Political Narcissism on the Fourth of July

I haven't gotten to posting on this, but just as well. Some events are better off commented on a couple of days after the fact.

During a naturalization process that President Bush was presiding over, anti-war protesters decided to spend the entire ceremony heckling the president. I have no problem with peaceful protests and demonstrations though I may disagree with their views, but not in this particular case. Not at all.

This speaks to a deep streak within many active on the left; not those who happen to have views that fall on the left side of the political spectrum, but those who could be called activist or movement liberals.

Vanity is closely related to narcissism. Narcissism is of course the all-consuming absorption in the self, oblivious to the concern, well-being, or consideration of those whom their actions may come in contact with. There is much moral vanity on the left: the reveling in the enlightenment of held views; the superiority over the bourgeoisie; the disdain for the retrograde ideas of the common conservative, or worse... the lukewarm moderate. There are those on the left who hold themselves in such high moralistic regard, it would make a Pharisee blush.

They are narcissists.

And a perfect example is this disruption of a naturalization ceremony by these anti-war protesters.

This was a celebration. Immigrants, after years in line, filing paper work, taking exams, building lives new and foreign, were, upon this day, going to fulfill life long dreams. They were going to become American citizens.

And not only that, but the President of the United States of America was to be present to swear them in, a common practice Presidents of both parties have enjoyed performing for many years.

This is on a par with a wedding or graduation, and belonged to our new fellow citizens. Or should have.

The news reports say that President Bush was heckled. In truth, what happened was a bunch of supposed adults kept yelling "Fuck you, Bush! Fuck you Bush!" among a bunch of people expecting to celebrate newly-gained citizenship. One of these supposed adults was the press secretary to Rep. Dennis Kucinich in his latest run for the presidency.

Kept yelling it around children--and the elderly--and other various sorts of people who didn't want to hear it. They kept yelling and interrupting the ceremony until they eventually had to be escorted away.

Back to narcissism.

That is what this is, pure narcissism. I'm sure yelling "Fuck you, Bush!" has a nice cathartic buzz for those who do not like the man, but only those suffering a severe case of self-centeredness could rationalize using the mass celebration of such a large group of strangers to engage in such a vulgar means of personal gratification.

And only pure narcissism could lead to such blindness to the highly predictable results of their tantrums. Do you think that any of the spectators or participants of the day's ceremonies had their minds changed by these folks? Was there some person in the crowd, after repeatedly having a sixty year old woman three chairs over interrupt his nephew's naturalization by screeching "Murderer!" who seriously reconsidered his positions on American foreign policy?

This was not an exchange of ideas. This was not a demonstration to change hearts or minds--to show the rightness of your position. This was pure self-congratulatory masturbation, rationalized away by the moral vanity of liberal political thought.

And if you were to search the left wings blogs, including most of the big ones, these selfish, selfish people... were uniformly cheered.