Grievance politics

I hear from conservative-leaning friends, especially conservative-leaning friends in the US, that they are fed up. They just want to be… left alone.

Left alone in what sense? I dare not ask because I know the answers. They will tell me things like (just a few examples):

• “They’re taxing us to death!“
• “They’re forcing us to take the ‘jab’!“
• “They [in the American context] want to take our guns!“
• “They’re giving our jobs to illegals!“
• “They’re not letting us have the government we want!“
• “They regulate us to death!“
• “They want to kill our unborn babies!“
• “They disrespect our parental rights!“

I could counter this by pointing out that taxes pay for the infrastructure we all use. That vaccinations protect not just the vaccinated by those around them. That the Second Amendment is about denying government a monopoly on organized violence, not about individuals with a peashooter-carrying fetish. That (in the US) illegals power a significant chunk of the economy while existing as second-class citizens. That rioting on Capitol Hill is not democracy. That regulation is what keeps fish alive in rivers and supermarket food safe. That respect for bodily autonomy is not murder. That parents do not have a right to abuse their children or deny them medical treatment.

But by doing so, I’d only contribute to the problem, by helping to deepen divisions. Pointing out that the identity politics of the liberal-leaning crowd is often no better — bringing race and gender into everything including abstract mathematics is the exact opposite of the great society in which we are all judged by the content of our character — and it would only fuel the grievance.

So instead, how about I mention a few very personal examples from my immediate circle of family of friends. People who were not left alone (and believe you me, my little list is far from complete):

• My great-uncle Béla, who taught me chess when I was little, was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in WW1 and spent a fair bit of time in Russian captivity as a POW before returning home. He was not left alone.
• My grandfather ended up near the Don river at the Russian front, and survived only because he was returned home with a severe lung infection, shortly before the Second Hungarian Army was wiped out in a side battle of the Battle of Stalingrad. He was not left alone.
• My father saved his Jewish first wife and (therefore) Jewish first son from certain death when he became an expert counterfeiter, forging documents for them as well as his Jewish business partner and other family members and friends. He was once caught in a roundup by the Arrow Cross; thankfully they did not check his pocket where he carried several forged, blank passports, which would have meant execution on the spot. They were not left alone.
• A close friend, Jewish, was an infant when he lost his father who was shot into the Danube by the Arrow Cross. My friend and his mother survived only because of the kindness of brave strangers. They were not left alone.
• Another close friend’s father survived only because Raoul Wallenberg arrived at the railway station, and on his request, those carrying Swedish Schutzpasses were ordered off the cattle car that was heading to Auschwitz. Most of his extended family, however, perished. They were not left alone.
• My mother was not allowed to complete her studies, because her family was considered “petite bourgeois” by the hardline communist government. They escaped worse, like deportation or internment, probably only because my grandfather by that time was severely incapacitated by a massive stroke. She was not left alone.
• Finally, I spent a year serving in a communist military, and eventually I felt compelled to leave that country behind with nothing but a small suitcase and about $900 in my pocket to start a new life in a new world. I was not left alone.

In light of this, perhaps my exasperation is a tad more understandable when I listen to folks presenting themselves as victims while living as comfortably middle-class denizens in the First World, enjoying freedoms and a standard of living without precedent: a life of freedom and prosperity that I could only dream about at, say, age 20.