Unspeakable Truths

Hugh Hewitt has made some news today, at least in the blogospheric sense of the word, with his interview of Karen Finney, an MSNBC host, who apparently would not answer a simple question from Hewitt about whether Alger Hiss had been a communist spy.

Now this is not debatable.   The historical record revealed from Soviet archives after the fall of the Soviet Union shows conclusively that Hiss, Harvard Law grad, high official in the State Department, key advisor at Yalta, was, in fact, a Soviet spy, just as Whittaker Chambers claimed.  

But it's also an "unspeakable truth" that no one on the Left can admit, because it would cause a wing of their ideological house of cards to tumble down.   To wit:

• If Alger Hiss was not a spy.
• Liberals can keep believing that there were no spies in the U.S. government in the 1940s and 1950s.
• Which allows them to keep believing that the McCarthy Era was a great evil involving Republicans lying about good-hearted liberals by calling them communist spies.  
• Which allows them to keep using words like "censorship" and "blacklist" and "McCarthyism."

In short, an entire mythology depends on the initial premise that Alger Hiss was not a spy.

But...

• If Alger Hiss was a spy.
• Then there were spies high up in the U.S. government.
• Then Joe McCarthy was at least in part right.
• Which means that much of the Manichaen ideological system of the left is based on a lie.

Which got me to thinking... what other unspeakable truths would cause the edifice of leftism to crumble if revealed?   Things that the Left conveniently forgets or elides?   Facts that are monkey wrenches in the ideology of the Left?   Facts, which, if publicized, would make people laugh at aspects of liberalism.

Here are a few ideas of "unspeakable truths":

1. Scientists in the 1970s believed we were entering a new ice age.
2. The black family in 1960, before the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Society, was more intact and functional than white families are today, and the destruction of the black family has come after the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Society.
3. The availability of abortion causes more unwanted pregnancies, not fewer.
4. Detroit and Chicago, one bankrupt, the other the murder capital of the country, are also the two most Democratic cities in America.   Can't blame Republicans for those fiascos!
5. Conservatives, and particularly conservative Christians, are much more generous with charity than liberals, and particularly liberal atheists.
6. Spending more money on public school education has not demonstrable longitudinal positive effect on educational outcomes.

I may do some more thinking along these lines.   Hmmmm....