www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Union thugs attack conservatives protesting socialized healthcare

That may be true, but my statement is also true, and I just don't care what liberals think anymore. After being called a fascist, a racist, a sexist, a fundamentalist bigot, a homophobe and an ignorant yahoo, and not by some drunken lout in a bar or at an Obama rally, but by credentialed academics and government officials, I am no longer that concerned with sparing the feelings of the political opposition.

Push a bit, and you will find the reason that liberals want government run health care (aside from mindless imitation of our European betters) is the belief that you just can't trust ordinary people (we're so "weak minded and easily led", to quote one Washington Post correspondent), and not just in matters of health care (including whether you should smoke and what you should eat), but also what you should be allowed to drive, what kind of house you should have, what you should read or watch on television, and what kinds of ideas you should be allowed to espouse.

Because, after all, liberals are wise (even the ones who aren't wise Latina women), they're smart, and they are "concerned". They are always disinterested, always looking out for the little guy, always occupying the moral high ground (ask them--they freely admit it). As opposed, e.g., to nasty-minded conservatives like me, who are only in it for the money. That's why the rules don't apply to liberals, because their hearts are pure, and why they only apply to conservatives, because we are minions of Satan (if, that is, liberals believed in Satan).

Why should I think anything other than that it is your specific intent to be offensive?

Ryan

If you were to say that, you would be listening to what a large part of my professional life is like. I live with this every day, by people who are self-avowed liberals.

Find me a real liberal who does not think common people are too stupid to manage their own affairs. Show me one who advocates more, rather than less, personal responsibility, and who does not advocate coercive government programs to implement social improvements. I doubt such a beast exists, because liberalism--real liberalism as it exists today in the United States--is actually a leftist political philosophy that postulates (a) the complete malleability and perfectibility of human nature and the human condition through human efforts; (b) the existence of a secular, omnicompetent state which is the source and mediator of all human rights and privileges; (c) the administration of the state by enlightened technocrats who can impose their will on the private sphere when, in their opinion it serves the greater good; and (d) the subservience of the individual to the state.

In short, there is very little in modern American liberalism (or progressivism, if you prefer the current terminology) that distinguishes it, on a fundamental level, from classic fascism ("Everything for the state, everyone under the state, no one outside of the state"); only the means differ, the objectives remain the same.

It is difficult to see how one could be a coherent liberal while simultaneously claiming to be a confessing Christian. The contradictions are extreme:

A. The Christian believes God is sovereign over all. The liberal believes that the state is sovereign, the source of all rights, the font of all justice.

B. The Christian believes God is the source of all morality, which is absolute and modeled after God's divine economy. The liberal believes morality is relative, socially constructed and defined by the community; tolerance is the only absolute virtue.

C. The Christian believes human nature is fixed, and, moreover, is subject to the effects of the fall of Adam; evil may be remediated, but cannot be eliminated from the human condition or the world, because man himself is imperfect; perfection can only be achieved through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The liberal on the other hand, believes that human nature is malleable and perfectible through implementation of the "right" policies. All liberals are inherently utopians, and as such, they typically believe that religion, insofar as it maintains traditional values and mores, is an impediment to the achievement of utopian perfection. Liberals are willing to tolerate religion only to the extent that it furthers their programs and ideas, but no farther than that.

These things taken into account, those who consider themselves to be "liberals" and "Christians" at the same time have either a confused notion of liberalism or a confused notion of Christianity (or maybe a little of both), but there is no way you can be intellectually coherent holding to both positions simultaneously.

That said, modern conservatism is a more variegated phenomenon, which encompasses a number of different (and to some extent incompatible) political philosophies, ranging from classic toryism ("Paleoconservatism") to classic liberalism (Libertarian conservatism) to antique progressivism ("Paleo-Conservatism). Each differs in the extent to which it is compatible with Christianity, some forms embracing it, others taking a more measured approach ("Good and necessary for the lower orders") and some rejecting it outright.

At the end of the day, Christianity is not really compatible with any earthly political philosophy because Christ's Kingdom is not of this world.

Two useful books on this subject, one by a liberal, one by a conservative, both coming out at the same place:

(Liberal) Jonathan Lasch, Revolt of the Elites
(Conservative) Jonah Golberg, Liberal Fascism

Read both together, for an enlightening experience.

