What’s So New About Liberal Ideas?
So in this country we have the liberals — the progressives — and their new ideas to change the country and lead us forward. And not just lead us forward, but win the future. Their obstacles are the conservatives who are scared of change and stuck in their old ways of thinking. Conservatives get angry at the thought of change, but liberals love change, embrace the new, and break the status quo.
At least that’s the conventional wisdom: The right in this country preserves old, stale ideas while the left fights for new ones. Which leads me to what seems to be a really obvious question: What, if any, of the ideas of liberals these days are new?
Like with the election of Obama, it was supposed to be this big progressive revolution. It seemed to me more of a reactionary thing where people were sick of Bush and latched onto the first seemingly inoffensive guy they saw, but liberals assured us that this was the start of a new era — a new enlightenment. So what was the first big, new thing they did? With the economy hurting and people crying out for change, what brand new revolutionary idea did they get to first?
Have the government spend lots of money.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment. It’s a really new idea; it might take some time to comprehend a concept so novel and revolutionary as that one. I mean, it’s not like it’s the same solution the Democrats have had for everything for the past one hundred years. Maybe we should tell Europe about this brand new idea; let’s get this revolution of government spending lots of money to really spread.
And that wasn’t the only new idea the liberals had. They also had another innovative idea to save the failing car companies and fix health care. What was it? Well hold on to your hats, because it’s pretty crazy and fresh:
The government could take over private industry.
What a new idea! What a groundbreaking way of looking at things! Usually we keep government and industry separate, but this idea is to have the government run an industry — that’s mind blowing! It’s just a completely original idea. Hey, Hitler back in the 1930s, have you and your National Socialist German Workers’ Party ever heard of the idea of the government taking over a business? Of course not, you right-wing fascist; it’s a new progressive idea.
By the way, if Godwin has a problem with anything I write, he can tell me himself.
But the new ideas don’t stop there. Have you heard of President Obama’s latest idea to really get the economy going?
Build fast trains.
What an insane new idea! I mean, it’s totally something innovative that will “win the future” and not an economic solution that would seem more in place in the late 1800s.
Some of you may have been confused by those last few paragraphs; what I was doing was being insincere in a humorous way. It’s a brand new thing called “sarcasm” — just as new as all those liberal ideas.
Seriously, though, shouldn’t “liberal” or “progressive,” when used to describe the left, be in scare quotes, because what exactly are they pushing that isn’t some old, failed idea of the last century? Much of liberalism these days involves looking over at Europe and their failing economies and riots and saying, “Hey, let’s try their old ideas!” The only arguably new idea they’ve had is gay marriage, but that’s just taking an idea as old as mankind itself and applying it to more people — so at best it’s newish. And it’s not even a proposed solution to the big problems of the day (we’re not going to gay marry our way out of severe unemployment). Plus president Obama is against it.
What gets me is that all of the liberal ideas people like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid hold on to have been tried, and have failed, in Europe. Why is it, WHY IS IT, that liberals and socialists are always determined to copy economic models that have been tried and FAILED in other countries? This isn’t 1917 where communism was a novel idea and that a major country, like Russia, would experiement with it in a big way. Nope, been there, done that, and it FAILED. ALL of the socialist European nanny states are broke, every single one of them. Even Germany, the economic powerhouse in Europe, is struggling to get along. But the others, like France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, Italy, and who could forget Greece, are all on very hard times and still may not recover, their fragile economies a shambles and hanging by a thread. Yet this is what the liberals want for our country? This is what Obama sees as success stories? Why is that?
Because Obama is not just a liberal, he is a committed socialist and socialists will never, ever, admit that their economic model never, ever, works. They cause wide-spread disaster and are bound to fail because, as Margaret Thatcher said, you always run out of spending other people’s money. Well, that day has now come for both Europe AND America and we have run out of spending other people’s money. If we keep doing this, the economic calamity heading our way will make the Great Depression look like a joke. This had all better stop in 2012 or we are not only finished as a world power, but as a successful nation as well.
