Contemporary “Liberalism” is the Opposite of True Liberalism

Ah yes, reduce the aspirations, hopes and dreams of the hundreds of millions of people on the planet who are to the left of George Will, including all of Blue State Americans, to a cliched paragraph.

And what is the alternative that you perhaps propose?

The psychotic psycho-pathic rantings of Russ Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter who now represent the public face of what is now called "conservatism" in the USA.

Such ignorant yahoos constantly appeal to the worst instincts of the mob, and thereby effectively set up the collective psychology for the search for scape-goats to blame (and monster) when things really go wrong---blame it all on the lefties, the liberal professors, the humanists, the liberal Christians etc etc.

Get rid of these cancers in the USA body politic and everything will thus be hunky-dory again in red-state America.

If things really get bad or break down (which IS entirely possible) the people that WILL be monstered are those on the left.

Plus look at the Homeland Security apparatus (etc etc) that was put into place by the Bush administration. There is now nowhere to hide. Everything is monitored, and mostly by companies and outfits that are on the right side of the culture wars divide.

Homeland Security etc created an explosion of venture-capitalist companies who are making billions providing the hardware for all of this to happen. All of these people and outfits are by their very nature on the right side of the culture wars divide.

Meanwhile who really owns and controls the guns in the USA. Or belongs to the various para-military militias, including Blackwater etc etc.

Those on the left or the right? The liberals or the so called conservatives?

"If I know that someone is primarily motivated by the desire to control/exploit me, I will have no interest in their plans, any of them. Because even if they seem rational in their presentation, I will understand that they are not revealing everything. They exploit."

Precisely. I ask them how thier plans fit the equation TC = PC + EC + GC.

If they cannot show me how TC gets lower, they are exploiting me.

I don't need any equation to tell me that they are exploiting me. I just look at my pay stubs.

Actually the point of the equation is to prove that you cannot tell if youare being exploited just from your pay stubs. We pay more for cleaner gas and cleaner cars, but we get cleaner air in return. if we live longer because of the clean air and as a result we earn more than we lost paying extra for gas, is that being exploited, or did you get a good deal and not recognize it.

If we pay more for gas and do not get the payback, then we are being exploited, but not by the government. by those who lobbied the government for unnecessarily cleaner air.

If we pay less for gas and die much sooner because it is full of lead, then we got expoited not by the government but by the industrialists who lobbied for cheaper gas.

"The above assumes some sort of twisted vision of a greater good"

Not actually. We can actually measure, within reason, whether we have created a greater good, or less total costs.

There is nothing twisted in searching for a greater good, and measuring whether you get it.

What is twisted is assuming you already have it, and simply saying NO to any and every attempt at reform.

Total Cost = Production cost + External cost + Government Costs, with benefits counting as negative costs in each term.

Conservatives and Republicans believe you lower total costs by lowering government costs, irrespective of what happens to the other terms. We saw how well that worked in banking.

Liberals and conservationists believe you lower total costs by loweing external costs (and the "short term profit" part of production costs.) they like haing soap, but they hate having it manufactured or used, apparently.

They are both wrong.

Think of a Republican Vs Democrat cost/benefit curve.

The Republican curve reduces costs and benefits sloping down to the right. The Democratic curve increases costs and benefits, sloping up to the right. The optimum point is where they cross. Too far either direction wastes resources and isn't green.

The Democrats have the privilege of being on the precipice of failure only becausee the Republicans peveiously fell off of saaid precipice.

and failing... with the opportunity to get back up and try again.

While in practice the essence of liberalism often does devolve into "minute supervision" so in that I can't argue with Will. But the big picture of liberalism. And why I would side with liberalism is pragmatically it is the best way to diffuse concentrated power and wealth.

And for all the inefficiencies most societies today are liberal and they happen to be the most successful and fair and free societies ever.

As we tilt in the direction of libertarianism we see concentrated power in control of our daily lives and our politics. And the end result is the decaying world economy. The conservative pro-corporate Supreme Court just minutes ago passed a land mark Libertarian ruling that just gave great power to multinational corporations and monied interest.