One last observation: It is impossible, in discussing any subject such as history or political philosophy, to avoid broad generalizations. One otherwise is left constantly hedging and caveating any statement into meaningless mush. What is important is not the generalization, but its validity. For instance, one can say, "The Nazis hated the Jews", and that will be accepted as true. In point of fact, there were individual Nazis who liked Jews (or at least selected Jews), Nazis who had no feelings for Jews one way or the other, and at least a few Nazis who were Jews. But the overwhelming majority of Nazis were indeed pathological anti-semites, so to say, "The Nazis hated the Jews" is factually true within the context of the Nazi movement.

Similarly, I hold that to say "Liberals don't believe people are smart enough to manage their own affairs" is validated by an examination not only of liberal rhetoric, but also of liberal policies, programs and philosophy.

Stuart:

The problem I have is not so much with what you are saying about what it is that you personally define as liberalism. I agree with much, though not all of what you say about that. My issue is that your generalizations about the term liberal are too broad. There are those of us, includinding many Christians, who identify ourselves as liberals who do not fit your definition of a "real liberal." Just as you argue (and I agree with you) that conservatism is a "variegated phenomenon," I would argue the same about liberalism (though perhaps not to the same degree as conservatism). Conservative and liberal are both terms that mean different things to different people in different times and places-something I'm fairly certain that you know, given your knowledge of history.

Sincerely,

Ryan

I can appreciate the points being made. I don't know Ryan beyond these Forum discussions but I suspect that he is like many, and 1) lives a fairly conservative lifestyle (and does not support many liberal causes like abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, and etc.) and 2) has a rather different definition of what it means to be a liberal then does the leadership of the liberal cause in today's America. As he identifies himself as a liberal he might consider that he identifies himself also as supporting all the things the leaders of that movement support. It is for such reasons that I am very careful even in the t-shirts I wear. While I may like the product it advertises I often would not wish to be identified as supporting the political causes the owner of the product endorses. [But wearing team shirts is still considered non-political.]

I don't have to deal with the environment that Stuart works in. And, at work, I seldom discuss anything but work. But I do have liberal co-workers who openly label me as "anti-women" because I am a practicing Christian who is actively pro-life. I don't bring up discussions on anything but work but will respond when asked. If you are pro-life, or generally conservative many (not all) liberals will label you as anything from ignorant to evil. I could tell you right now that during the past 8 years a number of my co-workers had posters in their offices that were anti-Bush, and much nastier than the poster of Obama that made the news (where he was pictured as the Joker (from "Batman") with the word "socialism" underneath). But I would never be allowed to hang such a poster in my office. I'm not interested in doing so, but the point is that I would not be allowed to put it up. It would be seen as hate-speech and racist.

Sorry I have to jump in...I like you don't know Ryan beyond these Forum discussions but...he seems exactly like you describe...and that describes the majority of Liberals (including myself) I know...Liberals are NOT necessarily the
"demons" the far right has characterized us to be...

Job:

Thank you. In all fairness, I must add that I believe that most conservatives are not the "bigots" and "racists" the far left has labeled them.

Ryan

Job,

If the way I have described Ryan is correct then he is really not a liberal. The term means something far different today then it meant even a generation ago. He might be closer to a "classic liberal", which again is different than modern liberalism (and actually very close to one of the strains of modern conservationism). Modern liberalism is more akin to socialism then it is to the liberalism of a few generations ago. I hate to use the comparison, but look at Anglicanism. Two or three generations ago Anglicans were professing Christians supporting Biblical values. There are a few of those left but most are leaving for "conservative jurisdictions" where they can still be Christians. What Anglicanism is is defined by its leadership. If someone came up to you on the street and said that they were Anglican you would wonder rightly if they accepted Christ's divinity and if they were supportive of homosexual marriage, and abortion rights. Just as what it means to be Anglican has changed incredibly over a few generations, so too has what it means to be a liberal. You might believe all those things liberals traditionally believed in. But the term has been hijacked to mean entirely something else, so you need to be careful about using it to describe yourself. To self-identify as a liberal these days is to self-identify as liberal on a whole slate of issues - including abortion, homosexual marriage and the like.

