Finally got around to reading Mamet's article on his new-found

"conservatism." For a prize-winning Playwright known for his crisp, revealing dialogue, this guy now comes across to me as a self-serving, nasty, violence-loving misanthropic, unintelligible apologist for the perpetuation of our most evil tendencies. He is henceforth persona non grata in my world and my literary life.

I'm a small town attorney/playwright out West and Mamet understands America about as well as George Bush does. What a creep. Now he's into violent movies and macho ugliness and I just about want to vomit. The guy is nuts and he's mean and the America of 2008 should have no use for him other than to make him the poster boy for the worst characteristics of man and to beseech our children not to grow up like him.

His view of human nature is understandable since he respresents the very worst of it. To paraphrase Will Rogers, I never met a man I didn't like but in Mammet's case, I guess I'll have to make an exception.

Can you imagine what Hell will look like 100 years from now, with God having sentenced Bush, Cheney, Milton Friedman, Sowell, and the rest of Mamet's new heroes. Just think, he'll have an eternity to contemplate his actions with his best buddies.

Encore!

"Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so" -- Hamlet

We use the words "Liberal" and "Conservative" as if they actually mean something. After all Jesus was a Liberal.

We pretend that government templates are good or bad. Communism bad, Capitalism good, Democracy good, Dictatorship bad. Truth is, no template has EVER been exercised in its true form.

Communism has never been practiced, only Totalitarianism. Democracy has never been practiced, only Representation.

The downfall of all "good" or "evil" politics is simple; "Corruptionism".

There is no such thing as Morality; Zeitgeist is more likely.

Humans are all. We humans have an inevitable flaw in that we simply seek out whatever "ism" that supports our personal ways of thinking.

For those who hate Gays, there are no shortage of Gangs (sorry, Religions to choose from).

For those without Faith, there is no shortage of Scientific theory (sorry, postulates that Academics cling to in order to secure their little empire at the university) to choose from.

To label human truth as any political ideology is simply stupid.

For example, "Conservatives" hate the idea of government regulation in business. However, we have seen capitalism without regulation, this is how it was started. If you will remember your American history, these "Conservatives" had no trouble at all sending children to work in a factory for 14 hours a day. People, not companies, will gladly foul our water and food supplies for profit. Uh oh, watch out, here comes that evil liberal regulation.

Both Liberals and Conservatives will happily "vote" against their own self interests not because of a strive toward Utopia, but rather a reinforcement of their own prejudices.

So before any of us stridently argue about our place in this world or in this universe let us remember some things:

1) Aztecs, Maya, Egyptians, etc were ALL extremely devout. Even to the point of ripping out beating hearts from their chests. How do we as "modern man" see their belief systems? How will the modern man of the year 3000 see ours? Christianity, Judaism and Islam cannot all be correct. Truth is, all are probably dead wrong.

2) Science is simply the act of creating a Construct in which we define all the rules resulting in an endless tautology. How smart was Aristotle? Pure genius and dead wrong about all things scientific that he observed. How will Einstein be perceived in the year 3000?

3) Humans are just Animals who smoke and drive. We are born terminal and spend our lives trying to make that matter.

Mr. Mamet is correct in his position that we are simply trying to come together to make the best of things in the jury room or the voting booth.

Along the way we will be robbed, raped, killed, lied to, and used.

So drop the labels. Crypts, Bloods, Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Terrorists, Liberals, Conservatives, Jews, Christians, Muslims...all is but toys.

Good Luck.

Nice to see Mamet has moved from brain-dead liberalism to brain-dead conservatism. Youth and naivete affected the former, but aging and creeping senility leaves behind the latter. Lets all break away from these useless labels and start thinking for ourselves.

Dear Mr. Mamet, What a great enlightened transformation! Thanks for your article. It was an encouragement too me.

What is "liberal dogma"? Alyosha has no clue and neither does David Mamet. How is saying that different than referring to the "vast right wing conspiracy"? Mamet's piece is nonsensical, contradictory and shows no understanding for the relationship between economics and politics, much less any appreciation for the actual history that happened during that vast golden age between 1789 and 1968 (or was it 1960? or was it 1945? or was it 1933?) when it all went wrong. Please tell me why some clueless self-indulgent rich guy finally realizing there's a real world out there and everything's not black and white (which no free-thinking person, conservative or liberal actually believes--where are these hard-core Marxists he speaks of and how did they get here from 1921?) deserves to be printed...again.

My odyssey was very similar. I too swallowed Sixties dogma whole, and I too came to see that it fit the real world poorly. Conservatives said that people and enterprises making independent decisions accomplished tasks better than government, and so they did. Reagan called the USSR an evil empire, and so it was.

It strikes me that liberalism is a sort of blind faith. No matter how poorly government programs work out, and no matter how pernicious the unintended consequences -- e.g., US-mandated ethanol production raising food prices worldwide -- liberals rarely question the tenets of their faith.

Like George below. Does he deploy facts and reasoning to refute Mr. Mamet's arguments? No. He calls them "fatuous" and "blather" as if no evidence were needed. "Blasphemous" and "heresy" might be more apt.

Further, liberal dogma strikes me as rigid as any religion's. The difference in America is that liberal believers can and do try to establish their creed in law, mandatory and inescapable for everyone.

This piece by Mamet strikes me as singularly fatuous and not at all a contribution to political discourse. I dig some of his plays, and his movies, but what is this meandering blather he's trying to sell here? Rubbish.

I hesitated over this column at least a half-dozen times. Curious to read it, but fully expecting it to be a screed that would make my Independent/Conservative blood boil because it would be yet another 'wise' work having fun at my expense.

Curiosity though got the best of me. While I understand the reason Mr. Mamet needed to write a 5 page paper to argue his thoughts, just a paragraph would have won me over. Milton Friedman's economics (based in reality and truth rather than supercilious Marxist economics where the braintrust is always right and people must be lead by the nose to the troughs) and Tom Sowell as the thinker and Shelby Steele as the critic of politicians is right up my alley.

Mr. Mamet, you may now have your Rabbi's respect, but you will find the congregation supplying a collective middle finger directed at your back. Liberals scorned screech the loudest of all animals.

Warm Regards,

KPRyan

I'm about as pro-free market as they come, and I feel compelled to point out that Mr. Mamet's particular advocacy of free markets is deeply confused and contradictory.

To find out why, where and how he is very much in error--from a pro-free market perspective--click here (or copy and paste into your browser): http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/kaercher/kaercher1.html

Being a prior leftist, nearly a socialist, and now as conservative as they come, but not from the overly religous side,only from the keep government out of our life side, it is great to see another one born. U.S. citizens don't realize what they have been given from the constitution, from those 'bad' old founding fathers, from their relatives who fought and died so we have the 'freedom' to dismiss their efforts so callously,and yes even from those imbeciles who still are running the government. My background, Irish - no need to apply, well my grandparents did anyway, and fed their kids during the depression. Their kids fought in WW2, and Korea. That generation's kids fought against the war and also for the war in Vietnam, but imparted that freedom isn't free and you must stand for your beliefs, no matter what, but in this country, the ones who fought against the war never were threatened with the death that that would entail in almost any other country on the globe. Try and find one where you can go against the government and live and prosper, I welcome someone who can name that country. Even people who bombed buildings in the US during the 70's are living the high life here now (and backing with serious money current presidential candidates) where else can you find that but in the US? Get with it people, the people rule through the market, government rules through intimidation, coercion, etc. Ask any ex-eastern European, or Russian. It may not be perfect, but as close as you can get. Millions of people making millions of decisions leads this country on a not so perfect path, but much better than 1 or 2 people deciding all of those decisions for you.

