Think you're a liberal? Guess again (Good Read)

Mpls (red)Star Tribune ^ | 8/3/03 | Stephen B. Young

[Valin]

The Star Tribune's July 26 editorial "Cost of driving," which portrays a personal automobile culture as publicly subsidized in a betrayal of conservative values, gets its fundamental political nomenclature all wrong.
If we don't name things correctly, our thinking goes off in dysfunctional directions, followed in logical course by inappropriate actions.

Like many self-defining "progressive" Americans the Star Tribune misrepresents what "conservative" means in our culture. Today's conservatives are really "liberals" and today's liberals are really "authoritarians."

[Valin]

No you didn't misread it is from the Mpls (red)Star.

[Eala]

Is there...? Excerpted - click for full question ^

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

Conservatism is a set of attitudes rather than a set of policies. The particular policies favored by a conservative will depend upon the particular tradition he is defending.

There is therefore no inherent contradiction between conservatism and liberalism.

[Valin]

For some reason we can't post full artices from the Mpls Star Tribune. Why this is I don't know, consult sys admin.
Just a guess, it's the word Tribune.

[Lazamataz]

Is there...? Excerpted - click for full question ^

LOL! Creative approach.

[Lazamataz]

Is there...? Excerpted - click for full question ^

LOL! Creative approach.

[Thebaddog]

That was good history about appropriation of the term "Liberal" by FDR. It makes sense in today's political lunacy.

[Gritty]

Stephen B. Young: Think you're a liberal? Guess again

Stephen B. Young
Published August 3, 2003	SYEC03

The Star Tribune's July 26 editorial "Cost of driving," which portrays a personal automobile culture as publicly subsidized in a betrayal of conservative values, gets its fundamental political nomenclature all wrong.

If we don't name things correctly, our thinking goes off in dysfunctional directions, followed in logical course by inappropriate actions.

Like many self-defining "progressive" Americans the Star Tribune misrepresents what "conservative" means in our culture.

Today's conservatives are really "liberals" and today's liberals are really "authoritarians."

Liberalism is the middle-class social philosophy that combines free-market capitalism with political democracy under the Rule of Law. That 18th-and early-19th-century philosophy of John Locke and Adam Smith is advocated by those who today call themselves conservative.

Franklin Roosevelt appropriated the label "liberal" for his New Deal programs seeking to fix a deeply troubled free market capitalism during the Great Depression.

Those opposed to Roosevelt's use of federal government power in place of markets and local autonomy began to call themselves "conservatives" in that they were trying to conserve true liberalism against the growing power of government regulation.

Now, 70 years later, the names are all mixed up. Conservatives stand for freedom of individual decisionmaking, which implies innovation and change, while liberals demand government imposition of certain "progressive" values regardless of majority views.

Today's conservatives passionately support a culture of personal autonomy including the ownership of automobiles and houses in suburbia (also a vital part of that middle-class lifestyle), because that is what the people want. Tolerantly following the people is to be "liberal" in the true sense of the word.

Correspondingly, our contemporary so-called "liberals" do not want what the people want. Rather, they prefer a culture of regulation where their progressive ideals are imposed on the public by the power of the state. Under the authoritarian premises of today's "liberalism," taxes should be imposed to transfer financial power to selected client constituencies or to discourage distasteful consumption. Law should be used through the courts under the banner of "human rights" when legislatures are not cooperative on the social issues of affirmative action, abortion, the environment, smoking, obesity, gun ownership, etc.

But if the people want to own their own cars and to spend a high percentage of their income on these objects, why can't the Star Tribune leave them in peace?

Stephen B. Young is a lawyer who lives in St. Paul.

[Gritty]

"liberals" do not want what the people want. Rather, they prefer a culture of regulation where their progressive ideals are imposed on the public by the power of the state.

Pretty amazing stuff, coming from the Red Star Tribune.

On the other hand, this is an Opinion piece, so it is probably just tokenism.

[maica]

The author makes good points. Maybe we should start using the word 'authoritarian' whenever the lefties try to self-identify as 'progressive.' They have latched on to 'progressive' as a way to imply that 'conservative' means 'regressive.'

