The aptly named Dr. Sanity (with an MD in psychiatry/aerospace medicine) looks at, as she describes it, the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the modern far left. She makes waaaay too many great points for me to quote them all here; I'd end up pasting in virtually all of post, which I urge you to read in its entirety. (The posts by other bloggers tracking back to the good doctor's essay are also worth perusing.) But here's a sample:

The Left of today is considerably different from the liberal Left that I became acquainted with during my college years in the late 60’ and early 70’s. At that time, although I disagreed with many of my fellow students about their methods, I could still completely relate to the underlying idealism and desire to improve the world. Back then, the Left was attuned to the values of classical liberalism—freedom; equal opportunity; the rights of the individual. The Left, at that moment in history was compelled to go beyond mere rhetoric and act to promote the liberal ideals and values they espoused. That is when the Civil Rights movement went mainstream in American society. And, even thought there were undercurrents of the ideological rigidity that was to come later, the Left could be proud of the results of that movement.

Those glory days when the Left believed in freedom and individuality; and that the content of one’s character was more important than the color of one’s skin-- are long gone. Nowadays it seems that the Left only pretends to believe in those values and feels it necessary to mouth the words.

But my observation is that today’s Left pretty much stands for nothing—not freedom, not equal opportunity; not individual rights; not even peace. Trying to right the wrongs and injustices of the world is truly ethical and noble goal, but something happened on the road to that beautiful utopia. The Left made a wrong turn and got lost--somewhere in the vicinity of Vietnam, I think.

But I’m not going to rehash Vietnam again. Instead, I’m going to focus on the behavior of today’s Left and antiwar movement.

At this very moment, every issue supported by the Left, and almost all of the behavior exhibited by the Left is completely antithetical to classical liberal philosophies. There is no longer a commitment to personal liberty or to freedom. The Left is far to busy to promote freedom for the common man or woman, because their time is taken up advocating freedom for tyrants who oppress the common man; terrorists who kill the common man; and religious fanatics who subjugate the common woman.

The intellectuals who once promoted the IDEA of freedom, now are ensnared in an IDEOLOGY that depends for its very existence on the silencing of speech; the suppression of ideas; and the persecution of those who dare to refute its tenets.

Patriotism and love of one’s country is mocked by those who once fought to bring the American Dream to all American citizens; and who once championed those who were prevented from sharing in that Dream. Slowly and inexorably those idealists who once shouted, “we shall overcome,” morphed into a toxic culture promoting a never-ending victimhood that cannot possibly be overcome. Love of American ideals and values was transformed into the most perverse and vile anti-Americanism –where all things originating or “tainted” as American are uniquely bad; and where America became the source of all evil in the world.

The classical liberal tradition is now almost exclusively upheld by what are called “conservatives”. Once “liberal” was synonymous with the “left”. No longer.

It's interesting to compare modern conservatism with the modern far left. (so interesting, we do it virtually daily here!) Jonah Goldberg wrote recently:

It is just one sign of National Review's success that people think American conservatism is very old. It's not. In fact, even as we conservatives cheer the “wisdom of the ancients” and decry the modernity and even postmodernity of our ideological adversaries, American conservatism is arguably the youngest ideology on the block. Marxism, which still clings on like a tough carpet mold in a faculty lounge, is well over a century old. As are all of its dirigiste and supposedly revolutionary offspring, including socialism, environmentalism, feminism, and even anarchism. Even the “Youth Movement” began in Italy some 90 years ago.

It's always good to remember that most of those face-pierced, self-proclaimed revolutionaries marching with giant puppets and painting Hitler mustaches on George W. Bush are really the shock troops of ideological kitsch.

But both here and abroad, are we witnessing the end game of the far left? Will it transform itself into something more benign than its current state? Or does it get even worse before it gets better?

Update: Speaking of things getting worse, Betsy Newmark has a long, detailed post on the Paris riots and their aftermath:

There has been a lot of schadenfreude here about what is going on in France. It's not hard to have a rather childish sense of satisfaction taht the French who have so longed looked down their oh so superior noses at les Americains. But, the time schadenfreude has passed. What is going on in France will probably spread to other countries in Europe. And we can't forget that some of the 9/11 hijackers came through Europe. It wouldn't be difficult for other such men to hide among those stuck in their wretched projects. What goes on there can come here and spread elsewhere. I just feel a sense of doom about this malevolence spreading throughout Europe and then to our shores.

And if it does, historians will look back at these days of rioting as one of the stepping stones towards that day. They will look back on these days as we now look back at the 1850s. They'll wonder why people didn't take some action to forestall what was heading their way. I don't know what the solution is and if any country would have the fortitude to confront these violent youths head on and change fate. I just have a very sad sense of oncoming doom when I read about Europe.