After reading all the negative comments on David's realization of the falsehood of his early convictions I am stunned to realize that people are so narrow minded..NOT!

The reality is that of the two political parties conservatism is the closest there is to reality if you take away the religious component. The reality is that the less government there is the better for the individual - and yes that means lower taxes, a strong defense of this beloved country, and individual rights to life, liberty and property. What is so difficult to understand about this? This is what our Founding Fathers fought and died for goodness sakes. The leftist liberals are so corrupted that they don't see this anymore.

Hurray for Mamet - the least one can say is that he is honest with himself and does not delude himself into thinking that being a democrat today is a good thing. (www.kazooobjectivist.blogspot.com)

Seems that David has lost all hope. Does age do this to people? What a pity! But then again, we liberals are not loosing much. Sorry for you Mr. Mamet

"Thomas Sowell: "our greatest contemporary philosopher"!?!?!?!?

I'm so glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I read that. If you consider him a philosopher of ANY sort, it's no wonder you're a complete and utter hack, Mamet.

Like all of Mamet's nondramatic writing, this piece is rambling and flippant, and thus hard to respond to except with dismay. All right, Mr. Mamet, if you have suddenly become a conservative, are you anti-abortion? Anti-stem cell research? Anti-gun control? Anti-gay? Anti-universal health care? Anti-social security? Pro-Iraqi war? Stop posturing and get serious.

I didn't think Mamet was so superficial. Maybe that's why I've considered his plays to be contrived and inauthentic, like TV sitcoms. He sets up strawmen (untrue ones) about liberalism and then proceeds to knock them down.

1. Liberalism /leftism is not equal to Stalinism. Leftists, for the most part, dont favor government owning or running everything. They also dont favor everything being owned by huge corporations. There are other ways.

2. The idea that liberalism is the dominant ideology in our culture is nonsense. Reagan is consistently rated the most popular president of the last 45 years. Most people believe things like "America is the greatest country ever" and "God favors America". That's about as right-wing as you can get.

Want to really take the red pill and wake up from the Matrix? Stop thinking the market is magic. Stop believing in a God who wants war. Stop listening to the lies of the advertising industry. Stop thinking you are separate from nature. The real brainwashing comes from the right wing and the corporate class. Want to wake up? See your brother in everyone.

I have to say to all the self-styled conservatives here who warn Mamet about the tyranny of leftists, who are sure to attack anyone saying anything nice about the right-wing: Like you're any different? Like Rush Limbaugh et al wouldn't go after any Republican who treated the Democrats like anything about The Enemy? Have you ever heard of John McCain? Do you pay the slightest attention to what's going on around you?

Also, re the idea that Mamet is espousing the Judeo-Christian view:

The Bible does teach that people are inherently inclined towards sin. But it also teaches us to Love our neighbors, and our enemies. Now you tell me: Is that more conservative, or more liberal?

Face it: Conservatism is for people who want to be selfish and feel good about it. The left, conversely, is about hope, and progress.

The jokes on Mamet. he obviously remains brain dead (except for the part of his brain that reminds him how clever and charming he is), and he is certainly clueless about conservatism, in theory and in practice.

I've seen Mamet's work, and he is an expert - at replacing substance with style, at confusing fancy words with meaningful ideas, at seeing life and humanity in two dimensions, static caricatures, hopeless, without redemption or joy or purpose. This essay is his masterpiece - a masterpiece of drivel.

Finally, someone who makes Buckley worthy of all that ridiculous posthumous praise. You have to be a superficial egoist to be a modern conservative, but this really takes the cake.

Mamet: has it occurred to you that in the United States, not everyone is doing quite as well as you seem to think? Have you been in Central Los Angeles, or East New York lately? Why hasn't capitalism rescued India from its poverty, or turned China into a humane state? Is our choice really the "market" - which seems to be synonymous with "nature" for you - or Marx? If people are so brutish, why is there art? If government should be small, why the police? Seems to me you want the government not too big, not too small - but just the right amount to protect YOU and people like YOU from...whatever.

Liberalism - or the left, more broadly - isn't anything you have made it out to be. I am sorry you for years thought it could be boiled down to a few contradictory suppositions. The left is this: we are better together than separate. We can - we must, we do - progress. Power and wealth are not always legitimate - in fact, they are often ill-gotten, and that matters.

I am sorry you have proved Marx right - class determines consciousness.

No great loss. You aren't much of a dramatist and clearly you are not much of a political thinker. Sowell is our greatest living philosopher? That is one of the silliest things I have ever read - I mean it. It's even sillier than if Sowell himself had said it.

Mamet, go back to the drawing board. Think about politics a little more. Look up "reaction formation."

Yech.

as i like to say: some points are new, some points are correct. but what is new is not correct and what is correct is not new.

OR

is this reaaly david mamet? isn't it a spam? or a april 1st joke?

Here's a pretty good, point by point destruction of Mamet's foolishness. I especially like the point that this guy is famous for writing in the theater, but completely butchers references to Greek mythology.

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/reviews.cfm/id/1470/page/hackwatch__david_mamet__why_i_am_no_longer_a __brain_dead_liberal_.html

A few quick points:

- I can't believe the VV wasted space on such superficial drivel.

- I can't believe I wasted time reading such poorly constructed argument.

- NPR has flaws, but anyone citing camera.org is, in so doing, admiting a bias against fact. pot, meet kettle.

Always been a fan of Mamet's work, but this piece sounds like the simplistic justification of a man who wants to stop caring... and thinking. By all means, stop caring, but please spare us these pretentious, condescending pseudo-philosophical ruminations.

If being egocentric is a criteria for "switching" from liberalism to conservatism, it reads as if Mamet will have not problem making this monumental change.

Kudos to Mamet for going from dogma to dogma, as many other posters have mentioned. The market (i.e., sum of personal profit motives) is better at doing lots of things, but sometimes the market fails. Consider the mortgage market these days. I don't find Mamet's story as charming as he seems to, and unfortunately it's not very useful either.

To Bob-

I did not see your reply to my comment until today and have to say that you obviously you did not read the most important word in my comment which was being "poor" in other countries. I have traveled around the world to help with feeding programs to the poor and to work with orphans. I am sure that there are tourists who may attack America because, according to you, we oppress people into poverty. I have to wonder where these people are from (obviously not the most populated places in the world) and if they have ever even cared to look at those who suffer in their own nations. It sounds to me you've talked with some elitist, out of touch and wealthy foreigners, which I say again, EDUCATE YOURSELF, because foreign tourists in America hardly represent the rest of the world.

Even though I'm happy he is not a "brain-dead liberal" anymore, I fear he trying out for a new role as "seen-the-light-conservative", while I much would prefer him to be himself, which I find much more interesting.