John

Self-definition, though, doesn't really work. There are, for instance, millions of people who define themselves as Catholics but who never step foot in church and know nothing of the Church's teachings (or disagree with what they do know). Should we accept their self-definition at face value?

Twenty or thirty years ago, you might have been a liberal. But the political topography has changed.

I work with a man who I consider to be liberal. He was a subcabinet official in the Clinton Administration and a big name organizer for the DNC. But today he represents the right wing of the Democratic Party, as defined by those within it who consider themselves "liberal". "Liberals" in the Democratic Party don't give him the time of day anymore--he's too "conservative" (even though he is far to the left of me).

What are you today, in the American political spectrum? Probably a left-center moderate, but certainly not a liberal. Liberalism is as I described it, if you are looking for a definition of a coherent political movement, which, when you get down to it, is all that matters. "Liberalism" as a movement has become increasingly hard, increasingly exclusive, and increasingly leftist. That might explain why fewer and fewer Americans define themselves as "liberal", as well as why liberals themselves increasingly refuse to label themselves as such (they are "progressives", now: who could be against "progress"?), and resort to dissembling when it comes time to sell their programs to the American people.

For better or worse, real liberalism, the liberalism that has clout, is rather monolithic, elitist and nasty-minded.

Maybe you need to find a different label for yourself.

An example. As I said, I work at my think tank with a former Clintonista, a decent enough guy (and teachable, too!). We had an intern, a nice Romanian girl who was going back to Bucharest to fill a job with an American company. We took her out to lunch at a swanky restaurant, and my colleague proceeded to fill her in on how American politics worked.

I was rather amazed to hear that the only people who mattered lived on the coasts, that the people in "flyover" country were yahoos and religious extremists, and that right wing Christian fanatics were trying to take over the country. I never talked much about my relgious life with him, and it took a while for the bite I took out of my tongue to heal. But my Romanian intern and I had had a good many conversations about relgion (she was Orthodox), and in the midst of all this, she looked at me and rolled her eyes.

Flash forward a few years, and I am sitting in his office with another one of our colleagues, and they are ripping into Sarah Palin for (a) not insisting her daughter use birth control; (b) not insisting her daughter get an abortion; and (c) insisting on carrying her "defective" baby to term.

I put up with this on a daily basis. There is no escaping it. Moreover, there is no escaping that liberalism itself has wrapped itself around the flags of abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, and universal sex education. As I said, liberalism postulates an omnicompetent, all-powerful state that regulates all social interactions, and the traditional family and traditional sexual mores stand in the way of Nirvana. So, liberalism requires an all-out assault on the family, and anyone who attempts to defend the traditional family is ostracized. Saw that here in DC not too long ago, when a group of liberal, reliably Democratic black clergymen staged a demonstration opposing the DC Council's new law recognizing same-sex marriages from other states. In the aftermath, these clergymen were hounded by the liberal media, as well as feminists and gay activists as something akin to Klansmen, while the DC Council and the leaders of the local Democratic Party couldn't move fast enough to disown some of their most loyal supporters.

You see, while intellectual liberalism is a monolithic political movement, to attain its ends it must build a broader coalition of disparate and antithetical elements. Abortion and gay marriage are just about the only glue holding everything together, so if you aren't with them on that, you are outside the Pale.

That was *last* week!



hawk

We need to make some distinctions there. Are we talking about the self-inflicted aspects, or general coverage. There's a huge difference between denying an alcoholic coverage for a broken leg and not allocating a scarce liver to him . . .

As for myself, I favor a comoditization of insurance policies with absolute portability backed by indemnities between companies (e.g., if someone has a fractured thyroid with expected discounted future costs of $1M, and he transfers from Blue Cross to Mutual of Omaha, Blue Cross pays Mutual of Omaha $1M).

hawk

"close to" ?

Goldwater/Reagan conservatism *is* classic liberalism.

Modern "libertarianism" is the radical form of classic liberalism.

hawk, classic liberal

I'm not entirely sure of that. Goldwater was certainly more of a Whig that Reagan, who was more like Disreali in his approach to foreign affairs and his desire to make the Republican Party a "big tent".


"Libertarianism" most certainly is not a radical form of classic liberalism; it might better be called a more moderate form of anarchism.