Dennis Prager: The silver lining of the left in power

"Now Americans see the left's policies for what they are:

"1. The left wants America to abandon its defining commitment to individualism and replace it with a European-style nanny, or welfare, state. At most Americans' core is an abiding belief that we are supposed to take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbors, and not rely on the state to do so.

"2. The left is naive about evil. Most Americans deemed communism evil; the left ridiculed President Ronald Reagan for calling the Soviet Union an 'evil empire' and often undermined the fight against the communist world. So, too, the left is naive about Islamic terror and undermines the fight against it.

"The smoking gun was the nearly universal denial by the left that his Islamic beliefs had anything to do with Maj. Nidal Hasan's mass murder of fellow servicemen at Fort Hood. One of many examples was this reaction to the shootings by Evan Thomas, editor at large at Newsweek: 'I think he's probably just a nut case. But with that label (Muslim) attached to him, it will get the right wing going. ...'

"3. The left is more interested in redistributing wealth than in creating it. This should have been as obvious to Americans as the brightness of the sun. Finally, Americans are coming to realize that the left's goal is now, as it always has been, equality, not prosperity.

"4 The left is far more interested in power than the right is. This, too, should have been self-evident, but finally, people are realizing that those who are preoccupied with creating an ever-expanding state are obviously far more interested in amassing power than those who want a smaller state.

"5 The left is preoccupied with America being loved, and in pursuit of that end, compromises some of America's core values. Examples abound here, too. To cite a few: the Obama administration's neglect of those in Iran risking their lives for freedom in that tyranny; the administration's refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan leader visited Washington, lest the president annoy China's dictators; the American government siding with Hugo Chavez against the Honduran government, which had legally removed a Chavez clone from the Honduran presidency; and the president's obsequious apologies for America wherever he goes."