Export a Liberal
Well, my good friend Grover Norquist may finally see his lifelong dream come true. It looks like the Left is finally going to leave us all alone. If everything goes according to plan, blue-state Democrats are going to let us keep our guns and our money and our kids and our faith — and all the other things that government keeps trying to wrest from us.
Allow me to explain the basis for my optimism.
The Canadian embassy reports that the requests from U.S. citizens for travel visas, citizenship applications, and political-asylum petitions have skyrocketed since the glorious day of November 2, 2004, when big-government liberalism was once again relegated to the ash heap of history (for the next four years, at least). One contact at the Canadian embassy told me that they are overwhelmed with requests to enter the country from Canada's neighbor to the south. The Canadians haven't seen this kind of invasion of young discontented Americans since the Vietnam draft dodgers poured across the border.
European nations, especially France, are also reporting a surge in applications from Americans wanting to leave these shores immediately (and hopefully for good). It appears that if the Left in America can't bring the European welfare state and high taxes on the rich to America, they will go to enjoy them in Europe.
It would also appear, then, that the party that preaches tolerance as the preeminent virtue just can't tolerate one thing: conservatives. (This is especially true when conservatives control the instruments of political power.) Well, I respect that. When you get a fanny-whupping like the Left got on Election Day — when every one of your core values (tax hikes on the rich, abortion on demand, government-run health care, reparation payments for slavery, one-world government, polygamy) has been rejected by your bigoted and narrow-minded fellow citizens — it's cowardly to stick around.
I mean, really: How can any self-respecting blue-state liberal Democrat possibly stomach four more years of Republican rule in America (which, for many of the MTV Rock the Vote Generation-Xers, must seem like consecutive life sentences)? Do liberals really want the Darth Vader of American politics, Karl Rove, to rub their noses in it for another four-year term? Can they fathom being governed by red-state conservative Republicans, who, if the New York Times is right, have such low I.Q.s that it's hard to believe we ever managed to get toilet trained?
Liberals of America, unite! Leave this horrid and wicked and irredeemable backwater! Why not create a workers' paradise off the shores of France? You can all speak French, allow Janet Jackson to show both her breasts, create a cradle-to-grave welfare state, drink Starbucks lattes, read the New York Times every day, scramble the satellite signal for Fox News, and worship your new leader, Michael Moore! Hell, we'll throw in Harvard and the whole faculty! It's a gift. Here's an added incentive: You will never have to take the war on terrorism to the terrorists; they will almost certainly bring it right to your doorstep.
Now, there's the catch in all this. It turns out that a lot of the liberals can't afford the trip, or the entry fee into places like Canada.
So here's my idea: a new project called the Export a Liberal Fund. From this pool we will donate $100 to every liberal who agrees to give up his U.S. citizenship and flee the country permanently.
Warning #1: There's no coming back for health care when you get sick.
Warning #2: There will be no amnesty program. These are one-way tickets.
Before the 2000 elections, the Alec Baldwins and the Barbara Streisands of the world promised that they would leave the country if Bush won. The good news is that Bush indeed won; the bad news is that Streisand and Baldwin did what liberals always seem to do: they lied. And, alas, they are still among us.
But this time they are serious about leaving. With Bush's election the Renaissance was over; with his reelection, the Dark Ages have definitively descended upon America. These leftists therefore want out — so they can seek more socialist pastures. They just need a little nudge, a little financial incentive.
I, for one, stand ready and willing to do my patriotic part and contribute to the Export a Liberal Fund. I hope you will join me in this worthy charitable endeavor. Let's really go out and paint the country red!
Stephen Moore is a contributing editor of National Review.
