think you’ll find it
interesting.

It’s always hard to condemn those to whom we have an
emotional attachment or whose actions we find emotionally pleasing. The perfect
example is a mother who is told her son committed heinous crimes and then goes
into denial, saying “He’s a good boy.” Yet we’ve all experienced this
phenomenon. Just think about how it’s harder to take a friend to task for a
minor transgression than it would be an enemy, or how there’s generally a
reluctance to criticize those next to us in the phalanx of a cherished cause. But
what increases the chances that you’ll stifle emotion and stand on principle?

You first must have principle to begin with. When you
believe in Truth — either explicitly or just in the sense of operating under
the assumption that there is a transcendent “right” — it will be your yardstick
for behavior and decision-making. This is when the head can intervene and begin
to compete with the seductive heart. It’s when you’re more likely to tell an
errant friend, “Look, you know I like you, but what you did there was wrong.”
What, though, if you’re a relativist and thus don’t believe in transcendent
morality? What then will be that yardstick for behavior and decision-making?

There is only one thing left: emotion.

Sure, the consensus “values” of the wider society may
influence you — but in a relativistic age they’ll largely be the product of
emotion, too — and you certainly will see them as such absent a belief in
Truth. And then why should you defer to other people’s emotions? You’ve got
your own, and other people aren’t gods.

This is why liberals — who are defined by relativism — are
so emotion-driven (think of Clinton and “I feel your pain”). And it is why they
will virtually never condemn those they like. After all, what is there to
inform that an emotional attachment is wrong when emotion is all there is? A
yardstick cannot fail to measure up to itself, and the head won’t likely trump
the heart when the heart is the governing part.

And this is why liberals are so dangerous. To use a play on
a Ben Franklin line, liberals are passion that governs, and they never govern
wisely.

A failure to believe in Absolute Truth is, by definition,
denial of moral reality. And to tolerate people so delusional in control of
government, the media, and academia is to allow the transformation of your land
into a mental asylum writ large.

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