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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Thanks, Mr. Lind for this sane article. The left has always displayed a disturbing fondness for euphemism, which our adversaries have lampooned with merciless accuracy. It's fine to be "liberal" in the FDR-LBJ sense of the word. Over the past few years, if you've noticed, the right has employed that word rather lovingly themselves, albeit in a 19th Century sense.
And thanks for the kind words about Clinton and the New Democrats - words which "progressives" have always been miserly with. For all his sexual melodrama Clinton will be judged a successful president. When he came into office the Democrats had been hopelessly stereotyped as weak on crime, weak on defense and weak on the economy. When he left they had credibility in all three areas. Those are three pretty big dragons to slay. And if Obama does prove to be a "transformational" uber-leader, as we are assured he must, he can thank St. Bill the Baptist for clearing the way.
I'm with JFK.
I'm a little surprised that Mr Lind is unaware of something that he could easily find in any good dictionary: "liberal" comes from the Latin "liberalis" meaning suitable for a freeman, or generous. Historians have stated is likely because of the second meaning that British Whigs adopted it from their Spanish counterparts who were the first to use it. It is the libertarians (who, speaking globally, can be either left or right) who can more rightly claim the root word "liber" or "libertas" for their own. Further, he neglects to mention what political scientists without an ideological axe to grind have long recognized, that there is an ambiguity in the concept of freedom, which has been summed up as being negative i.e. absence of coercion or constraint esp. by government, and positive i.e. presence of autonomy or self-direction esp. that facilitated by government. Liberalism biased to the former is right-wing, classical, conservative etc. Liberalism biased to the latter is left-wing, modern, progressive. it's important to note that re liberalism the addjectives "classical" and "modern" are applicable only in the British-North American context. I find Mr. Lind's statement that American liberals "have never had anything have never had anything philosophically in common with...post-Marxist social democrats in Europe" surprising. In fact they have a great deal in common but Lind evidently is as ignorant of the connected developments in 20th century British and North American liberalism and Continental Western European socialism as many if not most U.S. political scholars or he would know that the 20th century witnessed the dialectical synthesis of the classical liberalism and classical socialism of those regions into modern liberalism and the modern, moderate form of democratic socialism now called social democracy, distinguished by degrees, emphases, and pedigree but nothing fundamental. For this reason U.S. liberals would be considered social democrats in Europe. Elsewhere "liberal" unless it has an adjective like "progressive" or "social" (not in the limited civil liberties sense) is economically decidedly on the right. While I don't object to the noun "progressive" since it can be used by either liberals or democratic socialists (and as an adjective even by conservatives), I would agree that it would clarify things for liberals to call themselves liberals again, but clarity, unfortunately, is not what political language has ever been primarily concerned with. Didn't Lind used to refer to his own position, first in his "Up from Conservatism" (1996), as "national liberalism", socially conservative but economically progressive or as he said liberal? Up here in Canada we'd call him a red tory or lower case progressive consevative.
The left and the right are making way too much of the outcome of this election.
When one considers first, the context of the election (unpopular war and failing economy tied to the GOP), second, the fact that even in this context the Dem candidate did not get a landslide, and third, the results of the gay marriage initiatives in even blue states, it is clear that the American people did not sign on to the Salon/Daily Kos/Huffington Post agenda.
If the Dems want to overreach, good luck. So long as the GOP is able to keep the most liberal supreme court nominees off the court, the conservative agenda will not be much damaged and conservative ideas will be in a very good position to make a comeback.
The notion that pundits on the left and right (with too much air and web space to fill) are pushing, i.e., that the left has a mandate and the GOP must retool, is ludicrous. A very small number of voters, unhappy with the war and the economy, moved left this election. But many, many more stayed firmly in the conservative and moderate camp. And even those few who moved are not, in their core beliefs, that much different than they were a year ago or 4 years ago. So if the Dems push a far left agenda--as they in their undisciplined way almost certainly will, the future looks rosy for conservatives.
All right, the problem with progressive is that it doesn't mean much of anything. Almost everybody's for "progress". Mussolini thought he was progressive.
But there is a problem with liberal and that is that it means too much. It started out with a very definite political philosophy which you can read about in Locke and the Declaration of Independence. Today, liberals, by and large, don't believe in that stuff much any more, except as a sort of religious ideal. They are precisely into the sort of Bismarckian ideal Wilson was on about, of a highly centralized state with a place for everyone and everyone in his place. Hence the ardent belief that moving one's medical insurance from an enormous, indifferent, inefficient capitalist bureaucracy to an enormous, indifferent, inefficient Federal bureaucracy is of critical importance. They honestly believe, as does Michael Lind, that a centralized Welfare system -- actually, a centralized Welfare-warfare-workfare system -- does not impinge on the freedom and autonomy of the people. They take the example of the New Orleans disaster, a poster child for anarchy and local initiative, and turn it on its head into a object lesson for more of the same distant Federal bureaucracy that magnified the disaster in the first place. And don't let me get started about the Bailout.
All of this is pretty much the opposite of what the original liberals thought and said, so I think you all should stick with progressive. It's just punishment for your political sins. Or how about "monarchist"?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