No sane person will continue to push policies that are obviously failing, so what’s going on with the Left? The simplest explanation is that they don’t see their policies as failing. You are assuming that their goals are the same as yours — economic prosperity, healthy society, personal security for all. No, they are socialists. Socialists ultimately want to destroy the private sector. That’s why recessions and depressions don’t bother them, because each one bankrupts any number of private businesses. But socialism isn’t just about economics. No one can fail to notice that any Leftist regime concentrates first of all on destroying the culture — religion, traditions, history, language, racial unity, etc. Just as the Devil’s greatest achievement is convincing people that he doesn’t exist, the Left has convinced many Americans that their society doesn’t exist, or, if it does, it’s so evil that it doesn’t deserve to continue.
The socialist model just hasn’t been done right yet.
Oh sure, there have been thousands of failed experiments, costing hundreds of millions of lifes and throwing billions and billions into abject poverty, but it will all be worth it when a great mind like Obama finally deciphers the rubik’s cube. Fortunately, the really smart people like him are never hurt, because they have to be safely above the fray, living in luxury so their minds can be free to take care of the rest of us.
We should thank them for their dedication.
In 1961, after the boring Eisenhower years were behind them, and they were ready to resume the New Deal, the liberals were brimming with plans and projects—Keynsian economics were going to even out the business cycle, prisoners were going to be rehabilitated, structural poverty was to be attacked, education transformed, and McNamara’s whiz kids were going to revolutionize warfare. There was even talk of setting up a Department of Leisure to insure that the population would be guided in communal and socially beneficial ways.
These plans came to nothing. All failed. Today, the trend of liberal “thought” is pretty much centered on the central concept that government is a good thing and there ought to be more of it.
Not ONE of all the ardent liberals I know has EVER evinced the slightest concern for liberty. Liberals got into a near-earth orbit over the minuscule amount of CO2 generated by humans or the putative extinction of some species of rare minnow. The slightest degradation of the environment is seen as the open door to the next planetary extinction event. But decades and decades of governmental assault on personal and economic liberty and naked judicial power grabs are not a matter of indifference to the liberal but a positive gift from on high. The exercise of no governmental power is ever a concern to liberals except the warrantless surveillance of international phone calls where a suspected terrorist is one of the callers or the detention of enemy combatants in Guantanamo without access to habeas corpus. Government efforts to identify or control our enemies? NOW were talking superpsycho love of liberty. Those fascist bastards!
no governmental power is ever a concern to liberals except the warrantless surveillance of international phone calls where a suspected terrorist is one of the callers or the detention of enemy combatants in Guantanamo without access to habeas corpus.
Sadly, the same can be said for many “conservatives”, who blindly support any assault on the Constitution as long as it “keeps us safe” and supports “law & order”.
There is truth in what you say but I personally do not think it as widespread as you do. I remember that conservatives were eager to fight the Cold War I don’t remember its being necessary to them to violate the Constitution to do that.
I don’t think anyone has a lock on expediency, however.
If your point is accurate then I have to say it doesn’t break favorably for the left. Assuming constitutional violations, I see the left shedding rivers of tears when enemies of the U.S. were skewered and the right being happy about that.
OK, I’m being tendentious.
As a former criminal defense attorney I was always delighted to find a constitutional violation on the part of the forces of law and order, but that’s just me.
Richard, just look at how many “conservatives” – even conservative LEADERS – loudly support the Patriot Act. It’s sickening.
Liberty is a negative right that just gets in the way of benevolent governing. If it wasn’t for liberty, the statists could cut to the chase, eliminate the weak links and naysayers who have run out of money or otherwise are a burden, and go straight to utopia.
This is from own my writings and thoughts
Last month, Home Depot closed its last store in Beijing, one of several outlets shut down since 2009. The world’s biggest home improvement retailer has retained outlets in some key provincial cities, where costs are presumably lower and competition perhaps less intense.
