Tenderness is obviously a virtue. But there's a toxic tenderness: compassion gone awry, misdirected, irrational. Instead of promoting goodness in the world, toxic tenderness shields evil and makes excuses for bad people who do bad things. That means it unwittingly accelerates the spread of evil.

You know you're suffering from toxic tenderness if:

1. You refuse to condemn the heinous acts of people you deem "oppressed."

2. Whenever anyone else does condemn those acts, you condemn the condemner.

3. You get angrier at the "oppressed" person's critics than you do at the "oppressed" person's own evil acts ... even if those acts include the murder of innocents.

4. You think that a killer who premeditatedly uses a pipe wrench to bash the brains out of his helpless victim deserves to keep on living, indefinitely -- even though the victim will never see another sunrise.

5. You believe that any American or Israeli response to terrorism -- no matter how measured -- is far more morally repugnant than the terrorism itself.

6. You think inner city rioting is a valid expression of rage and helplessness. You do so despite every indication that looting, not anger, is the prime motive for many rioters.

7. You believe we should respond to evil by understanding it empathetically -- not by condemning it, stopping it and punishing it.

8. You are morally outraged by sexism and political incorrectness. But you see nothing wrong with an inner-city woman having five babies by five different men.

9. When someone does criticize such irresponsible behavior, you brand the critic a bigoted hate monger and accuse him of "blaming the victim."

10. You think Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and George Bush are infinitely more evil than Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il. You esteem Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez misunderstood visionaries. At the same time, you recoil at the name "Reagan" -- the locus of all human villainy because of his opposition to the welfare state.

Many of you on the political left keep telling us how our country ought to function -- and how your political opposites have run roughshod over it. That includes the economy, corporate America, the military, health care, the role of government and education.

Actually, a lot does need fixing. Few Americans are giddy about our nation's direction. While we appreciate that our country hasn't sustained another 911 hit, many of us grimace at the way George W. Bush has piloted this country during his last two terms.

On the other hand, the left's ideas for change look like scripts for a mock disaster … with the "mock" taken out. Yes, we've seen you gnash your teeth at conservatives and libertarians. We've heard your slogans. But your collectivist ideas remain unconvincing and unappealing.

It's time you begin plugging some of the holes in your well-intentioned paradigm instead of simply railing against the current administration. So please answer the following, as you are able:

Question #1:
For those of you who think "diplomacy" should be the primary method of engaging Islamic terrorism: What evidence exists that jihadists respond well to that approach? How do you suggest we sit down and negotiate effectively with people who (1) endorse death by stoning, (2) slap their women around and shame them, (3) fly airliners into skyscrapers, (4) try to blow up innocent people on airplanes, in shopping centers and during worship services, (5) cut people's heads off with a knife while the person is still living, (6) shriek "Allah is great!" during a dastardly act of butchery, (7) go into riot mode and call for blood over a cartoon or the naming of a teddy bear?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither are, "War never solved anything," or, "The Israelis are even worse than the jihadists."

Question #2:
For those of you who think the rich don't pay their "fair share" of taxes: Just whom do you think is paying the vast majority of taxes in this country?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither are, "The rich keep getting richer and the poor, poorer."

Question #3:
For those of you who see "the rich" as a sinister force in society: Who pays your salary? Who puts food on your table and allows you to pay your bills? Is it a Washington bureaucrat … or is it more likely to be some well-off person who put his capital at risk and created a business for you to work in?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither is, "Rich people are just in it for the almighty dollar."

Question #4:
For those of you who think African Americans' lack of achievement is the result of deliberate, systematic white racism: (1) Why do Africans who come to this country have such low unemployment? Are white bigots bigoted only against American-born blacks? (2) Why do blacks who stay out of jail, keep childbirth inside marriage, shun drugs and get a job fare just as well as whites who do the same?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither is, "If the GOP had its way, they'd still be lynching blacks." (A side note: The worst treatment of blacks during the 20th century came under the administrations of Democrats like Lester Maddox, Orville Faubus and George Wallace.)

