Raymond Aron in The Opium of the Intellectuals:
An honest and intelligent person can never become a leftist. An honest leftist is bad-headed, and a smart leftist is dishonest. If you don’t know the contradictory essence of socialism, you’re stupid, and if you know and follow it, you’re a liar.
Null Set II
Honest, intelligent, and a leftist,
You know what’s occurred to me?
Such is the nature of socialism,
It’s impossible to be all three.
This poem is my update of “Null Set,” which I posted in June of 1998:
Null Set
Decent, intelligent, and a journalist,
You know what’s occurred to me?
In what has become of America,
It’s impossible to be all three.