I wonder why!!!”" Could it be that China’s Government owns most things and that the workers are paid such low wages that their isn’t enough money left over to spend.. Is the U.S. headed in the same direction as China’s standard of living ??”" Remember Hillary Clinton made the statement that she admired China’s way of doing business?”" The Progressives desire to get rid of the constitution and half of them really don’t fully understand the damages that would result from scrapping the constitution… That means as citizens our rights would be stripped away from us and we then would become like China and live in dormitories being fed by these large incorporations most likely supported by our new socialist Government when it can finally take full control of America..
Do you see our politicians saying we should switch course on NAFTA?? “”NO”" Chances are you wont either
There is nothing to back up your statement. It could also be that a Chinese equivalent out competed the store. China has the fastest growing middle class in the world. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. The greater fear should be that we are about to get out competed by China in the Electric car manufacturing and Solar manufacturing industries.
Home Depot (and other American chains) doing poorly in China has more to do with Chinese racism than with economics.
This is a video about WalMart that is very disturbing to watch they are starting factories up in China and Bangladesh because of all the money they are making off of us, and when you see what these workers have to do to survive but take note because this is the kind of places all the US factories have gone… This video will confirm my concerns where the U. S. is headed..
Some say it will never happen here,” but it’s all ready in it’s first stages of happening here
Wal Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price- Full Length Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hftb_DVuelo
What has become of this land where, upon reading this fine piece, the first thought is
to nervously copy and furtively distribute this in schools (trenchcoat optional) across the country?
After all, it is the Emperor of the Left who wears no clothes.
(Gotta *love* them internets)
Not only are they reactionary. They are CONSERVATIVE as well. Just like Lenin predicted: in time, all revolutionaries will become the staunch conservatives of the status quo. They are THE ESTABLISHMENT MAN.
What is lacking in too many discussions is sound analysis of the situation as it is. There is an aversion to facts and evidence, accompanied by a epistemological reticence about discerning the meaning of those facts, and then drawing conclusions from the discerned meaning. I would argue the reason the left can only think in the categories of past templates is because of their secularist thinking, which is informed by, whether they see it or not, a pagan pantheism which understands history as circular, not linear. It is only with the intellectual cross pollination of the Hellenic, Jewish, and Christian streams of thought, that authentic intellectual and societal progress can be made and regressions of the intellect and society be accurately identified. The Western intellectual tradition, informed by monotheism demands an epistemology that understands history as linear. A linear understanding of history allows us to grasp the fact that there are new situations, crises, and opportunities that require new thought as to how to apply discerned truths to new matters in need of address. The relativism of the left affects and afflicts not only its moral analysis, but its intellectual capacities as well. Were there is total skepticism of even the possibility of truth, then there can be no progress, only a reversion to recognized, but thoroughly inadequate and inaccurate, templates that give power to those who benefit from them.
Who are you and where do you preach? I’ve only read stuff like that, not seen it from the pulpit. For that matter, there are pulpits not committed to the new, linear thing. I think you’re right, b/c I’ve read about it from the left- the circular argument as the correct argument, and the correct analysis, and as the fresh, new, pagan approach. Seriously- “the goddess and the alphabet” gets cited all over the place, the abseiling of harvard chapel declared a circularity, etc etc etc
best regards,
ari
All those pretty words to say that because of their inverted view of reality they have no idea where they are going, but want to go BACK there. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS! In case you haven’t noticed that’s what Progressives try to do.
what?
And here I’ve been thinking they want to get their hands on my wallet.
proreason, if you think that’s all that’s motivating the left, no wonder you are so far off so often.
Greed is a puny motivator next to the lust for power. Are the leftists greedy? Certainly.
That is NOT what motivates them. Getting rich is merely one of the perks of having power.
POWER is the prime motivator.
Very true, and very well said, Philip.
From the comments, I think you may be shooting a bit over the heads of some of the audience.
When they say they’re ‘progressive’ they mean progressing toward socialism.
Well, to be fair, the left suggests the same old things that haven’t ever worked and the right the same old things that have been proven to work. At least, on occasion.
Thank You Mr Fleming
But what can we do?
Your article should be posted on every corner, required reading.
