Liberalism's "Dumb" Question

Most of us have heard it before: The only "dumb" question is the one left unasked. I can't say that I've always found that to be true. In my time, I've heard more than a few that blaze well past "dumb" and head straight to "idiotic beyond belief." Even more surprisingly, I wasn't always the one asking those particular questions. A fair number, true, but not all. Perhaps that can be a subject for another time.

As a hypothetical, however, I started with that definition as a basis and began to think of what kind of "dumb" questions might be out there. More succinctly, what questions could I think of out there that people, for one reason or another, never seem to get around to asking.

Some tended to be rather silly: Does the Pope ever ask "Am I late for mass?" Does the President ever ask "Can I play that last hole over?" You know, silly stuff like that. And then my mind, as is often the case, took a strange turn. For some reason I wondered if there were any questions that devout liberals never asked, and whoa, did I come up with a lot of them. But the more I thought about all of the little questions, the more they all pointed to that one big question that no liberal dares ask himself:

What if I'm wrong?

To a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, that thought is like Kryptonite to the man of steel, a life-size silver cross to the Transylvania count, a tax cut to the Kennedy family (For someone else, of course. They have all of their assets nicely protected.) At the very hint of such a query, the cone of silence descends, the line is drawn. Pay no attention to the thought behind the curtain. If possible, and it usually is, ignore thought altogether.

Though they never actually get far, you can tell when a liberal might be starting to contemplate something approaching that question. The rapid heartbeat is usually the first sign, followed quickly by elevated respiration and profuse sweating. The shaking hands would be the next symptom, but few liberals ever get that far. Sometime before this point, they generally sit back and tell themselves what good people they are until they calm down, the question (Question? What question?) long forgotten.

I sympathize with them. Truly, I do. If I had insistently pushed legislation and policies that had impoverished millions, lead to the death of countless unborn children, and were now quickly converting the "land of the free" to the "home of the serfs," I could scarce face it myself.

Yet, with each new right denied, each new executive and judicial fiat, each new policy designed to eliminate the rights that men and women fought and died for over a period of centuries, it becomes more and more obvious that is where they wish to take us. I am heartbroken that we go so meekly, trading freedom for the illusion of security. History is clear enough on the matter. In the end, we shall have neither.

It's not too late, of course. It never is. Until it is. We can only hope that come election time and beyond, a few more on the left find the courage to not only ask the question, but really look for the answer. That's the only way the truth can be shown, the flaws revealed. The destruction averted. Good intentions mean nothing if followed by thoughtless and destructive action. Things can never be made right until all of us are willing to ask: What if I'm wrong?