That ruling today exemplifies the last 30 years of decline of our country and clearly outlines the difference between Liberal democrats and conservation Republicans/ Libertarians. Understanding its implications is to understand why I am a liberal. I am against Corporatocracy/Plutocracy/Kleptocracy (all the end results of classic liberalism) and for government OF, BY and FOR The People.

While in practice the essence of liberalism often does devolve into "minute supervision" so in that I can't argue with Will.

Finally, a glimmer of honesty! Of course you can't argue with Will about that. You've said that only government can determine how much liberty a man needs in order to be free. In order for government to do that, it must delve into minute supervision.

You wouldn't have it any other way.

muirgeo:

I can't begin to tell you how insulting and offensive I find your constant connection of libertarianism with conservatism. Libertarianism is as far removed from conservatism as it is from liberalism.

As far as I care, a libertarian is a conservative minus the moral/ethical/religious issues -or baggage if you want to call it that...

i meant issues as in 'Im libertarian because my political thought is divorced from my religious life' ... or is a republican just a conservative that loves Jesus? That's the way I see it with people who describe themselves as Libertarians...economically thinking republicans who won't have the holy roller stigma at the cocktail parties...

Thank you for confirming that libertarianism is nothing like conservatism! Now would you please pass that message on to muirgeo?

Muir is a heckler. He is not here to have an HONEST debate, he has proven over the last five years that he is incapable of honesy.

Democrat-Republican false dichotomy is all that matters to him. Democrats are good, rest of the world is republican, and republicans are bad. That about sums up his debate. He just repeats it ad nauseaum

I see this all the time, and am amazed by it. More or less, they admit that their level of thought boils down to D = good! R = evil! And all of the silly rhetorical fumbling they try to paper their fallacies and lies with ends up in name-calling. Stupid children really. I'm a conservative (not Repub), because 1) The world doesn't owe me a thing. 2) I am mature enough to admit that I'm wrong 3) Party affiliation too often is used as a scarlet letter or a security blanket

As what are the capitalist equivalents of North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe?

Or California and Detroit?

When a society's people want to be rich, everyone ends up richer; some more than others...when a society's people want to stop people from being rich (or fat, or cigarette smokers, or using as much hot water as they damn well please), everyone ends up poor and miserable. How can this not be obvious?

No, he's Cass Sunstein!
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract...

Sent by Obama to "cognitively infiltrate" this website to squash any "false conspiracy theories" about the Government.

"The conservative pro-corporate Supreme Court just minutes ago passed a land mark Libertarian ruling that just gave great power to multinational corporations and monied interest."

Ah yes. Free speech. Apparently only the likes of muirgeo knows how to distribute that power. And, if we gave him (or her?) that power, would that not be concentrated power?

I don't know if this is all of liberalism. I have talked to my liberal brothers and the big reason they are liberals is because they think we need a big government to "protect" us from big business, whatever that means (counterbalance their power?). All that makes me think of is elephants dancing and trying to keep from getting trampled.

"I have talked to my liberal brothers and the big reason they are liberals is because they think we need a big government to "protect" us from big business..." - chrisoleary

If government is needed to protect people from big business, why do government workers need unions?

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

You and JFK both are ignorant of the etymology of "liberal". A reading of history will show that Thomas Jefferson was, at the same time, both liberal (in the classical sense) and conservative. He recognized the virtues of property rights, free enterprise, and individual liberty as being most conducive to national prosperity; and that unchecked government was the enemy of such prosperity. It takes an open, truly liberal mind to comprehend this.

"But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

The very fact that he doesn't think this describes EVERYONE suggests that he believes his opponents are impure. How arrogant do you have to be to state that "caring" is what separates you from your opponent? Thanks for reminding us Muirgeo.

Nice rhetoric, but unresponsive to George Will's point (and Don's point too) about the "minute supervision by government." Nothing in JFK's rhetoric applies to Will's argument.

Remember, TW.

Our Dear Ducktor believes that only politicians can determine how much liberty a man needs in order to be free.

Perhaps I am overreacting, but I found this working paper on public goods experiments rather offensive. In short, they try to show that dumb people need a default mechanism imposed on them to solve the free-rider problem. While the mechanism doesn't force a certain choice on someone, it reeks of contemporary liberal intentions.

http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/special-events/othe...