As a personal policy, I never grace lefties with the designation of 'liberal' as they are the antithesis of the true meaning of that word.

Discriminating, gay, diversity, non-partisan, minority --

all words that the left has successfully made us change the definition and use of them.

[JennysCool]

Here's a take on the same issue I wrote a few months back for an august conservative publication:

Trading Places

The labels "conservative" and "liberal" get flung so much against the wall of conversation that almost nobody stops to think a whole lot about them, except to come up with colorful insults for the one which you emphatically are not. As with anything reduced to a label, the little nuances tend to get hopelessly lost in all the blather, to the extent that few pundits have bothered to mention that the two factions have almost completely changed places.

This thought dawned on me the other night when I chanced to read Senator Tom Daschle's latest hilariously-overdramatized reaction to what had seemed (to me) a well-delivered, perfectly-reasoned speech by President Bush -- in this case, the speech in which the president, like so many 1930s B-movie police chiefs before him, gave ol' Saddam 48 hours to get outta town and take his twisted little crime family with him.

As is usually the case in this instantaneously goofy era, Senator Daschle's reaction was offered prior to the actual speech being made, which certainly -- when you get right down to it -- saves precious time.

In delivering his pre-sponse to Mr. Bush, Mr. Daschle stood before a gathering of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- a group perhaps more aptly termed a "trough" -- and made the following comment:

"I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war ... Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."

Oh. The pain.

That's the sort of boo-hooey you expect out of, for example, classic thespian Olivia DeHavilland on a six-day elderberry wine drunk, not a duly-elected United States Senator -- even a duly-elected United States Senator from South Dakota.

I'm certain that -- after assuring the crowd that he was all broody and so very, very completely and genuinely fraught with sadness that this president would even think of going after a guy who can't get enough Kurdish tongue-slicings individually and bone-melting chemical weapons collectively -- Mr. Daschle then looked up (Mr. Daschle always has to look up), his tender eyes as moist as former Vice President Al Gore's armpits after a hearty game of Saharan touch football, and made a slight head-bow in the direction of the appreciative applause from the few still conscious State, County and Municipal Employees.

My own reaction was a little more subdued, but then Mr. Daschle is not routinely drafting legislation to protect the paychecks of America's pundits.

Leaving aside Senator Tom's take on 'taking down' Saddam, my first thought upon hearing Mr. Daschle's whiny, tortured spiel was: This is a liberal? I used to be a liberal, dammit. Back when it meant what it sounds like it means. Back when you grew your hair long, or you had your girlfriend cut it all off -- with her teeth; back when you smoked with impunity and, when your forefinger started to blister, a roach clip; back when you power-slammed a few hundred brewskis, maybe knocked up a couple of chicks, and most certainly made fun of your devoutly conservative grandma who was always telling you that "your attitude" was going to send you hurtling on a flaming Concorde to Dr. Satan's Receiving Hospital.

And that was just Saturday afternoon.

"Hot damn," I quietly reasoned. "Senator Tom Daschle isn't a liberal. Senator Tom Daschle is my grandma!"

And that wasn't even the half of it. I quickly made the stone-cold realization that Senator Tom Daschle was not only my grandma, he was actually better at being my grandma than she ever was, because he then combined his deep, saddened disapproval with a Waltons-esque flagon of by-god-we'll-get-through-it. Such a marked departure from my own grandma's comforting "Flee my sight, demon-spawn!"

Mr. Daschle assured the assembled State, County and Municipal Employees -- many of whom undoubtedly were there after taking time out from looking down into that big hole in the street -- that, "We will work, and we will do all we can to get through this crisis like we've gotten through so many."

That subtle whirring you hear is Greer Garson rotating in her crypt.

After a cascade of sentiment like that one, you almost expect to be lovingly hugged to Senator Tom Daschle's ample bosom -- stooping to do it -- while inhaling the comforting intermingled scents of lilac, talcum powder and Mentholatum.

Dear God. That must have been what Norman Rockwell's nightmares were like.