Question #5:
For those of you who think health care is a "right:" Can you show us where the Bill of Rights outlines this alleged right? And if health care really is a right, an entitlement, why aren't food and shelter? Should Washington buy you your groceries and pay your mortgage?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer.

Question #6:
For those of you who think nationalized health care is a great idea: When have you ever found a "free" service that was just as good as a service you had to pay for? Can you guarantee us that once health care is "free," people won't drop into the doctor's office constantly for every trivial ailment, creating a monster backlog and waiting list (as in Canada)? Will Hillary succeed in altering human nature?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither is, "The GOP doesn't care if people get sick and die."

Question #7:
For those of you who think that income ought to be spread around more evenly: Who among us is qualified to decide who gets how much? Should it be government bureaucrats? Politicians? What saintly attributes of fairness do we generally find among their ilk that makes them such objects of trust? Just how much is "too much money," and according to what authority?

Besides that, is the doctrine of "zero sum" economics true? If person A gets more money, does person B necessarily get less as a result? If so, please explain how this works. Also, how many salary increases have you refused on the grounds that someone else will lose out?

Note: "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!" is not a substantive answer. Neither is, "Democratic Party politicians … they care about the little guy!"

Question #8:
For those who think gun laws are effective measures for addressing violent crime: Do you believe that any of the armed crooks are going to turn in their guns once these become illegal? How will poor, inner-city residents defend themselves against the predators in their neighborhoods if we make gun ownership a crime? Should they try diplomacy? Begging and pleading? Asking their guardian angels to intervene?

Note: "The NRA is a bunch of kooks," doesn't qualify as a good answer. Something more substantive is in order. Ditto with, "George Bush and the Republicans are evil!"

Question #9:
For those of you who want the feds to "save Social Security": Do you believe that the system will be sustainable once the gigantic volume of Baby Boomers starts drawing benefits (with a comparatively small group paying in)? Will America accept near-Scandinavian levels of taxation to prop up this creaky system?

Considering your lifetime pay-in versus your return, do you think Social Security is a solid investment? Has the government handled our money well?  Who but a dolt would think so?

Note: "Privatization is just Bush's sneaky way of … [fill in paranoid accusation here]," is not a substantive answer.

These aforementioned questions don't come from a Bush groupie or a card-carrying Republican. Like you, I detest the thought of young men and women going overseas to die. But your ideas for fixing America's problems are profoundly wrongheaded. They are born of emotion, not logic. They rest on sloganeering, not facts. Where they've been tried, they've produced stagnant nations that do little to advance humanity.

ROBBER: This is a stickup. Give me all of your money.

CLERK: Oh, geez. Not again.

ROBBER: Just fill this bag and everything will be OK. I don't want to shoot. I'm ... I'm not that kind of person.

CLERK: Right. I'm sure you're the salt of the earth.

ROBBER: Hey, enough of the sarcasm. I'm only doing this because I care. You don't realize that my intentions here are strictly benevolent.

CLERK: Robbing this store is benevolent?

ROBBER: Yes, and keep filling that bag.

CLERK: Would you mind telling me what's so benevolent about taking the money in this cash register?

ROBBER: Certainly. I'm giving it to people in this neighborhood. Redistributing it. There are families around here who need it more than the store owner needs it.

CLERK: Well, that may be, but it's still the store owner's money.

ROBBER: But he doesn't need all of it, so I'm giving it to others who need it more than he does.

CLERK: Whether others need it more than the store owner, it's still his money. He earned it. The people in this neighborhood may need it, but they aren't entitled to it. Are they?

ROBBER: Just keep filling the bag. And quit complaining. Besides, I'm going to let the store owner keep some of the money, so he shouldn't complain. That is, unless he's greedy.

CLERK: Super. A moral judgment from a stickup man.

ROBBER: Are you almost done?

CLERK: Yeah, yeah. ... Hey, what about the yearly charity that the store owner runs here? During the first week of summer, he donates some of his sales to help fix people's houses on this block. Doesn't that count for anything?

ROBBER: It's not enough. And there's too great an inequity between what the store owner earns and what the families on this block earn -- so I'm here to even things out. Besides, this isn't about charity, it's about justice.