Its a good line, but I believe the motive of the illiberals is deeper and darker than that. The above assumes some sort of twisted vision of a greater good, and actually gives them a small degree of credit. What I believe, grounded in the historical evidence from the actions of illiberals across many centuries, is that their motive is control. Nothing more and nothing less.

After the Joe Wilson "liar" debacle, I learned that in British parliament anything goes, short of calling someone a liar. This prohibition was put in place to ensure that the first principle of reasoned debate is believing that arguments on the other side are being made in good faith. Now, I'm not saying that politicians always make *particular* arguments in good faith (they don't), but to charge that liberals are motivated solely by control not only stifles debate, it screams conspiracy. Surely something we can all agree on is that liberals really want to do good, they just are mistaken about their methods.

Billy, it is a little bit of both. There are many people that while misguided mean good but at the end of the day those thirsty for power are the one who seize the movement and the others end up being just stepping stones. It always happen if you look closely to the history of revolutions and social movements seeking to impose a utopian vision. No one described it better than Orwell in "Animal Farm". Randy is right in the sense that those who are driven by the thirst of power end up in control and for them the "good intention" is at best a form of self-justification, of rationalizing away their base true motive.

"Surely something we can all agree on is that liberals really want to do good, they just are mistaken about their methods."

For the sake of debate let's grant that this is true.

Further thought on the historically documented results of their "desire to help" reveals disaster after disaster, and unintended consequence after disaster, so can we graciously say after all these years that "they just are mistaken about their methods"?

I may desire to help you, but if you are bright and notice that every time I do make the attempt I make you hurt and screw up something in your life, how many times will I do that to you before you run from me screaming with fear the moment you see me?

As your sit in the shambles of poverty I have "helped" you too, are you going to graciously say of me, "well he meant well"? Would it not occur to you somewhere in the intelligent part of your brain that my repeated actions were inherently evil in execution?

Liberals/democrats/socialist/communist/progressives are blind to their evil and the degeneration and devastation they bring.

Do you invite a blind man into your home and leave him to find his own way to the bathroom which is upstairs when he is ignorant of its location, would you do that and not expect something bad to happen to your belongings as he feels his way around with his cane?

Can't any good come from allowing blind people to run free in a china shop or to run your life.

"Surely something we can all agree on is that liberals really want to do good, they just are mistaken about their methods."

For the sake of debate let's grant that this is true.

Further thought on the historically documented results of their "desire to help" reveals disaster after disaster, and unintended consequence after disaster, so can we graciously say after all these years that "they just are mistaken about their methods"?

I may desire to help you, but if you are bright and notice that every time I do make the attempt I make you hurt and screw up something in your life, how many times will do that to you before you run screaming with fear from me the moment you see me?

As your sit in the shambles of poverty I have "helped" you too, are you going to graciously say of me, "well he meant well"? Would it not occur to you somewhere in the intelligent part of your brain that my repeated actions were inherently evil in execution?

Liberals/democrats/socialist/communist/progressives are blind to their evil and the degeneration and devastation they bring.

Do you invite a blind man into your home and leave him to find his own way to the bathroom which is upstairs when he is ignorant of its location, would you do that and not expect something bad to happen to your belongings as he feels his way around with his cane? Can't any good come from allowing blind people to run free in a china shop or to run your life.

"Surely something we can all agree on is that liberals really want to do good, they just are mistaken about their methods."

I know its not considered good manners to question motives, but why not? The illiberals do not do good just by doing good. They claim that they want to do good but what they actually do is exploit human beings (i.e., control). This is a fact, and I see no point in avoiding a fact just to satisfy someone's idea of good manners.

P.S. Has it not occurred to you that this particular rule of manners was created by the exploiters to protect themselves?

I'm not sure it has anything to do good manners. The point is that it stifles debate when you say "nothing you say has any merit whatsoever, as your motives are impure." Why not question people's beliefs and let facts be the ultimate arbiter of what's right and wrong. There's no way to know what really motivates liberals and conservatives to do the things that they do; there's only speculation. It's a losing battle.