Check my blogs entry about this:

http://daimonmou.blogspot.com/

Phil: Who's talking about flying planes into buildings or personally harming anyone? You're response is puzzling since I thought I had put some pretty concrete issues on the table: socialized healthcare; Iraq war; illegal immigration. You're actually making my point which is that there are folks like you who are afraid to look at reality and make yea or nea judgements on what we should do based on core principles. Folks like you would rather say "we're all equally wrong". That really helps.

Funny, much of your new world view is the one I've always had. People are human, and act in their own best interests; organizing groups of humans together (governments, corporations, religions, etc.) combines their interests in ways that often yield surprising results.

I think you're all wrong!

;-)

That's a sentiment I think Mr. Mamet would appreciate.

I keep referring to myself as a Centrist/Moderate Independent because I, being part of what I consider to be the "Cobain Generation" was a child during the Carter administration, a teenager during the Reagan “Revolution”, and in my 20s during Bush I and all of the Clintonian Years. My 30s have been all the reign of Bush II. But during the Clintonian Era (my 20s), and having lived in both Liberal Meccas (Greenwich Village... home of this paper, and Haight Ashbury, San Francisco) I began to realize that "brain-dead Liberalism" was really quite annoying.

But on the flip side to that coin, so was brain-dead Conservatism (a la Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity etc. al). I started to see myself, and still do, as a man without a country. Both Liberalism and Conservatism can be both equally annoying and fundamentally inspiring when levied with checks and balances (like our great government).

The caveat here is the phrase: "brain-dead." Nowhere did I read Mr. Mamet -- a man whose work I greatly admire -- say that he is a die-hard Conservative wing-nut. I really can't gather from this article what he in essence is saying about his political affiliation because he never specifically spells it out. He simply states that he is no longer going to be a "brain-dead" liberal, and that now -- as a rich, Jewish man in his 50s who will choose Israel over Palestine (go figure!) – he has made that traditional migration over to the Conservative side of the field.

There's nothing unconventional about his migration -- millions upon millions of middle-aged, wealthy men have traveled this path long before Mr. Mamet jumped on board the Conservative train.

Like retired Jewish New Yorkers making their yearly trip to Mecca -- Boca and West Palm Beach -- Mr. Mamet to is realizing that: “Hey! Me no wanna pay more taxes. Me wanna keep more of them residuals from all me copyrighted material for me self.” He's at that point now where his disdain for the Palestinians and his "you kids get outta my yard" knee-jerk-ism is helping to solidify the reason for relocating to ConservativeLand.

For the most part, I, a white male in my 30s, don't blame him. There are plenty of annoying blowhards on the Left to legitimize the decision to migrate towards the Right. HOWEVER, what my dear playwright and somewhat writing mentor (as I am a fledging screen, television and stage writer myself as well as an actor) leaves out of his commentary is that the minute he arrives in ConservativeLand and moves into the neighborhood, Rush Limbaugh is going to show up at his mansion with a huge cigar and some golf clubs and ask the kind Jew if he'd like to join him for 18 holes.

Now, if Mr. Mamet joins him -- then fuck him! He's a douche bag! But if he says... "Wait a minute, buddy. I may not be so liberal any more -- but I'm definitely not brain-dead." See, it's the "brain-dead" part of Mr. Mamet's piece that I appreciate. I don't think it's bad, prima facie, to be Liberal or Conservative; it's the brain-dead part that is a problem.

My solution to brain-dead-ness is to follow millions of fellow defectors of my generation -- the proud "Cobain Generation!" -- to the Center, where we embrace the best aspects of both the Left and the Right and realize that the answers most often lie somewhere in the middle... or the "squishy" middle; a place his highness, his Royal Fat Fuckedness, Lord Limbaugh, deems so beneath him.

The problem with you Baby-Boomers is: you think it's either or! You either have to be on the Left or on the Right. You're still fighting that ‘60s Generation battle. Hey man, it's okay... you can stop fighting now! There's a middle ground where we all can come together and have a truce. We can meet dead center and have fun jumping back and forth over those lines... like a game of hop scotch when we was kids. You don't always have to pick one side over the other -- sometimes, you can pull from both sides and find the intelligent solution.

Now I ask you, Mr. Mamet, sir -- from one poor, struggling, un-established dramatist to an accomplished, has made the grade, residuals rich dramatist... is that so wrong? Come join me in Middle America and soak up some "Cobain Generation" vibes.

Milton Freedman's conservative economic thinking pulled Chile out of financial ruin. His philosophy also predicted and precipitated Pinochet's eventual collapse. Venture out of your liberal ghetto some day and compare Chile's standard of living with that of every other Latin American country. They went from the middle of the pack to where they are now, way out in front. On my first trip to Chile I was a confirmed lefty, hanging out where they sold the Che, Bob Marley and John Lennon tee-shirts. But over time as Argentina et al kept getting worse Chile and its free market economy kept getting better, and not just for "the rich". My artsy, lefty views just don't jibe anymore with what I see. And it angers my friends when I talk like this.

Mr. Mamet is a great writer. He is also very rich. That is reason enough to become a conservative, I guess. Thomas Franks's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" states the obvious: in this country, the rich always vote their interests; the poor never do. That is a bit more honest than Mr. Mamet's "Just plain folks in every day life" approach.

Firstly, I have to agree with the other reply, that calling NPR "National Palestinian Radio" is just racist. And using your intellectual challenge of binaries in theater to represent positions - does it follow then, that all other media is "National Zionist Radio" et al? Because then you may be on to something, but you should have started from that direction, THAT would have been a challenging, new kind of conservatism at work. Rather than this Neo-Con nonsense arriving far too late in the game to warrant any publishing as "news" in the VV.



And it's no surprise where you think you belong - your text is coded perfectly as that of a politician, dropping in at the right moment your Rabbi, bless his innocent soul apparently, and other knee jerk semiotics-101 speechwriters pablum.

Yes, do tell us again, first National Palestinian radio, and your poor, innocent Rabbi who wants nothing to do with politics....

Your two characters as some relation to your authorial psyche is just lame. You don't need to explain the difficult concept of why his two characters are so special when they are simply not...

I suggest maybe you go back to study, rather than try to teach, and review for example "Marat/Sade", and real playwrights from countries who had to struggle with persecution, death, extermination - and why when the time came, they never reverted to conservatism, but introduced one of the most important uses of theater, in regards to society and certain unfinished dialogs. In this case, Weiss also sets it upon two characters, as the title suggests, but so that the audience can't reduce it to your simplistic binary, rather than leaves taking a "side". It's written for a postwar 1963 Germany, being restored with the same old conservatives who were once Nazis now in power. And as a script, still amazing today to understand two characters in dialog, and what one draws from this in regards to state of affairs today, as well as to the art of theater.

And yours? Your characters apparently just reaffirm for you what your self-congratulatory mirror does, and comforts you in knowing how you've "wisened" up in this "evil world" to let the big conservatives do their thing. Wow. Really the kind of articulation one expects from your stature.

And if it's of any interest - your language isn't impressive when your thoughts are so simplistic and self-obsessed.

david,thanks for all. ive been reading your work and I am a twin. Your personal amd professioinal journey is gratyfying to read. I feel right at home in many of your experiences explored so clearly over the years. I think that this statment is based on the earned episodes of distrust that you may have experienced from friends that clearly held views that you deemed ridiculous or worse. It is time when one turns 55 to register with reality. If th3ey cant take a joke then fuck them!

