The Dark Secret at the Heart of Liberalism

The American Enterprise Online. ^ | 7/11/06 | William Tucker

[Laserman]

"Liberals don't believe this at all. They believe that adults are basically children and need to be guided by a core group of elite, "intelligent" people who "just know" what's right and wrong."

I thik you are right when it comes to public social policy, but I think the author is right when it comes to foreign policy and confronting evil. If there is one trait that I have observed as common to virtually all liberals, it is cowardice.

[EyeGuy]

"ahem..." Yes, right then. Your choice: metatarsal of their little toe.... -- OR -- Third metacarpal of their little finger. Ah yes, the errors that occur when posting during multi-tasking. Also, I am after all EyeGuy, not HandGuy or FootGuy.......

[Edgerunner]

I LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

good sport, LOL.....how 'bout those phalanges and fingernails, eh?

[PsyOp]

“Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. The charge is preposterous and we ought boldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. Circumstances do change. So do the problems that are shaped by circumstances. But the principles that govern the solution of the problems do not. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date. The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today.” – Barry Goldwater, The Conscience Of A Conservative, 1960.

Barry Goldwater, The Conscience Of A Conservative.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Most Libs are utter idiots, sheep-like followers of the uber-wise Liberal Obie Wans. It is the latter that we have to worry about, not the masses.

...Liberal Obie Wan

[TexanToTheCore]

I have to agree with the author's analysis.

[GOPJ]

So it is with the War on Terror. Browse the letters to The New York Times on any given day and you will find half a dozen readers blaming George Bush for Muslim terror. Amazingly, Times' readers also lay the North Korean missile launching at George Bush’s feet—if he hadn’t done “X,” then it never would have happened. It is much safer to rail at the President than to confront the real enemy.

The Times itself plays this game when it reveals military secrets. It knows the American government is too civilized to retaliate. But when it comes to confronting Muslims—by printing the Danish cartoons, for example—the Times and the rest of the press completely chicken out. The risk of real violence is too serious.

What liberalism amounts to, then, is an effort to avoid confrontation with the perpetrators of violence by constantly misdirecting anger toward safer targets—abstract “root causes,” inanimate objects, innocent third parties, and ultimately the very people who are trying to respond to the problem. You might not want to call this “cowardice,” but if you can think of a better word, let me know.

Great read ping...

[Liberty Valance]

"It is much safer to rail at the President than to confront the real enemy."

Nail on the head.

[shield]

bttt

[EyeGuy]

"good sport, LOL.....how 'bout those phalanges and fingernails, eh?"


Gee, an ENTIRE phalange?

The complete finger of your average jarhead or buck private, would contain more raw phsical courage than the entire faculty of your average Ivy League School or "journalism" staff of your average metropolitan daily newspaper.

Actually, probably more than both combined........

[pollyannaish]

The Times itself plays this game when it reveals military secrets. It knows the American government is too civilized to retaliate. But when it comes to confronting Muslims—by printing the Danish cartoons, for example—the Times and the rest of the press completely chicken out. The risk of real violence is too serious.

This is a well written and thought out piece.

[pollyannaish]

Those two are not mutually exclusive, imo.

They believe that if the right people were in charge there would BE no injustice in the world and therefore no violence. They are the good and honest brokers of a perfect world.

In addition, if you've ever watched liberal parents try to discipline their toddlers you know that they honestly believe the sheer force of their logical discourse will overwhelm a two-year old's instant gratification obsession. The entire concept that it make take more than that is a complete anathema. They think the same thing about anyone who is "makes poor choices."

[Sam Cree]

"they want to believe that people are naturally cooperative, that a peaceful world will arise spontaneously, and that if certain people remain violent or unsatisfied with the system then there must be some vast injustice or mistake."

"Liberals don't believe this at all. They believe that adults are basically children and need to be guided by a core group of elite, "intelligent" people who "just know" what's right and wrong."

I think liberals believe both of the above, contradictory though they are. Additionally, their "understanding" and compassion are not directed at all humanity, but reserved for certain preferred groups. Businessmen and white male Americans, for instance, are specifically excluded from all that compassion. There is a complete liberal hierarchy of politically correct rankings for those who are to receive "liberal" compassion.

It probably goes something like this, starting with the most preferred receivers and going on to the lowest ranking: Native American females, black females, hispanic females, white European females, white American females, native American males, black males, hispanic males, everyone else in the world including terrorists, lastly, the lowest ranking of all, white American males, with the most productive ones receiving the bottom rankings. Our founding fathers would often find themselves in the bottom rank.

The idea of looking at people for their individual worth destroys the need for such silly things as having to rank people by groups, but individuality, while supposedly championed by liberals, is not valued by the Left and thus not supported by "liberals" either, another contradiction.

Man, just thinking about liberals ticks me off, even though I have close friends among their number.

[Sam Cree]

"Liberalism is the quest for a life without consequences"

Yes, agreed. "Liberals" always vote for more government and and for whatever moves the country toward socialism. They push for the very systems in which individual responsibility is replaced by communal responsibility, in other words, by state responsibility. The "it takes a village" mentality, totalitarian though it is, resonates with liberals.

[Natural Law]

We are on the same page on this. Practical Freedom is about a delicate balance between the Freedoms "to" and the Freedoms "from". Liberalism is about a paradigm shift to artificially pick and choose.

[colorado tanker]

This isn't news. The liberal belief in the perfectibility of man has been behind many of the ills of the 20th Century, like communism, fascism, pacifism . . .

[Chgogal]

Mr. Tucker used many more words than I did when I wrote to Billie Traitor Boy Keller and cowardice. But then again I was furious at the time.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1655505/posts?page=28#28