Keith Thompson on Leaving the Left

In the San Francisco Chronicle, author Keith Thompson describes his departure from political liberalism.

A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan’s use of the word “evil” had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find “evil'” too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like “gulag” to the dinner table.

And on reaction to 9/11 and subsequent decisions:

Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the “courage” of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to “automobile statistics.” The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.