Mamet writing that the liberal view is really the perfectionist view I think captures the essence of why liberalism is so appealing and yet never seems to yield long-term sustainable results. In some ways it's like an infomercial that sells the "wealth without work" philosophy. But, liberalism at it's core often plays the game of "I'm only trying to help you as long as you don't get better" as described by Eric Berne. I would also say that a better description of liberals would be brain-washed rather then brain-dead. Both brain-washing and perfectionism are related because they are clearly characteristic of codependent people. And as Stephen Covey has pointed out codependency is rampant in both American corporations and in American families.

Brain Dead Liberal?

Or?

Brain Dead Conservative?

____________________

Mamet proves he is both.

I too just registered so I could comment.

What interests me about Mamet's epiphany is that it took him so long. I question the acuity of Mamet's insight into the human condition, given that he has enjoyed decades of reverence from so called intellectuals for dressing up and repeating their biases to them. As somebody said earlier in this commentary, he is indeed at the top of the economic pyramid. Is that why it took him so long to open his eyes? When the litteratti wannabes (liberals)are celebrating you, I guess you're too busy celebrating yourself to actually see something for what it is. At least he got there, but he gets little praise from me.

rcaine

Conservative political philosophies is just a way for the rich to justify their wealth. It does not work Conservatives had the perfect opportunity to prove their point when abortion was decriminalized by Roe Vs. Wade . All they had to do was make abortion unnecessary Pay the mothers not to abort their pregnancies A simple and easy free market solution. Instead they spent the next 35 years trying to make abortion illegal again. Conservatives say that a coalition of individuals , businesses and religious organizations can fix social problems.Without government interference. In the real world it does not happen. Keynesian liberal economics works. Conservative political philosophy makes for interesting reading, just doesn't work in the real world. At the end of the day if you were hungry would you rather have the promise that the free market is doing its job. or would you rather have 5 dollars worth of food stamps?

"Conservatives say the system works as it is leave it alone/ Liberals want the system to work better." The problem is that the solutions that liberals offer always lead to socialism not more capitalism. Liberals are impatient meddlers who do not trust that, over time, a free society will work through most things. They are like those parents who refuse to let their children learn the lessons of failure by trying to protect them from everything, including bad grades. Liberals see our country as a glass half-empty, conservatives as a glass half-full.

David Mamet's obviously inflammatory title but brain dead liberal seems Ironic. He talks about liberal pessimism. Then appeals to moderate reason. I say Forget the broad stroke of liberal and conservative. Forget the idealism, the balance get ahead with get along. Forget all that. What about the actual issues? What about the war in Iraq? What about dependence on Oil? What about global warming/ consumption/ economy / health care? David can't comment about that he doesn't want to express actual opinions. He's trying to pitch his current play. Mamet says he's no longer a brain dead liberal but he sounds nostalgic fo his seventh grade civics class. He sounds like he's just going to trust the system. Everything is OK. Mamet getting up on the soapbox and being glib and general. It's all so simple to him. Talk about brain dead...

As an Australian supporter of American GOP philosophies, I have learned two things as a result of David Mamet's remarkable switch.

First, it has hit home to me excatly how much sheer courage would be needed for someone with as high a public profile as Mr. Mamet to do this thing. To know that your 'friends' will almost to a person turn their backs on you - if not stab you in the back - and to still make the switch is almost up there with running forward towards enemy machine guns. It is an amazing expression of the conviction of one's beliefs.

My second realisation was that many liberals must live secret lives of terrible internal conflict. Being intelligent people, many liberals must know - 'deep down' in their psyche - that their ideologies are founded on lies. But they simply don't have the raw courage of the David Mamet kind to break free.

Thus do they remain imprisoned in the web of lies, into which they were most often trapped when young, idealistic and innocently ignorant.

Knowledge of the truth versus the fear of acting on it. What a terrible internal conflict to have to bear for as long as one lives.....

Deadhead has promised to eat crow should we send him “... a link to the last NPR report that was sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians ...” Not wishing to disappoint him or keep him waiting overlong (I’m sure he must be famished), I’ve assembled the following banquet:

http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/NPR_Handout6.pdf - refusing to report significant events is a type of bias, possibly propaganda, favoring one side over the other.

http://zioneocon.blogspot.com/2004/05/camera-alert-npr-blames-mother-and.html - NPR blames pregnant Israeli mother and her four young daughters for their own murders.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1894023&columnId=2781901 – Rather than apologize and desist, NPR, here, defends its reportage; insisting there was no suggestion of blame.

NPR reports all such Palestinian atrocities with the same guile and oft repeated suggestion of innocence, has since the early 1990s and continues the practice today (e.g., http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1032, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1450, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1357, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1332, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1210

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1126, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=1117, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=28&x_article=105

Nor is this bias limited to Israel and Palestinians

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8F15FF74-E275-4C51-BE12-F51AD30D1CCB

http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/nprs-apology/ - anti-Christian bias

http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-case-for-de-funding-public-broadcasting/ - bias and unfair broadcasting advantage

http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/nprs-hypocrite/, http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/npr-blows-it/ - sloppy, hypocritical reporting

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2000/cyb20000706.asp#2 – abortion bias, Totenberg reports frequently on abortion consistently slanting toward the pro- position

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/05/15/media-bias/ - unequal medical risk biases

http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/2007/col20070404.asp - illegal immigrant bias

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2005/cyb20050627.asp#1 – tit-for-tat bias exchange

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200311/ai_n9317144 - admissions of bias

I could give you more, but I’m sure your plate must be overflowing and this has run longer than I expected. There’s plenty of Bush bashing, environmental bias, anti-capitalist bias, and anti-military bias (in fact the whole liberal gamut) should you care for dessert. Suffice it to say NPR’s bias runs wide and deep. Of course, liberals may claim this is not bias, just common sense. Technically, you could also claim this does not come directly from Mr. Mamet, thus failing your exact test – but why waste all this lovely crow?

I doubt Mr. Mamet will be invited to many cocktail parties after this. His awakening must be similar to a child finding out he or she was adopted. Confusion mixed with rejection.

This reminds me of something I came to realize at age 11 or 12. At that time my favorite Saturday morning program was All Star Wrestling. At first I believed what I saw were real events. Little by little I came to understand it was all fantasy. Later, I wondered why others didn't realize it too. Professional wrestling is still (I suppose) going on someplace and you could (I'm sure) still find people who swear it's genuine.

My political awakening took longer. Then too, what I was told to believe didn't add up with what I saw (i.e.) social programs designed to help people out of a hole, that only handed them a shovel to dig themselves deeper and people yelling down to them "don't worry, we'll fix it. We are digging an equal hole for everyone."

Almost 70 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt was seemingly the only man in America that saw the need for this country's entrance into WWII. (Democrat OR Republican!) I shutter to think what kind of world we would live in today, had he accepted Hitler and fascism (as did Joe Kennedy Sr.) as inevitable. For his courage and fortitude, I am eternally grateful! His legacy of a social welfare state is quite different matter.

