The Return of the Dodo

In the late 16th century, European sailors visiting the island of Mauritius encountered a flightless bird called the dodo. It was said that the dodo was so stupid and so lacking in the instinct for self-preservation that it would waddle up to the sailors who easily killed them for food. By the middle of the 17th century, the dodo was extinct. Over the years, the word "dodo" has become synonymous with being dim-witted and it has only been recently that scientists and historians, examining the accounts of the bird, have determine that, contrary to popular belief, the dodo was actually a swift runner that fled into the jungle to escape their foreign human predators. In reality, it was what came along with the humans - dogs, cats, rats, and pigs - that preyed upon the birds and especially their eggs and young in their ground nests which ultimately led to the demise of the dodo.

Today there is an animal that deserves the reputation unjustly given to the dodo - the modern American liberal. The American left is constantly on the lookout for any group bent on the destruction of the United States and our way of life. Beginning with the Communist Revolution in Russia, American liberals have embraced ideologies that are antithetical to the ideals of their own country and this continued with the rise of Nazi Germany when many prominent Americans such as Joseph Kennedy Sr and Charles Lindbergh seemed to sympathize with the Nazis. The liberal fondness for all things anti-American was sustained throughout most of the late 20th century by the Cold War until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Overlapping the last ten years or so of Soviet communism,  anti-American radical Islam began a rapid ascent which came to the forefront of the American psyche with the horrific events of September 11th. America was blissfully unaware that we were at war with an ideology that is wholly incompatible with our society and way of life. In hindsight, we were terribly naive as there were plenty of indicators and in fact, the radicals made their intentions known to those paying attention.

Unfortunately, American liberals, out of a sense of misplaced fairness, inexplicable national self-loathing  or blind political correctness, refuse to acknowledge radical Islam for the deadly serious threat to our way of life that it is. They insist that the political right or "radical Christianity" pose the same threat to the country as radical Islam.  In their minds, it makes sense to expend scarce resources to give the same level of scrutiny to an eighty-five year old woman from Iowa when she boards an airplane as it does a twenty-five year old, male, Yemeni exchange student.

These tendencies have resulted in a serious defect in the instinct for self-preservation in liberals and one that, if not corrected will lead them, if not our entire nation, down the same path to extinction as the dodo. This time around however the word "dodo" would be aptly applied.