Unlike many libertarian leaning types, I have a soft spot for the democratic left despite their follies. Of course, what group doesn’t have its fair share of those?

Anyway, much of my intellectual growth over the past forty years has been from reading the anti-totalitarian intellectuals of the left who once seemed so prominent, momentous thinkers who even the right took seriously and sought out common cause with when it came to protecting and nurturing the democratic civil society that binds us all. Now I see a beleaguered minority sneered at by shallow apparatchiks such as kos who care for little more than party power along with those who have abandoned any kind of commitment to universal human values and rights for bitterness and selective antagonism towards the liberal order itself.

Maybe I am too pessimistic, and no self centered survey such as my own experience can provide should be taken at face value. Which makes sites such as yours, where the thought of the left I always saw as being political opponents at times, but moral brothers, still has resonance. It takes courage to stand against the herd mentality of political movements and not become embittered, and I am not sure I have it myself, but I would like to think so. So far you seem to have managed, that is worthy in and of itself.