Finally, if any of Mr. Mamet's (former) friends believe conservatives are guiding us toward Orwell's 1984, read a counter balance - "This Perfect Day" by Levin. (writer of Rosemary's Baby, The Boys from Brazil, The Stepford Wives, etc.) It's out of print, but you can still find a copy on the internet.

... wait a minute... can we move on to (The Church Of) Global Warming and (His Holiness) Al Gore. And really, while all those scientists are up there on the North Pole, studying glacier melt down, why can't they search for Santa's workshop. And the Tooth Fairy... how does she get through all those locked doors and windows?

Excellent essay, David! I found it well-reasoned, objective, and impartial. I loved the comparison/contrast between Bush and Kennedy. I have voted for both of them but never realized how similar their presidencies are. Well done.

David,

Welcome to the only moral economic system ever devised by humans. Specifically, it is the only system which arose naturally, from the bottom-up, as all natural, self-organizing systems do. Top-down organization is unnatural and artificial and results in immoral behavior. Socialism treats human beings like they are parts of a machine. Free markets, arising naturally through the interactions of people voluntarily trading with each other, encourages people to act ethically and to act in the be interest of others even as they act in their own self-interest (this is, again, in opposition to socialism, where people act in their own self-interest as they claim to act in the interest of others). Too bad too many are going to begin discrediting what you've written here without putting any thought at all into it, or investigating any of those you mentioned.

Readers of The Voice have certainly changed since I hung out on McDougal Street.

Saint Barack and The Hildabeast have remedies which would make us all equally impoverished: tax "the rich" into oblivion, make housing and health care "free". Never mind Albania & Cuba, we can make it work here because we audacious make believers can visualize it. It's "Jus' wunnerful!" as Li'l Abner would say. Take away the incentives to reward hard work, merit and risk-taking, and the whole world goes into the crapper.

Wish I could write like that or maybe I wish all that I read was written like that!

Evolution of wisdom is imspiring.

To those in this commentary who have cited the "bailout" of Bear Stearns as an example of the government "rescuing" a capitalist entity, I point out that the government supported the action that took the management and investors in Bear Stearns out and (figuratively) shot them. Remember that the senior managers were also major investors. Many of them lost the cornerstone of their personal wealth as well as their jobs. As for the obscenely rich, ask Joseph Lewis, who lost more than a billion dollars of his personal investment on Bear, how he thinks the "rescue" worked out. To work, capitalism must be permitted its "creative destruction" response to bad choices just as it rewards efficient and effective ones. It was entirely refreshing that the Fed and the Treasury supported that tenet here.

Welcome to the journey.Hope you don't take as long at this stage of your evolution as you did the last. No longer the voyeur, but the voyager. The inner angst will make great fodder for your profession and (presumably) passion. ENJOY !

Briebo:

"And if liberals out there think it isn't and that America is somehow this horrible country that oppresses its people into poverty, well I have to laugh and say GO EDUCATE YOURSELF AND TRAVEL!! I'd rather be a poor American than poor in any other country. "

There's provincial, and then there's you. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life, obviously you have no idea of the perception of the rest of the world on American tourists and their capacity to learn and interact with the outside world.

When my wife was staying in a hotel in LA during the riots after having spent time growing up in Australia and Holland she could think of many, many better places to be. Everyone in this country who comes back from America says the same thing: beautiful country, shame about what they've done to it... shame about the people. Sorry but that's the truth.

Of course there are plenty of people like Craig Brown below with a firmer grasp on reality, but they seem to get lost in the sea of imbeciles like Mamet and well, you.

My wife's experience was extreme, but she certainly saw what it was like to be poor in your country. We are poor and we live in Australia, I can say with certainty that it doesn't get much better than this. I mean, honestly didn't you notice the New Orleans/Katrina flood catastrophe; are you really poor, or have you ever been, I seriously doubt it.

Thank you Mamet. I think it is great we are having this kind of dialogue. Liberals want to portray conservatives as heartless and themselves as deeply concerned for the plight of everyman. How are these judgements made?? Conservatives may call some liberals "brain-dead" but at least they aren't making judgments about their "morality". Everyone on both sides all want a perfect world where no one is sick, no one goes hungry, there is no war, everybody gets along etc. What Mamet has realized is that is never going to happen. TA DAH!!! We are just people and things will never be perfect, but we can learn from mistakes in the past and try to implement ideas that can help certain societal aliments, knowing full well they will never be cured (i.e. Conservatives). I think it is wonderful that another person is starting to educate themselves and see America for what it is, a government that was created with the knowledge of past mistakes and possible future mistakes, a government that has cured itself time and time again without government intervention. I hope that liberals will start to see themselves for what they are - dreamers, And there is nothing wrong with that, but at least look at your ideaology for what it is, a socialist agenda that has been proven throughout history to fail. Give capitalism some credit, its wotking so far. And if liberals out there think it isn't and that America is somehow this horrible country that oppresses its people into poverty, well I have to laugh and say GO EDUCATE YOURSELF AND TRAVEL!! I'd rather be a poor American than poor in any other country.

From Mr. Mamet's perspective all is right in this country. Since liberals complain about what is wrong in this country liberalism is a flawed political philosophy.Mr Mamet is at the top of the economic pyramid so I guess things are good up there. Things are pretty good for me , down here in the middle, yet I still see the problems Mr. Mamet doesn't.From my perspective conservative political philosophy justifies economic inequity , doesn't recognize it as a problem. True (non brain dead) liberals understand that while capitalism is the best economic system to create wealth, It distributes that wealth inefficiently and unequally. Conservatives say the system works as it is leave it alone/ Liberals want the system to work better. Mr Mamet has all he needs and more. He says leave the system alone, I got mine. Would he still say that if he were sweeping floors for the theater instead of writing plays for it? I think not

David, life is a great journey, enhanced by evolved thinking. Stand in one place and you get run over. The greatest impediment to personal growth is a closed mind, whatever the side of aisle you are sitting in. Not an easy thing you are doing, but bravo from a fan.

Always nice to read something by a writer who clearly has a few live brain cells left. I consider myself liberal (though not of the brain-dead variety) and am inclined to take issue with a few points here and there in Mr. Mamet's piece -- but to each his own. "Bush = Kennedy," however, is more than I can tolerate in silence.

While it's true that many unflattering facts about his Presidency have come to light in the four decades since JFK's death, let's be a bit more objective about the Presidency of George W. Bush -- which any unbiased observer would've recognized by 2004 as one of the 10 worst in our nation's history.

I can't say I spent time in the Kennedy White House, but my understanding of that period was that JFK occasionally gave consideration to viewpoints he did not already share. And if accounts of the Cuban missile crisis are to be believed, Kennedy treated intelligence as a decision-making tool, not as a P/R tool to be manipulated as needed to line up supporters for a war the Administration had already decided to wage.

Kennedy made plenty of mistakes, but nothing rising to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” whereas George W. Bush would’ve been impeached years ago if the Congress and the voting public still gave a damn.