There is absolutely no doubt that this -- whatever the heck it is -- being practiced by Mr. Daschle out there on the rubber chicken circuit is emphatically not the sort of fiery devil-may-care liberalism that used to set my heart aflutter prior to my conversion to what is now known as "conservatism" -- which seems in practice an awful lot like those golden liberal days. And it illustrates, better than anything else I can think of, the neck-twisting switch which has occurred with regard to these two all-American belief systems.

My liberal friends shrilly decry the strictures they believe conservatives -- armed with their old-fashioned and mean-spirited notions -- are forcing upon them. But let's slide the little specimen under the microscope, here. It's not the conservatives gawking with shock when somebody lights up a menthol cigarette after polishing off dinner at Red Lobster; the conservatives aren't the ones shrieking when a character in a movie -- in a movie for godsake! -- makes a little ribald fun of Jesse Jackson. Conservatives aren't the ones telling you what kind of car you shouldn't drive, what kind of words you shouldn't use, how much you shouldn't drink, and why you shouldn't eat at Red Lobster because shellfish are people, too.

Nope. It's the "liberals" doing all that -- those very folks whom you may recall as the famous freedom-lovin' Merry Pranksters of old. The liberals have gone the conservatives one better -- they have become grandma with a license to legislate -- and, man, does grandma ever turn out to be one tough old bitch with that kind of ammunition. It's all about Mother Jones morphed into Carrie Nation on the left side of the political spectrum.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend these days to be the party animals, the what-the-hellers. Seldom do you find a conservative -- male or female -- tearing off to the courthouse because somebody told a dirty joke within their auditory range if they listened really, really hard. Conservatives aren't the ones getting people fired because their vocabularies include the word "niggardly." And if you ask a conservative if he minds if you smoke, you're most likely going to find yourself lighting him up, too -- followed by maybe a couple of drinks and a little lobster-shooting down there at the bay.

In fact, the dictionary definition of "liberal" is wildly laughable when applied to today's breed: "Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry."

That is exactly what they are not.

And I'm certain I'm not the only formerly-genuine liberal who feels co-opted by this new, ever more feeble, off-brand of lib -- this cadre of fussy, controlling, totalitarian and ultimately weepy fellas and gals who never met a good time -- or, for that matter, an honorable president -- they didn't diss.

[philomath]

Senator Tom Daschle is my grandma!

boiled down to his insipid essence, that's about all there is: persnickity granny writ large (small?)....

[Valin]

Senator Tom Daschle is my grandma!

Not mine he's not! she would give him a tongue-lashing that he would not soon forget. She was the kind of woman who did not suffer fools well...or long.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"They have latched on to 'progressive'"

I like to use "Nanny State" along with "culture doctors" to describe goofy liberals to other goofy liberals.

Here in California liberal ideas are the norm and it is difficult for them to understand how government can ever be bad. So if you can make them realize that you are being treated like a child the goo-goos get it.

[Ditter]

bump for later

[tarawa]

these are certainly some of the better explanations of the Socialists

[Piranha]

He's right.

Here is a link to a website from Belmont University (I don't know anything about this school except that, from its website, I can see that it is located in Tennessee.

In this 1994 article, the author, Amy Sturgis, writes that "E. K. Bramsted, co-editor of the monumental anthology Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce (1978), asserts that the classical liberal champions the rights of individuals (with careful attention to the more endangered rights of minorities), the right of property in particular, the government's obligation to protect property, limited constitutional government, and a belief in social progress..."

Then, she posits her own definition of Classical Liberalism:

"(i) an ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society, (ii) the support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system, (iii) the desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals' rights from others and from its own expansion, and (iv) the universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions."

This is why such Conservative (by today's nomenclature) political philosophers as Edmund Burke can be described as conservative today.

The website is at http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/essay.html

[stop_fascism]

I prefer the term "National Socialist", which fully describes their political philosophy.

[yonif]

This is the reason I most of the times say rightwing and leftwing instead of conservative and liberal. Because, liberal and conservative mean different things outside of the US.

[Coffee_drinker]

"leftwing vs rightwing"

Somebody at work asked me the question: why do they call
conservatives "rightwing" and liberals "leftwing" I did
not know the answer. Does anyone know where the terms
come from? triva buff :)

Thanks,
CD