Posted on 11/21/2004 1:56:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
In response I will say the one thing that is most hurtful to a liberal who's crowing his liberalism from the rooftops: WHO CARES?
A classical liberal is today's American style conservative/libertarian.
The modern Left traces its roots to communism, obviously, and accomodationist monarchism (a la Bismarck), not so obviously.
I know, but this guy is really convinced that he is right. Sad.
When I was a young man, I felt attracted to the Young Marx's idea of alienation. His idea of a communist society sounds a lot like libertarian one: where freed from the drudgery of material compulsion, people would find their own happiness in pursuing their own talents. Some would fish and others would paint. The point is man would not be acted by an outside force against himself; man would be the master of his own nature and the agent of his own well-being. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? The flaw in the theory as attractive as it sounds, is that if getting rid of alienation would make men happy, it would already happen and no force would be required to liberate human beings from the bonds that keep them from connecting to their real selves. And there is no evidence any communist society has managed to make people happy by freeing them of wants and renewing their once-lost freedom and authentic state of being.
And an excess of Rousseau, Marat, and de Sade?
Yes. The social cancer of the Sixties needs to be cured.
You are correct. When I joined FR yesterday, I wanted the screen name "classical liberal", but it was taken. So I settled for market liberal. Surely no one on here will think that any of my views fall in line with modern liberalism.
I consider myself a moderate on social issues and a hawk on national security but my family says that I am a "conservative" because I just voted Republican - I have never had any problem with the liberal agenda as you have expressed it - I can identify with most of your ideals - but I do have a problem with how the Democratic party has become hostage to the extremism of the very groups that they espouse to champion - so today the Democrats are the party of extremism, intolerance and crackpots - intolerance expressed as a disdain for people of faith along similar lines of how social conversatives at one time dissed monorities - I hope the Dems come to their collective senses - I notice how negative most of the responses are to your posting - what a shame that an idealistic vision such as yours is shot down due to the idiotic position the Dems are now in - so every conservative now lumps together the liberal ideal with the nuttiness of the latter day Democratic party - what happened to the middle road?
Yes. So they must be controlled until They can bring about the proper order of things.
Ask Michael Moore or George Soros.
Don't feel sorry for LIBERALS.
They destroy lives.
The French Revolution paid more in blood than it obtained in the fruits of liberty.
It is sad to me that these people have benefitted just as much as me from every drop of blood that has spilled in defense of liberty.
Sheila "Don't you know who I am!" Jackson-Lee's buddy.
The lessons of the last two centuries have taught us rapid progress in the name of equality results in totalitarianism. I'm a champion of freedom - not of equality.
Nothing new here---just another socialist calling himself a liberal.
Why? Wasn't it because they refused to recognize the limits of both individual rights and rights of the state? At one point, everything became a right to the left in the French revolution. And the state had enough power, finally, to conduct endless beheadings.
Rousseau had some good ideas that were used by our Founding Fathers. But I think besides the social contract, they also felt that the state should be very limited in its power to pursue utopian ambitions.
The left wing of the Democratic party is rapidly becoming the new "National Socialists", in ALL respects.
The modern Democrat party has been hijacked by extremists, mostly socialists who have perpetuated the 10 planks of communism as if they were versus from the bible.
1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State.
7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liablity of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.
Oh, and here's a little "ditty" called "Why we are Socialists." Check on the author when you done in the link.
Why Are We Socialists?
Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and the regaining of freedom. Socialism therefore is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total combat brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!
The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism's nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic, state-building, liberating and constructive.
The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of pay, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day — though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform — but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the fatherland. The bourgeois does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it. While the working class gradually disintegrates in the Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeois and Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism, and see their task now to protect and defend it in various ways, often concealed.
We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers' state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.
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