Dear David,

Your story reminds me of the U.S. Soldier in WWII who somehow in the chaos of battle finds himself in the wrong foxhole. He finds out that his German counterparts are not too different than himself – they talk about their girlfriends and long to be back home playing sports, working on the farm and eating mom’s desserts. People are people, the young soldier decides, we each have our failings, we each have our strengths but in the end we each want to get along and make a living for our families. Of course, we expect him to leap out of the foxhole into the line of fire and bravely make his way back to his buddies enlightening them with his new found knowledge that the enemy is made up of people who think and act the same way we do, that maybe there is some middle ground in all of the hatred of the conflict, that maybe we as soldiers have been sold a line of bull by those in power, that perhaps there is some hope that one day those in power will come to a resolution of the conflict. Instead the boy soldier considers his new found broader understanding of the human condition and decides the best course is to join the other side and become a Nazi.

Oscar and Tony nominations, plays, film, books, television, and a Pulitzer and still just as naïve as the boy in that foxhole.

You’ve lived your life believing that people are in one of two camps the conservative (tragic) camp that says people are just trying to make a living (and the government should get out of the way) and the Liberal camp that says things are not perfect – government is corrupt, business is exploitive but people at their core are basically good.

Have you really thought this whole time that it was as simple as that? We agree on something… you certainly were a “Brain-dead liberal.” Now that you’ve changed the “Liberal” part…why are you hanging on to the “Brain-dead” part so fiercely?

People are, as you point out, like the characters in a play who do better without a director or, as you describe, like unacquainted bus travelers stranded in the night who have to each “throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal.” We naturally come together for the common good when thrown in those circumstances. But what is it that we create to solve those problems? You put it best yourself - a sort of “Shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact.” - In short, government. Juries and good schools come as a result of no perfect solution but rather, as you say, a “solution acceptable to the community- a solution the community you can live with.” Those solutions don’t come solely because of a marketplace. People don’t help other stranded people in a bus station because they get 25% of the take and people don’t create great community schools because the margins are good – they do it because they know it’s the right thing to do and that we all benefit from an educated population. They do it because deep down they know it wouldn’t be right to leave the weakest bus passenger on the side of the road so the rest of us can get to our destination – we recognize that we are indeed “all in this together”

Your extreme liberalism led you to believe that all government is corrupt and not to be trusted. Now that you’re in the other “foxhole” you’re willing to say that government should stay out of the way. That the best thing those stranded passengers could do is not organize a system to help each other – a quick government on the fly (shake-and-bake indeed) but rather each look out for their own interests. If one of the passengers happens to have a duffel bag full of coats, the best thing he could do is to take advantage of the “free market” and sell them at the highest price he can get from his freezing companions.

Why jump from one extreme to the next. As a playwright exploring the human condition surely you’ve found that life is more complex than “a state where everything is magically wrong and must be immediately corrected on the one hand and where everyone is simply “maximizing comfort” on the other hand. How do you think we accomplish, as you say, “getting along…in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school board meeting?” Getting along in those environments eventually requires some rules and some organization (read laws and government).

The reason you now side with what you call conservative writers and have come to the conclusion that “a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with (your) experience than that idealistic vision (you) call liberalism” is because your view of liberalism was just that: idealistic. More like a fairy tale.

Try not to bring down all liberal thought just because you yourself were breathing pixie dust – all government is corrupt, all corporations are exploitative and all people are good at heart? Good grief. Why did it take you this long to jump out of that foxhole?

If I had to guess, you aren’t yet in any foxhole. You’ve been drinking the kool-aid of the free market of late and it really wets the whistle but eventually you’ll be back to running between foxholes trying to make more sense of it. At any rate, welcome to the battle.

Welcome, David, to the world which is what it is, not what Liberals would like to imagine. You would enjoy David Horowitz's "Radical Son."

What starts as a head in the sand mindset, refusing to see the world as it is, could lead to totalitarian nightmares all over again. This could happen as a result of the willingness, even eagerness, of liberals to paint conservatives as dastardly, selfish, mean spirited exploiters. This rhetoric is not innocent. It is not "just politics." It comes straight out of a totalitarian mindset which must win at all costs. It is heated, hateful and dangerous. It is callous and calculating, and it treats everyday people as sheep who must be lied to and led.

Thankfully, we have the cleansing light of the internet.

Liberal solution to Darfur: raise consciousness, talk, whine, encourage Chad to help, encourage the UN to possibly consider scheduling a time at some point in the not too distant future to perhaps in some way formulate a process, with all methods of inclusiveness and sensitivity, and out of respect for the Sudanese history of oppression and cultural marginalization....... blah blah blah.

Sensible solution to Darfur: Exterminate the Sudanese General Staff and the rich-boy Islamist thieves and rapists in Khartoum. (You might need the Marine Corps and the US Air Force to hook you up with a plan, and guts... if you REALLY want to help the Darfurians.)

Life goes on... (unless the Janjaweedis are raping your sister... then it's not so cool.)

Love the Mamet... my man.

i applaud mamet's graduation into american adulthood. it's true that millions of his often anonymous, sometimes less educated countrymen grasped these truths much earlier on in life. but the important thing is to grasp truths, both obvious and elusive, eventually,before one dies. as a one-time liberal, i offer this insight to others still in that mind set. your guilt at living a relatively privileged, free and secure life will diminish proportionately as you come to embrace and acknowledge your true circumstances. and for pete's sake, if you're over 50, it's time to stop rebelling against your parents.

I, too, recovered from Liberalism and I greatly appreciate your article. Well done!

Liberals are the most confused people on earth! I was amazed at Deadhead's (ironic name, eh?) defensive comment about Conservatives being "authoritarian" and liberals being for democracy. What a backward, confused lie that is! That is one thing I love about dumping liberalism from my life. Black is white, up is down, in is out, etc. Too confusing! And they demand that you see reality their way or else.

Liberals are for socialism, the oldest, most tired, failed system in the world. Letting the free market, with all of its flaws, sort things out is the most amazing process. Unfortunately, if liberalism and it's inevitable incarnation, socialism, take over, what you have is a two-class system, as described in "Animal Farm," by George Orwell. Those in power, who have to run the rest of us because they are somehow "wiser" and "more compassionate" coincidentally get all the "perks," as well. They don't do without, they never have too little. Anyone NOT in charge learns quickly why this system, created by a loser who sucked off his friends by living with them for free while he wrote about how to implement his system of government (hint: Marx), just cannot work. It often does lead to genocide, civil unrest, war, death, and destruction. That is what happens when liberalism starts to run rampant, which it always will, given half a chance. How compassionate is THAT?

The health care system in Britain is falling apart due to the government intervention demanded by liberals. Same in Canada. Long gone, in Cuba. Anywhere that embraces "national health care" ends up with very little health care, except, of course, the rulers, those who get to call the shots. Liberals seem to ruin anything and everything they get their hands on. As you mentioned, to them, it is like a class. But it's real life and we don't need liberal lessons in order to live it. We need to overcome and dump liberalism as vigorously as we can. It only leads to great harm, in the end. As you go along the continuum left, it starts with liberalism, then socialism, then communism. The Nazis were socialists and the Soviets were communists. Do we want to end up like them? We've seen those governments rise and fall, with lots of death, destruction, genocide, misery, and other horrors. I have met people who have come here from the former USSR. They have no access to good dentistry, for example, and they need a lot of dental work when they arrive here, in this (oops!)free enterprise, capatilist country!