CLERK: Justice? What's so "just" about forcing me to give up the money? And what about you? How much of your own money do you give? Or do you simply dole out other people's hard-earned cash?

ROBBER: Too many questions. Come on! I've got to move.

CLERK: Hold on. Not so fast. You still haven't given me one compelling reason that you can just walk in here and take this money.

ROBBER: I have the gun.

CLERK: Oh.

What makes the leftist a leftist? On the most basic level, it's the way they appear to interpret reality.

I have my opinions, but that's all. There's no empirical proof for anything I'm stating here. I've formed my views via my interaction with the left, so my observations are purely anecdotal. But here they are.

1. For the left, the greatest of virtues are equality and fairness. Nothing trumps this. Leftists can't tolerate a society in which some people have great wealth and others have considerably less. Never mind that our capitalist system has bequeathed us the highest standard of living in human history. Never mind that our poor are rich by the world's standards. As long as the pie isn't divvied up evenly, we can expect leftists to rail against our society and bemoan the existence of the "haves and have-nots."

That means that the primary role of government, to the leftist, is the enforcement of equal outcomes ... not the protection of individual liberties.

2. Leftists never hold people responsible for their low standard of living. They will castigate anyone who does and charge them with cruelly "blaming the victim." And this is a salient point. They habitually view people as victims, victims of our unjust society.

Of course, many poor really are victims and bear little or no responsibility for their lot. But leftists tend to see all the poor in this light. Conservatives will look at a person who dropped out of high school, got into drugs and had out-of-wedlock children, and say, "It's no wonder they're struggling ... their life choices made poverty inevitable." But the left gnashes its teeth at such reasoning. It's always society's fault. It's racial discrimination or cuts in government programs. Never the individual himself. No, the individual has simply been carried along inexorably by currents stronger than he.

3. Leftists tend to disdain time-honored institutions associated with the majority. The family, religion, free markets, industry. Being essentially elitist, the left wishes to distance itself from typical, middle America ideals. So the libs, ever the reactionaries, swing the pendulum to the other side.

Do "regular people" think the traditional family is a good thing? Then the contrarian left sees "alternative" families as the ideal: gay partners, single mothers, cohabiting couples, etc. Does the majority see America as a force for good in the world? Then libs see it as a force for evil. Does the majority appreciate Western culture? The left routines trashes it and extols the virtues of primitive cultures, Eastern cultures and even totalitarian Marxist cultures.

4. Leftists form their conviction based on the way they feel about something, not on evidence or logic. In a debate, they tend to be unfazed by the evidence arrayed against them because they just "feel" they're right. It just feels like blacks are in their current economic and societal plight because of white discrimination. It just feels like people are poor because of big business greed. It just feels like the United States is the world's greatest polluter. Emotion is the engine of conviction and there's no switching engines.

For that reason, they often forgo the use of facts and statistics -- even common sense -- in their debates. They resort to every fallacious trick in the book: straw man, ad hominem, name-calling (especially "Nazi," "fascist" and "Hitler"). Their emotions seldom accommodate the principles of rational debate.

5. Rather than simply disagreeing with their conservative counterparts, leftists are offended by them. They esteem conservatives downright evil, not just in error. Accordingly, libs sometimes try to censor their detractors. They write radio stations to have right-wing talk shows pulled. On college campuses, they protest visits by conservative speakers and labor to have them cancelled. And if their efforts fail on campus, they heckle and shout down the speaker to prevent him or her from being heard. Despite their ardent talk about free speech, they view the right as so dangerous that its views should be excised from public discourse and heard by no one.

6. Leftists have a high regard for token efforts. They love the mere appearance of compassion, even if their compassion-driven programs don't actually produce net results for good. What really matters is that people see that they care. Many leftists are little more than compassion exhibitionists, whose main mission is looking tenderer than thou ... even if little gets accomplished in the process. And their generosity toward the downtrodden is less than impressive. That's because their efforts to help so often involve other people's money, taken forcibly by the government and redistributed.

7. The left is made up of staunch collectivists. They identify people not as individuals, but as members of groups. Consequently, they want government to treat people this way. Instead of championing individual liberties, they push for laws that benefit one group over another: for example, affirmative action and hate crime laws.