Think about it - who would take more seriously in a debate? Someone who says

"Belief Y is mistaken because (1) X holds belief Y and (2) X has impure motivations for holding belief Y."

or

"Belief Y is mistaken because belief Y doesn't cohere with facts A, B, and C."

I'll go with option c, all of the above. If I know that someone is primarily motivated by the desire to control/exploit me, I will have no interest in their plans, any of them. Because even if they seem rational in their presentation, I will understand that they are not revealing everything. They exploit. I know that they exploit. I will therefore resist them on every front. There is logic behind the idea of limiting government to the role of a necessary evil.

And of course, if their plans are bad because of the facts, that too is a reason to resist them.

There's no conspiracy, it's right in the open.
Liberals want to do good, and they think the only way to accomplish this is by controlling everything.

The word "conspiracy" does not require an inherent covertness, though that is usually implied. Conspiracies can be overt and they can be tacit as well.

The growth in government is largely a result of tacit conspiracy.

That's close to what I just said. Randy said that liberals sole motivation is control, which precludes any room for good-willed motivation (clearly not the case).

To say that "liberals want to do good, and to do good they think they must control everything" is different than saying "liberals want to control everything, and this is their sole motivating factor in governing."

Furthermore, conservatives want to control most aspects of our civil lives. I find this equally deplorable.

"conservatives want to control most aspects of our civil lives"

?

"Conseravatives" are often cultural collectivists.

Sorry Sam. I don't see that.

OF course, so are "progressives". Anyhow, it seems to me that many conservatives are uneasy about other cultures and have used government to enforce their own cultural norms. You don't see that?

I'm thinking, blue laws, sexual morés, drug prohibition, etc.

Don't see any of that?

Thanks Sam...not so much in this century. And I don't see those things as necessarily being in the purview of what I consider conservatism today. Maybe its just my own branding, but not sure I want to bestow the label of conservatism on such folks.

I don't know what constitutes conservatism anymore.
There are those that focus on economics, but if that's their main political concern, they should be closer to the libertarian camp.
There's not much hope for the R party as it currently exists, except opposition to the other party.

Absolutely. See: Patriot Act, Terry Schiavo, gay marriage, drug policy, immigration, etc.

Patriot Act first offered in the Congress by the Clinton Administration after the United Flight went down off Long Island. Beat back by Republicans.

Gay marriage rejection has survived every socialist administration we have had until the Clintons years when it was discovered that queers made an active minority group. Surprising enough if the world was as socialist as our own local muirduck likes to say it is then "conservatives" couldn't beat back initiatives made by socialists....appears to me that there are a lot of lefties that are uncomfortable with "gay marriage".

Drug policy has been vigorously pursued by socialist administrations, perhaps with even more dedication than revealed by right wing administrations. Go back and google speeches and statements by Clintons Drug Czar, Gen McRafferty(SIC?)

Immigration has never been a front burner issue in any administration until the socialist realized that slick actions could get them into a voting booth, suddenly official socialist attitudes towards immigration changed, though I can't say I see much change down here on the street where real world socialist live.

You present talking points and tripe to bolster your argument, and we all know better.

"the queers"

Even if those were valid examples, that's what you can come up with to represent "most aspects of our civil lives".

But, those aren't valid examples. Let's pick one, immigration. What do you see conservatives doing in relation to immigration that would be considered controlling our civil lives?

You're splitting hairs.

It's an important distinction.

Don't forget that for many people out there freedom does not mean being free to make choices and take responsibility for the consequences, freedom means being free from choice, free from responsibility and free from consequence.

Such people want to be micromanaged by government.

Ah, yes, the useful idiots. Certainly these cannot be counted as liberal, but can they even be counted as illiberal? I'm tempted to say no, but as they always take the side of the illiberal elites, I don't suppose that they can be so easily dismissed.

The beauty of true liberalism is that it encompasses peoples' right to be seemingly stupid en micromanaged, if they so choose.

I could agree with that if, in their desire to be micromanaged, they would leave me out of their plans. They never do. That's not liberal.

I don't know why Will confines this remark to liberals. It is easily as applicable to conservatives.