I used to be a liberal until it started becoming a cult and I am afraid.
You mentioned the 60s. Protests changed the US, things were getting better. These liberals want more, because they think they can get, it doesn’t matter why.
I am afraid they are going to overrun us.
I am impressed that you were able to keep it down to two pages!
I never can.
This is very true. I cannot count the number of times that the concept of any change – except for their own, that is – has gotten a Democrat to foam at the mouth and howl at me.
As if the only change that ever was, or is, permissible, is theirs. Anything else is anathema.
it’s all relative
today’s “american left” operates on a time scale where yesterday is ancient history and five minutes from now is so far in the future as not to be considered
You forgot Prohibition. This time around it is fatty and sugary foods but they want some prohibition. We had rumrunners, soon we’ll have Twinkierunners. In fact, if we start the rumor that the illegals crossing the Mexican border are carrying Twinkies, we might get them to do something about that problem.
But don’t look at the 1960s or such for where they are stuck. They are stuck in the 1910s, or more broadly the Progressive era (1890-1920). They still haven’t forgiven the capitalist, even those sympathetic to their cause, like Henry Ford, for circumventing their Marxist dream of a Socialist Utopia by turning Capitalism to democratic ends with the consumer economy. Sadly, Europe did not avoid this fate although by adopting the idea to differing degrees they have been able to stave off their inevitable collapse.
America did adopt government guided enterprise to combat some of the excesses of the Robber Barons. The Progressives recognized the opportunity and have worked to expand government power over business in hopes of creating government-strangled enterprise. There have been setback via war and most recently by the Reagan Revolution with deregulation. We are now in another period of tightening fingers of government over enterprise with the inevitable result of death to the economy. It remains to be seen whether business can survive until the noose can be cut and whether it will recover to rebuild the future into the shining city on a hill or we’ll end up a slum on the wrong side of the high-speed rail
Frank, perhaps we should be content with progress in small things. For example, no one here has yet been confused by that new sarcasm thing you use sometimes.
As to the rest, I plan to update my standard responses to liberals to include the question, “And this is a new idea how?”
And how do you know that? Why, for all we know, homosexuals’ marital unions could be the perfect way to lessen unemployment pressures. Think of it: two men, married to one another. One of them surely isn’t going to want to do the housework, so where will that leave the other one? Right! At home with the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the soap operas, and the endless kaffeeklatsching with the neighboring stay-at-home spouses! Just like that, either one wage-earner leaves his paying gig open for someone else, or one “unemployed” person becomes one “not available for employment” person.
Got to think outside the box, Frank!
Thank you for bring up the fact that the US government did purchase part of a private industry. This is a way, I assume to trump up the socialism fears. However, you failed to note that the purchased saved an American car company, and with it many American jobs. You also failed to mention that the US recently sold 35% of its share of GM. The investment worked out for everyone. Now we only have a 26% share of GM and that will decrease as the company gets back on its feet. Your yells of “the government are taking over all the industry” were unfounded. Now how about you walk back some of your propaganda and admit your mistake?
Ah, another old-fashioned “progressive” idea: the end justifies the means. The government “saved” General Motors, so whatever they did to do that is justified. Never mind that the present unemployment rates are higher than they’ve been in decades; the government “saved” many American jobs through its “investment.” The point Mr. Fleming made still stands: nothing in your comment reflects any new ideas, does it? Governments have nationalized industries in the past, haven’t they? The government of the United States has no business making cars, regardless of its noble motives (“propaganda,” indeed). The government of the United States is supposed to uphold the Constitution, period. Making allegedly altruistic motives for not doing what it is supposed to do is disingenuous.
yep, now we have the Volt, and the UAW members still have their gold-plated pensions that we taxpayers happily pay for, in addition to those $7,500 gubamit subsidies for the $45,000 bargain.
Things are definitely looking up in auto-world.
And the stockholders were cheated out of their first-right to the assets – assets which the government had to duty to protect on their behalf, by law. Instead, the assets were given to the unions/workers. Typical bait and switch of an ideologically-fascist state.