8. Leftists insulate minority groups and grant them special political protection. Accordingly, the groups are held to lower standards of civility and responsible discourse. (On the other hand, anyone who does hold such groups to the same standards as everybody else is, to the leftist, a bigot.) And so Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can make the wildest, most outrageously irresponsible comments and be immune to criticism because of their special status. But to criticize them or to scrutinize their message makes someone, at best, insensitive and, at worst, a cross-burning, racist crazy.

9. The left is so weighed down with the imperative of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" that it can't critique any non-Western culture ... even when that culture is at grossly odds with the leftist agenda itself. An example: radical Islam. Nothing could be further removed from the leftist feminist ideal than a culture that beats women and drapes their bodies in burkas. But the left is stuck here; to cry out against this horrid culture would violate the sacred doctrine of multiculturalism. So libs say idiotic things like, "Christian extremists are just as frightening, if not more." Newspapers routinely hold back the religious identities of Islamic murderers. And the Palestinians are always the good guys in any and every conflict (no matter how ghastly their action) because they're less Western than the Israelis.

SHERRY (in the corporate lunchroom): What's that book you're reading? Is that ... Pat Buchanan?

STAN: Yeah. Pat Buchanan. I like politics. I'm also reading books by Thomas Sowell and Newt Gingrich.

SHERRY: Ugh. How disgusting.

STAN: Why is it disgusting?

SHERRY: Those are right-wing freaks.

STAN: Well, Sowell is a libertarian, not a right-winger. But so what? What makes these guys disgusting just because they have a different viewpoint than you?

SHERRY: Well ... they're fascists, for one thing.

STAN: Oh, really? What makes them fascists?

SHERRY: Because of all the meanness and hate. They're just like Nazis. And just as evil as far as I'm concerned.

STAN: So holding beliefs like small government, free markets, personal responsibility and such ... that's just as bad as putting people in gas ovens and performing human experiments?

SHERRY: The authors you read would probably do that if they could.

STAN: What evidence do you have for that?

SHERRY: It's obvious. They're like fascists with their closed minds.

STAN: And you have an open mind?

SHERRY: I'm a progressive. One of the things about progressives is that they tend to have open minds. We don't just follow mindlessly the things our grandparents believed.

STAN: Define an open mind.

SHERRY: OK. We consider new ideas. We don't blow things off simply because they contradict our upbringing. For example, when someone suggests we should all drive hybrid cars or pass anti-smoking laws, we listen. The Neanderthals you read reject those ideas without giving them a fair hearing.

STAN: Hmmm ... I have an idea. Why don't we perform a little experiment in open-mindedness. We'll go out to my car and turn on Rush Limbaugh, then we'll see what you think of whatever he's talking about.

SHERRY: Oh, gross! Forget it. I might throw up in your car and ruin the upholstery.

STAN: Why?

SHERRY: Because he's a jerk. I can't stand him.

STAN: But even if he is a jerk, he might be talking about something that merits consideration. You know, with your open-mindedness and all that.

SHERRY: No, I don't think I could handle all the meanness.

STAN: So you object to meanness?

SHERRY: Of course. Name-calling. Personal attacks. All that crap.

STAN: But in the few minutes we've been talking here, you've called conservatives and libertarians "fascists," "Nazis" and "evil," plus you said they'd probably commit crimes against humanity if they could. You've also tossed around words like "freaks," "Neanderthals" and "jerk." Doesn't that qualify as name-calling and personal attack?

SHERRY: Yeah, but it's true.

STAN: It's only your opinion that it's true. Don't you see the obvious hypocrisy here? You object to "jerks" and "freaks" because ... they call people names!

SHERRY: No. It's not hypocritical because those people really are all of those things.

STAN: And if I were to explain why you're wrong, would you give me a fair hearing? Would you carefully consider what I'm saying and mull it over before deciding whether I'm right or wrong?

SHERRY: Why should I do that?

STAN: Because you're making the claim of open-mindedness. An open-minded person would listen objectively and think it through -- then disagree.

