Posted on 01/07/2013 11:20:49 AM PST by The Looking Spoon
This piece will probably set off some of those shining beacons of intellectualism on the left.
The truth is Churchill was wrong, conservatives have both heart and brains. Liberals would disagree because they favor unfettered social welfare, but there's no real heart in a political philosophy where the individual prefers personally divorcing themselves from the act of charity by mandating a bigger government to take care of it for them.
England and America are two countries separated by a common language. George Bernard Shaw
The political spectrum (from the same period as the Churchill quote), as explained by English children's author Richmal Crompton, in her short story "William, Prime Minister" (1930)
Henry, who usually knows things about the outside world, explains to them what the forthcoming election is all about:Conservative have a pessistic view of human nature and realise almost all chnage will be for the worse, so don't change. Liberals are slightly optimistic, and hope for possible improvement, but only make a change that can be corrected if it turns out wrong.
“Do shut up int’ruptin’, said Henry, “I’m tryin’ to tell you ‘bout this gen’ral election. There’s four sorts of people tryin’ to get to be rulers. They all want to make things better, but they want to make ‘em better in different ways. There’s Conservatives an’ they want to make things better by keepin’ ‘em jus’ like what they are now. An’ there’s Lib’rals an’ they want to make things better by alterin’ them jus’ a bit, but not so’s anyone’d notice, an’ there’s Socialists, an’ they want to make things better by taking everyone’s money off ‘em and there’s Communists an’ they want to make things better by killin’ everyone but themselves"
Only Progressives (Socialists and Communists) believe in the inevitabilty of improvement and make changes that cannot be corrected (indeed, changes so great it is not possible to determine what actually went wrong). These are the people Americans, for some peculiar reason, call "liberals"
Which way do the LibDems lean then . . . ? They look further to the left than Labour on a lot of issues, to me.
“Only Progressives (Socialists and Communists) believe in the inevitabilty of improvement and make changes that cannot be corrected (indeed, changes so great it is not possible to determine what actually went wrong). These are the people Americans, for some peculiar reason, call “liberals”.”
Excellente, mi Capitaine!
I have always felt and believed that Churchill’s statement was wrong - equating having a heart with being liberal and with being young.
Recent research on that very quote that led me to a place that said it was unlikely Churchill ever made that remark, particularly since he was a Conservative at a very early age and was a Liberal in his middle-age. This was a conclusion from a Churchill scholar, not just some guy with a website.
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