So you think that recognizing potential disaster, that naming wrong things, that seeking to act to correct them, is not pessimism.

Yet you call the left "pessimists". What do you think we're trying to do?

I believe that people must act together, and I believe that we must compel co-operation at times. I also believe that we must be vigilant about protecting basic individual rights, precisely because we must compel co-operation at times. As Franklin said (concerning the colonies working together to fight Britain), "We must all hang together or we will assuredly hang separately."

In very many ways, I'm classic American left. What are basic individual rights, American style? Why, just what Mr. Jefferson wrote, of course: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", which were codified in the Bill of Rights.

The American right is concerned with liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. How very, um, French! ;)