SHERRY: I may be open-minded, but I'm not a fool.

STAN: But here's the flaw in what you're saying: Neither one of us is open minded in the sense you contend for. I'm not and you're not.

SHERRY: What are you talking about?
STAN: Nobody comes to a political issue with a blank slate. We all interpret ideas based on a taken-for-granted grid in our minds. It's made up of assumptions that we've all decided are true in advance. When I listen to, say, Nancy Pelosi, I'm apt to disagree with her because she so often contradicts my personal set of presuppositions.

SHERRY: Yeah, but YOU do it without thinking. Like a reflex.

STAN: That's where you're wrong. It took a lot of thinking ahead of time to develop a paradigm by which I can weigh Pelosi's statements quickly and decisively. You've done the same thing in developing your own paradigm. There's only one major difference between us.

SHERRY: And what's that?

STAN: I admit to having a bias -- or as you call it, "a closed mind" -- and you make the fraudulent claim of being without one. You and your progressive friends are no more open than anyone else. You just think you are.

SHERRY. All right, all right. Maybe you should get back to reading Goebbels, or whoever that is you're reading.

STAN: OK. And by the way ... thanks.

SHERRY: For what?

STAN: For not going out to my car and barfing on the upholstery.

SHERRY: Don't mention it.

My co-worker, Shelley, has an idea for cutting down on crime: Take away everyone's guns.

Aside from the inconvenient existence of the Second Amendment, the disarmament hypothesis may seem sensible at first blush. It's simple cause and effect. Remove the gun from an armed robbery situation and it's no longer armed robbery. Disarm the populace, and a shootout between rival gangs is reduced to, say, a pointed argument or maybe just a strongly worded letter between the aggrieved parties.

Let's suppose Congress passes "Shelley's Law" and the president signs it. Amid great fanfare, Washington dispatches a troop of feds who go door to door with pillowcases and collect the proscribed firearms. One by one, each homeowner greets the bureaucrat at the front door, then reluctantly gathers all the guns and deposits them into the outstretched pillowcase.

Now here's the part that requires some imagination. The feds get to an inner-city street lined with crack houses. Inside one house are several hardened, steely glinted thugs -- drug users whose habit prompts convenience-store holdups and gang violence. The bureaucrat raps on the door. "United States government," he announces. "I'm here to pick up any guns you might have. Open up, please."

The thugs look at each other in utter dismay. "It's all over. The government's here to get our guns." Like beaten men, they collect the arsenal spread out piecemeal over several rooms and turn everything over to the bureaucrat.

"Now what?" says one of the thugs, after showing the federal agent and his bulging pillowcase out the door. "We can't rob at gunpoint no more. What can we do?"

At that point, one of his comrades flashes a brochure from a correspondence school. "Maybe we could become ... I don't know ... accountants. Locksmiths. X-ray technicians. Yeah, that's it. We can start earning an honest living." The men glance at one another and nod slowly. "Yeah, that's cool. With no guns, we might as well do something else."

Calculating the likelihood of such a thing ever happening would involve such enormous numbers that we wouldn't know what to call them.

Unlike the last scenario, this one requires very little imagination: A single mother and her toddler son huddle together in a room of their ramshackle house. She hears someone trying to break in. The street crime outside has kept the woman in a perpetual state of fear, jumping at the slightest sound. But now, her worst dread is coming to pass. Several violent kicks jar the back door until it flies open. Two large men enter. "Dear God," she gasps.

As the brutes walk toward the woman and her son, she instinctively unlatches a cabinet and thrusts her hand into a drawer for the revolver that has been her security for years. But it's not there. She remembers, to her horror, that the feds confiscated her gun a few weeks ago. The government -- that body designed to protect the weak -- has effectively disarmed the woman, removing her only immediate defense against such predators. Now she and the boy are at their mercy.

The rape and assault get a brief mention on the evening news. Just another statistic. The Law of Unintended Consequences claims another victim.

That's the trouble with so many well-meaning ideas. They allow the advocate -- the politician and the activist -- to bask in the acclaim that good intentions bring. But in practice, ideas like Shelley's to often energize the evil they seek to curb.