And we wonder why investor confidence has been lagging? When the government decides to overturn the laws (at its sole discretion), steal the assets that are the right (BY LAW) of shareholders, what are investors to think? They do what is the smart thing to do: they keep their money under the mattress… causing a further downturn in investments, less capital to loan, more loans from China for our economy to keep afloat, fewer VCs for new startups here, low and decreasing job creation, more unemployment, etc. Yeah, but we saved all those jobs! Geesh.
We have no idea what the outcome would have been had the car companies been allowed to go to bankruptcy court. A buyer, or a consortium of buyers may have been found, private loans might have been secured, or a favorable restructuring agreement made. So there’s so point in saying that the government “saved those jobs” because we don’t know what would have happened if the government hadn’t stepped in… unless you have a crystal ball or a method of stepping into a parallel universe to see into a future where that didn’t occur.
What the taxpayers got is an IOU for much of what was “paid back.”
But as others have said, the whole thing was unConstitutional from start to finish. That should have been enough for ALL Americans to be disgusted with the deal, but ALL Americans don’t care enough about the Constitution to make our representatives comply with their oaths to abide by it.
::Waves at Frank:: Hi Frank. LTNS
I mean, it’s totally something …
… that an unintelligent, ill-educated, and silly pre-teen would say.
Like, totally.
What is going on is very simple. In 4 words: “the bureaucratization of the world”. It has been going on for a very long time. Whether it’s fascism or communism or liberalism or Islamization it means bureaucratic control of every aspect of your life. It is very expensive. It chokes off individualism and its initiatives. The problem is what to do about it. The answer is blowing in the wind. Don’t give up hope. From old Tom Paine remember this: “Time makes more converts than reason”. It was true then and is so now.
No kidding! Should a french-style revolution erupt, the reactionary progressives in the bureaucracies of the governing classes would be trundled to the guillotine–and they haven’t the faintest idea of that.
Sorry Frank – you didn’t abide by the Natzi rule of debate, “The first part to call the other a Natzi, looses.” Now you skirted around the edge, using the political party (national Socialist) but when you bring up Hitler – game over, you loose.
You make a good point; and it is still a good point without compairing your opponants to the third rich. Use anothee example.
Truly,
~GB
Here, Bunny, these may help:
http://tinyurl.com/RemedialSpelling
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/notorious.htm
“What’s So New About Liberal Ideas?”
Only the lies they cloak them in.
Today I was witness to the NEWest tactic of the DHIM party to keep power- Obama (who told us he admires Reagan) will imitate a Republican as part of the new election strategy- he announces today an idea REPS put out there many moons ago as if it was new (image is all, slogans beat reality)
he says there is unecessary duplication in Fed bureaucracy- and whoa he is is going to tackle it!!
after the speech
…the dhimwit legislator says- well some people wanted to make RECKLESS CUTS
notice how YOUR IDEAS TO CUT are RECKLESS but Obamao’s cuts are “oh so shiny and new”- transformational even!
even slick willy was not this slick
controlled media
federal reserve
treasury dept
wall street
911scam
AIPAC
Liberals, in their rants to justify their p*ss poor rants, always ‘Accuse’ the Right of “wanting to have everyone live like they did 100 years ago” Gee, isn’t this exactly the same thing they want to do??? Only the Progressive ‘ideas’ of 100 years ago didn’t work then and surely, SURELY won’t work now. Americans need to WAKE UP!
Liberals are HYPOCRITES! The are easy to ‘read’ – if they accuse the right of ‘doing something’ you can BET they are doing the VERY SAME THING ONLY 1 Trillion times worse.
SIDE TRACK:
Case(s)in point: Any notice the ‘Protest Signs’ in Wisconsin? Let me refresh: Bull eyes, Hitler references, Nazi references and other disparaging Pictures and Signs **Using Hateful Rhetoric** directed at Gov Scott Walker.
