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My Dear Friends on the Left: What Happened to You?
Half a century ago, when I was a young man, you were the ones celebrating individuality and anything-goes self-expression.
Back then, you were the ones burning the draft cards and defying authority. Today you’re a masked lump sitting on an airport bench, scolding with narrowed eyes anyone who delights in the air touching her face. What happened to you?
Back then, you were the ones demanding to be heard, saying the things the establishment didn’t want to hear, speaking truth to power. Today the phrase “free speech” terrifies you, and you offer a dozen excuses why we’re better off muzzled and restrained by those in power, like some kind of pet.
loathing objects of pity. It looks, in a word, like some type of revenge.
I grew up as one might imagine the youngest and only girl in a sports-oriented family would: a tomboy who had a never-ending supply of used boys’ clothes, a competitive nature, and a healthy imagination. Role models (both of what to do, and what not to do) were in ample supply. My parents both worked full-time and gave my brothers and me the greatest childhood of which any kid would be jealous. We never had any idea of the financial struggles they dealt with as my father took a risk on starting his own business with no safety net but with a wife, young kids, and a mortgage to support. Although we grew up working-class and didn’t have name-brand … anything, we had our parents’ devotion, dedication, and support. We could do anything we could put our minds to. And I was told no differently because I was a girl.
“The apostolic church is a church of the heart. When you steal from it you steal the heart. Hence the theft is easy, and amends are long and hard.” A strange way to sum up a story of erotic love. Nonetheless, it was Scruton’s way, as he described, in the second half of 
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