A speaker explains why he rejected leftist ideology after his time at Columbia in the 1970s. He objected to the left's claim that Black people cannot be racist, and he argues the left's refusal to condemn communism represents a moral failure. He identifies instead as a classic liberal.
I know the left has taught me, even when I was at Columbia in the '70s, that a black cannot be a racist. That was one of the indications to me that I was not a leftist. The biggest was that they didn't hate communism. My favorite line in the Bible, a book I take seriously, is, "Those of you who love God must hate evil." Must, it's a command. We don't have a command form in English, so we say must. You know, you don't hate evil, you don't love God. And if you don't hate communism, you don't hate evil. That's about— that's about as morally clear as it gets on this planet. So that was an indication to me very early on in my life that I could not be a leftist. I thought of myself as liberal, and in some ways I still am. Though liberal, I don't identify with liberals as much as classic liberalism.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