The Left and the MSM VILIFIED the TEA PARTY FOR MONTHS Monitoring Every Move and Every Sign EVEN Accusing them of Racial Slurs and Spitting on a Congressman (there was ‘ZERO’ evidence of this even with a hefty reward)…
…THE LEFT does the same AND WORSE !! The TEA PARTY (with the exception of a few fringe) did do corrective actions regarding protests.
ADD TO THIS FROM THE LEFT – VIOLENCE AND HATEFUL ANGER TOWARDS those who Reported News (Fox)and opposed them – beating up a black guy who was selling ‘Don’t Tread on Me Flags’.
The Liberal Mentality –
THEY ARE A Completely Disrespectful bunch of they disrespect the State House of Wisconsin by “Stinking and slobbing it up” because people are ‘living there’ 24-7 probably without showering etc… …an assembly woman commented on this as recently as today. No one who works there goes anywhere these days without sanitizer or air freshener.
And I WILL iGUARANTEE they will NOT leave there with all their crap and stench too. (Leaving the State House in the same shape as they found it)
They did the same thing to the Capital/Lincoln Memorial/Lawn and Reflecting Pool area of Washington DC when the Unions Protested there. They just left their signs and garbage everywhere. [I guess since they are "Union" their 'Job Description' doesn't include cleaning up after themselves]…And, Oh, there are plenty of pics to verify this.
Yes, these are the Same People who Cry about the ENVIRONMENT!
AND ALL THIS GOES PRACTICALLY UN-NOTICED BY: The Main Stream Media!
IT IS ENCOURAGED AND DEFENDED By: the President, State Legislators, AND Union Leaders.
I know I ranted here on something clearly out of the norm of the article but it just peeves me how the Liberals are so clearly Disrespectful and have the nerve, the nerve to vilify ‘others’. The have absolutely ‘No Class’ whatsoever. I guess I can now refer to them truthfully as all around ‘Dirty Liberals’ they earned it themselves. Hypocrites!
Thanks and God Bless America! 2012 here we come!
Sorry about the typos. You get the jest.
I guess I must be a little slow. I didn’t get the jest at all.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/jest
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gist
But perhaps you are smart enough to get the gist of my post.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Liberalism=Insanity
I believe “progressive” is an intentional mis-labelling to hide the fact that they are more accurately labled “regressives.”
Liberals never throw away any bad ideas. Liberals also never learn from their experiences with these bad ideas.
They continually resurrect these same bad ideas, relabel them with a more marketable label, and peddle these recycled failed policies as “new and improved” progressive revelations that will finally work when implemented by today’s experts, who coincidentally have never implemented anything like this before anywhere!
General Honore said it best in New Orleans, they are “stuck on stupid.”
Frank,
You’d spoken of the Illiberals finding some sort of ‘enlightenment’.
Enlightenment is often in conjunction with a spiritual like effect/event, though many Illiberals are atheists (though they sure do like using the ‘Jesus taught..’ when it suits their no-holds-barred narrative.. Hi Mrs. Pelosi!) and don’t want to possess or entertain such ‘nonsense’.
‘A Liberal is a man too broadminded to take hjis own side in a quarrel’ – Robert Frost
My first thought was “if I link to this, any libral with half a wit is going to point at my belief that we should return to a limited, Constitutional government like the one set up by the Founders.”
That is an old idea after all.
The difference is that not all old ideas are failed ones. I’ll entertain the possibilty of any old idea that hasn’t demonstrably failed like so many of the libprog “new” ideas.
As usual, the bard Bob Dylan had it all figured out four decades ago:
“Some speak of the future / My love, she speaks softly / She knows there’s no success like failure / and failure’s no success at all.”
Love Minus Zero, No Limit
So the “Liberals” are actually “Paleo statists”.
Go back and look at the first generation “nobility”, the founders of kingdoms. How did they recruit the fighters they used to conquer what was to become their kingdoms? Look familiar?
“There are two kinds of fool –
The first says, ‘This is old, and therefore good.’
The second says, ‘This is new, and therefore better.’ “
If you want to know how many types of fools there truly are, do the excersize of reading the Proverbs and see how many types of fools there really are. Interesting, to say the least.