You have given me hope that more brain-dead liberals will start to see the division in their thinking and feeling and to realize that they verbally espouse one system while actually appreciating and believing in the other.

And by the way, Deadhead - that reference to National Palestinian Radio is NOT borderline racist, racist, or in any way inappropriate in the least. I, for one, completely the meaning of this reference. There was a time, in this country, when people exercised freedom of speech and called it as they saw it. Palestinians do NOT behave like good neighbors. They only see things their way, want to tell everyone what to do and how to do it, and are more like spoiled brats in a huge temper fit, only they are big enough to cause real damage with real weapons - they blow up their kids, they blow up their wives, they blow up themselves, they blow up Israelis, all the time! That's all pretty real stuff, there, Deadhead (BTW, they seem to love the word and the concept "dead"). They can be horrible - and that's the TRUTH. Speaking the truth is not racist. However, liberals have a very cute, neat way of labeling truth as racist to shut everyone up (CAIR is bad about that and need to stop it. They are bad "citizens" - if they are, indeed, citizens), meanwhile spouting the foulest spew about others but claiming it is NOT racist because, being from a minority group, they've never had the power to be racists. Another load of baloney!

We need to get back to our roots. We need to be strong again, outspoken, and not afraid someone will label us racist for speaking truth. People need to stop being so fragile, toughen up, the way America always was, and how America became great. We need to help others understand that when you give things to people that they haven't earned, you make them weak.

These are harrowing times. Maybe our country has let in too many third world people who came from horrible dictatorships and are, therefore, more used to being kept quiet, more used to not being allowed to say what they think, and more used to being severely punished when they did. Many of these people are used to dictatorships and the lack of freedom that comes with that territory, and they are helping to promote that "shut your mouth" concept. We need to help to embrace America for the wonderful free nation that it is!

Here, in America, the idea is freedom WITH RESPONSIBILITY. In other words, the rights of your fist end at the tip of my nose. You are supposed to be able to speak your mind, do with your own property what you will, pursue your own happiness, etc. But you are not supposed to steal my peace of mind, intrude on my property, or prevent my happiness. You are supposed to respect me as I respect you. And we are supposed to fight for each other when it is necessary.

Kudos, David! Keep it up! There are lots of us former brain-dead liberals out here who are waking up!

Mitch:

Nobody is trying to explain "everything" on the basis of Iraq. It's just a very good real-world example of how conservatives are perfectly capable of letting ideology blind them to reality. It's not exclusively (or I would say even predominantly) a liberal trait.

It's the ideology - any ideology - that's the problem. The nature of the ideology is secondary. There are blinkered conservatives and blinkered liberals. I see the same faults on the extremes on either side. It's the idea that one necessarily has a better grip on reality that I object to. Reality is what it is - it's more than an idea, or an ideology. That's why they call it reality.

That said, for me, liberalism is superior (i.e. closer to reality) in one fundamental way: it recognizes that there will always be a balancing act between individual freedoms and the achievement of collective goods. Neither is absolute, and it's a fantasy to think that it is. The tension between the two is never fixed, it always has be worked out anew. So I don't mind conservatives at all - unless they're fanatical bigoted extremists who call me names (like "brain dead") and deny my right to exist.

What's next for the new David Mamet? Perhaps a glowing account of the life and times of Henry Kissinger? Seems like a reasonable next step considering his new found clarity about the world we live in. Cause let's face it folks...Henry wasn't so bad and if anybody says he was a bad guy...well they must be "Brain Dead Liberals".

David Mamet: Welcome to sanity, personal responsibility, no big daddy government running your life and the libertarian way.

To Cynical Liberal - Not everything can be evaluated on the basis of the war in Iraq, if liberalism is going to make any claim to comprehensiveness and/or the understanding of human nature. And the take of an ideology on a particular war tells us nothing about that the precision of that ideology's understanding of human nature. One could have a perfect understanding of human nature and be wrong about a specific political issue. Conservatives, even neo-conservatives, know that people need stability, etc.. Liberals and conservatives do not differ in their understanding or values at that simplistic and broad level: they differ in their understanding of the best way to accomplish goals that they agree on and on the likelihood of government intervention improving a situation in the long run. Iraq is a red herring in this argument.

Mamet plays a familiar game. First you create a binary opposition between "liberals" and "conservatives", as though the world ever breaks into two neat categories over anything, let alone anything so complicated as politics. But never mind: once you have your labels fixed, you just ascribe whatever qualities you like to the one you identify with, and the qualities you don't like to the other camp.

And that includes ascribing to yourself the laudable quality of being "realistic" about human nature, not like those terrible, blinkered, ideology-driven liberals.

Hello? Then how did conservative ideology lead straight to a ruinous, disastrous mess in Iraq? Realistic about human nature? Really? Tell that to the tens if not hundreds of thousands (I'm counting Iraqis as well as Americans) of dead, not to mention the wounded and displaced. For what? WMD? None. Complicity in 9-11? None. Nothing but hard-core conservative ideology about people wanting "freedom" (even if we have to kill them to give it to them).

Meanwhile, it's the poor deluded liberals who realized that, important as freedom is, people need stability, security, basic infrastructure like water and electricty, and if you give them freedom without giving that, chaos is inevitable. As has happened, as continues to happen - at a staggerly unbelievable monetary cost to America.

So who are the deluded ones, really?

Great piece. His contrast of conservative and liberal, and specifically the liberal's error, reminds me of a quote from Pascal:

"Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast." Hence the Right's disdain for the Left as "do-gooders". There is nothing wrong with charity and altruism (contrary to Ayn Rand), but there IS something wrong and dangerous with any naive view of human nature. And the litany of soured unintended consequences from misguided Leftist programs is proof enough of this.

I too stopped being a brain dead liberal.

We’re disgusted at the injustice, the inequity in the world. We need to put villainous conspirators behind it all. Convenient ones that come to mind are white men—business men who run the corporations. These and other malefactors of great wealth are behind it all.

I argue the genome causing this sorry state is the tragedy of humanity. The ancient Greeks were hip to this. They didn’t just mean unhappiness; they meant the very nature of things. Liberals get mad because water is wet.

I loved Mamet’s piece, both because of his arresting, and often beautiful, prose but because he and I agree on a number of issues, especially that government intervention usually does more harm than good. Mamet convinced me that he is usually the smartest guy in the room.

His description of human nature, as an internal war between the compulsion to compete and the desire to cooperate had the ring of truth. But I thought the best part of this essay was Mamet’s exposition of the way the separation of powers, which the Founding Fathers brilliantly built in to the Constitution, brilliantly serves to protect us from presidents who “will work to be king,” congresses who “will scheme to sell off the silverware,” and a judiciary that “will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches.” Just so. Brilliant stuff!

I suspect that Mamet's change of mind has more to do with the sociobiology of aging, than

with any deep insight. As the inevitable attrition of dopaminergic and cholinergic systems in

the brain progress, the human male finds himself...afraid. It gets harder to see the world for

all it's complexity and ambiguity, and harder to live with the fact that no single system or

mantra captures even a tenth of it. Better to stick with something simple, something easy

and full of palatable metaphors: the market. Apply it to everything, and ignore the enormous

set of assumptions and contradictions. Keep reading the generalizations and cherry-picked

datasets of old men, and ignore the contradictory experiences of large sections of the human

population.

