Lib-rule

The hard copy version of this Los Angeles Times story has an unwelcome sub-head. The headline reads "Liberal groups expect postelection results," and the sub-head (as seen on newsracks) reads: "Abortion, gun control."

Excuse me?

I've been following progressive web sites fairly closely -- some would even say that I run one -- and neither abortion nor gun control has topped the agenda. We've been fighting for Bush control. We want the abortion of fascism in its fetal stage. We seek the return of search warrants, the Geneva Convention, habeus corpus, and privacy rights. We want an end to torture. We want punishment for officials who lie us into war. We want an end to massive borrowing from Asians and Arabs. We want our country to make things again.

Once again, the mainstream media has conjured up a "boogeyman" image of liberalism which buttresses dangerous and misleading stereotypes.

Nancy Pelosi's emergence forces us to confront a particularly pernicious stereotype, one which deserves the earliest possible death: The belief that San Francisco has become a game preserve for gays, socialists, hedonists and ne'er-say-die hippies. Many Americans who have never visited the Bay area think they know what goes on there.

Of course there are lots of gay people in SF, although most residents are hetero, as in every other city. Aficionados of hedonism will indeed find some nasty strip clubs in the Tenderloin district -- almost as nasty as the ones in Jeb Bush's Florida. (Or so I am told by those with expert knowledge of such matters.)

But...hippies? Commies? Do they really run the joint, as popular imagination would have it?

In a word: No.

When I was younger, friends of mine moved to that area because Beat literature and old Robert Crumb comics had conjured up the delusion that the Summer of Love still held sway in Golden Gate Park. Man, were they surprised.

Upon his return, one friend said that he could sum up San Francisco in one word: Capitalism.

For some reason, tourists hopping from Chinatown to Fisherman's Wharf mentally block out the office buildings. They don't quite understand that people work in those buildings -- 50-plus hours a week. Rents in that area are sky-high, and there's always some other guy who wants the job.

Life in Los Angeles tends to be rather more easygoing. In San Francisco, it's always the Summer of Long Hours. People wear ties, not tie-dye.

Both San Franciscans and Los Angelenos (and this is a point I never tire of repeating) are producers. They give much more to the Federal treasury than they receive. Folks in Alabama and Mississippi and Texas are leeches. They drain much more from the federal government than they contribute.

Yet those same southerners have the sheer gall to accuse their funders -- Nancy Pelosi's constituents -- of being socialistic suckers of the guv-a-mint teat.

My southern friends, it's time you understood that you owe your pork to some hard-working Californians. Think about that next time you carp about Nancy Pelosi's alleged "San Francisco values." Moochers don't have the right to carp about their benefactors.