American liberalism may not be dead, but it has become a pathetic, laughable shell of its former self. Responsible adults such as Hubert Humphrey, Barbara Jordan, and Scoop Jackson have left the building. The movement is now chock full of Al Harptons bullhorn brigades, sputtering red-faced ranters like Ed Schultz and sleazo nutballs such as Alan Grayson.
Emmett Tyrell delivers liberalism's eulogy...
As a political movement liberalism is dead. They do not have the numbers. They do not have the policies. They have 23 seats in the Senate to defend in 2012 (against the Republicans' 10) and Republican control of state houses and legislatures will give them even more seats in the future. Liberalism R.I.P.But more importantly, Tyrell points out that unlike conservatives, liberals have no intellectual source to draw from:
Conservatives have had Edmund Burke and the Founding Fathers as their cynosures. Sometimes they have provided discipline; sometimes conservatives have followed their own star.
The problem for liberals is they have been denied a cynosure. Some had looked to the British Fabian Socialists and some to Karl Marx, but since the late 1940s liberals became coy about their intellectual mentors.We have liberty lovers Hayek and the founding fathers. Liberals have racists Margaret Sanger and Woodrow Wilson. It's no contest.
R. Emmett Tyrell - Liberalism's Autopsy
9 comments:
Would love to wake up one day to find liberalism dead and gone.
But alas it has been around for quite a long time, maybe had it's roots in Cain. Did not Cain commit the first act of lashing out at Able for the favor bestowed upon Able as a result of Able's own endeavors?
I wonder where, how and when liberalism will mutate it's genes and return to destroy the fruits of another's labor.
Beware and be vigilant.
Liberals view their complete lack of cynosures the same way zombies deal with death: yes, an inconvenience, but they don't let it thwart their onward march towards their evil ends.
(NOTE: not my analogy, this one was used by George Will during the United Airlines bankruptcy a decade or two ago).
Not quite, SF.
Our Founding Fathers were a bit of both--liberal and conservative.
I would say the establishment of a written constitution which they made difficult to change would be considered a conservative idea, and the fact that Jefferson wanted an electoral college because he and others didn't trust the common people to elect a leader. That too would be a conservative idea. And refusing to address the institution of slavery in order to get the southern states to ratify the Constitution is also a conservative idea--since it conserved and did not challenge slavery.
But then the FFs established a presidency working in conjunction with a legislature and not a monarchy (although Hamilton did support that) during a time in history when most people believed in the devine rights of kings. The FFs believed the people had a right to chose who governed them--a very radical and liberal idea at the time.
I would also look to our godless Constitution upon which our laws are based. Our laws are established by "We The People" not by any god.
Very, very liberal idea. Our FFs were influenced by the Age of Enlightenment, liberalism, and not by conserving old ideas and forms of ruling over people.
BTW, demonizing a political group, liberals, and hoping for it, as a political force will die out is quaint and nothing more than wishful thinking.
But if it makes you feel smug and superior--go for it. I know lots of people who have a deep-seated and urgenet need to hope for the destruction of that which they do not understand.
Shaw:
You are confusing classical liberalism with today's shabby imitation.
I am not demonizing American liberalism. I didn't call anyone evil. I am just pointing out that it is intellectually bereft.
SF,
The same could be said of modern conservatism/libertarianism where large numbers of people deny the fact of evolution and believe creationism should be taught along side of science. Also the Dominionists within the conservative movement, the conservatives who wish to change the Constitution to rid it of amendments they do not agree with, the conservative movement that incomprehendingly thinks we can function as though we were living in the 18th century--instead of the 21st.
Keeping our children dumb by believing in creationism and denying evolution and global climate change are just a few of many unfortunate conservative ideas that will guarantee China and India surpassing us in the very near future.
Shaw: Not denying what you say, but these issues are hardly the ideological lodestones of the modern conservative movement.
Anyway, Tyrell points to modern day liberalism's paucity of intellectual underpinnings, and compares it to the rich philosophical library that thinking conservatives have recourse to.
Perhaps he's mininformed? I have to admit I've spent very little time tracing the roots of modern-day liberalism outside of 20th century progressivism.
Leave it to a liberal to bring religion to a political discussion.
Who are the first to bring up: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
and the last to remember: or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
It is the classic liberal tactic, focus not on substance but on fringe.
"Keeping our children dumb by believing in creationism and denying evolution and global climate change"
Global climate change, formerly global warming, brought to you by the same people who brought you global cooling.
Face it, some will blindly follow not religion, but its prophets, some will blindly follow, not science, but its scientists.
Meanwhile the intelligent among us THINK!
Anyone who thinks creationism, the theory of evolution, or global climate change are the end of any of the discussions is an idiot.
Dominionists...I love it! This is why independent minded people are fleeing the Democratic party in droves.
Dominionists are what? Significantly less than 1% of the conservative movement? Keep it up...all you do is help!
the image says it all Silver..ah yes.
What a great picture; It speaks a thousand words; Liberals devolve into Apes!
Beautiful.
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