And if your country, driven by a misguided faith in the supremacy of markets in all aspects of

human social organization, starts to fall behind nations with a more mature and balanced approach

to the public and private spheres (Canada, most European states), well... yes, I suppose you

can just unleash a string a profanities. That's highly effective. And Mr Mamet is quite good at that, I see.

How is it that liberals are constantly being accused of being intolerant and dogmatic, yet a huge number of the conservative posters think nothing of using the term "brain-dead" as an inevitable descriptive adjective for "liberal"? I mean, if that's not intolerant and mindless name-calling, what is it?

The fact is that, yes, there are intelligent liberals (and intelligent conservatives) and the word "liberal" (which by the way has the same root as the word "liberty", i.e. freedom) means nothing more than someone who believes in personal freedom up to the point that it harms others. No one seriously disagrees with this principle, and by that reckoning all Americans are liberals to a degree. I don't see conservatives calling for abolition of the military, the police, public roads and highways, public schools, and courts of law to name just a few. Yet all are government-funded. Yes, there will always be a legitimate argument about how much government, and how much regulation, is the right amount - and that argument will never end, because there's no clear answer and the world is always changing. It's a fallacy (no matter which side you're on) to think it's all or nothing. Unfortunately, it's Mamet's fallacy as well.

Even before I read the first (negative) comment from a liberal; I knew what it would say already: 'Trickery' to sell a play, 'thievery' to promote self-rightous ideals, 'sham' dreamed up by his publicist, yada yada yada. It's a misplaced Uncle Tom moniker of the Civil Rights fallout -- when one of your leftist lost sheep becomes educated, wakes up from his 1960s drug induced anger coma and becomes, well, enlightened, you all jump on the lynch mob wagon. And that's not a racist comment you baboons, lynch mobs existed in the white Wild West also. It's a Freedom, an expression, just like David's wised-up opinion. An expression of Freedom. Guaranteed by our Constitution. You misguided weenies keep whining, we will keep protecting your right to sound like outdated, silly, angry children. Carpe diem, indeed! Mamet, I loved your work then, I love it now. Welcome to the side of knowledge and living without Fear.

With David Mamet's revelations I've experienced a rapid one-two punch of the surreal and the real.

First I heard the Rev. Jeremiah Wright shouting "God D..n America!" for a host of alleged evils including the irrational claim that the AIDS virus was engineered to kill African Americans.

Then I read Mamet's common sense essay recognizing that rote liberalism is irrational and intolerant. Welcome to the planet Earth, Brother Mamet, glad to have you aboard.

Then I read the responses to Mamet's words from the self-consciously self-important left. As usual, the personal attacks are the shrill, character-trashing liberal darts supported by the standard myths. The "evil" forces are corporations and wealth and freedom of choice. The amorphous "good" are those forces that would "protect" us from the grand conspiracy of the powerful against the weak.

Despite the general disdain the left often has for religion, I came to understand why liberals are so eager to wage vicious personal attacks on those who disagree with their world view. It's because conservatives who use reality as their argument are unwittingly committing heresy against the liberal mindset which is an extreme form of "faith." Indeed, the nonlogical position of liberals are based upon what many conservatives view as superstition.

It's always fun to hear the pomposity of the outraged "left" as it describes its foundations in the musings of "great thinkers" who have shown superior people the path that thuggish, simple-minded conservatives lack the smarts to comprehend.

Translation: Conservatives are not just "wrong," they are wrong AND evil because they are intellectually deficient. One can claim to not only "win" their argument with this kind of approach but diminish the human value of those who oppose their view. (The subtext is that the conservative is a heretic too dense to be touched by the mystic hand of liberal assumptions.)

Where have seen this method used before...?

Shall we chuckle again at another caricature of George W. Bush as a simian? Shall we compare our valiant military forces with "Nazis" so we can falsely pretend America's defenders are evil?. Shall we pretend the unforgivable actions of truly evil nations are simply a logical and justifiable reaction to American policy which is as flawed as it is filled with good intent?

Kneejerk liberals posting here have stated: "Mr. Mamet is a wonderful playwright and an eloquent prose stylist. His essay makes quite apparent, however, that he has little acquaintance with political science or political philosophy."

What does the average American need to know other than his own condition and circumstances for guiding his opinion? Must we all submit to a committee of self-appointed leftist academicians before we are licensed by the state to disagree agree with the brahmans who want to shelter us from the evil spirits only they can see?

Another Mamet detractor refers to anyone thinking clearly and maturely about the American condition has chosen the "cold gulag" of conservatism.

It should be pointed out that the "gulag" is the result of "collectivist" thinking that can't be enforced except by state brutality.

Like many of us, David Mamet woke up and realized not only the foolishness of one-size-fits-all liberalism but also its utterly arrogant intolerance of anything other than its "faith" in its own distorted view of reality.

America is of the people, by the people and for the people. There is no "government" that exists outside of what the American electorate wants.

Vote your conscience and argue your point. Reaching for the insult is what has diminished the atmosphere of debate in this country.

Slandering a man who has spoken honestly and plainly only makes his case against his former fellow travelers.

It's not enough to believe and say things that make us feel good. We must, as a citizenry, consider and do things that are good, sensible and equal to the reality of our challenges.

Come on people, you're better than this. Don't get suckered. This has Clever Marketing Gambit written all over it.

Quote: "I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, **some seats still available**)" Cough, cough. Hint, hint. Do I have to spell it out? Mamet is stirring up fake controversy to try to get people to go to his play!

Ever notice how celebrities get married or divorced or have major personal drama right before their movie or album comes out? Think it's a coincidence?

Yeah, Mamet believes in the free market. He wants your money in his pocket! He wants to take a play stuffed full of tired political cliches and bland truisms and try to make it seem insightful. If it was a play about religion, he would have converted from Judaism to Catholicism and written a tortured essay about it. Now wouldn't that be controversial! This is shameless. The worst thing about it is the way he constantly humps his own leg. His play writing ability is so great that in the course of writing the play about people trying to convince each other of their political opinions, he argued himself out of his own political opinions and into new ones! What a master! He can't even explain it properly! You gotta see the @&!# play! Take your friends! Talk about it with everyone! Buy the scripts! Form study groups! Increase Mamet's net worth! Milton Friedman would be proud.

As for the rest of you, you should be embarrassed that you fell for this.

David Mamet needs to spend some time in the real world. Rent a car and drive through America's small towns and inner cities. This place is going down. We have a rigid and radicalizing class system that Mamet's shallow anecdotal exceptions only prove. We don't need armchair musings by a playwright. We need a revolution. The market has had its say since Reagan charmed his way into office. How do you like the results, America? Europe is going green and taking care of its poorest. We're critiquing American Idol and accusing NPR of leftist leanings. The farce will soon turn tragic.

Mr. Mamet:

I am honored to say that my moment of awakening came while listening to a local NPR affiliate in Florida.

I listened to them read the letter of a sincere, naive young man who had written to question something that the station had broadcast as an editorial. Something that cast