Thomas C. Reeves, retired history Professor, University of Wisconsin-Parkside History, and someone who lived through the 60’s and 70’s gives a very good overview of what ‘modern day liberals’ (the ‘left’, the people that tend to gravitate to the Democrat party) are like.
These are the ones I have in mind when I speak of ‘modern day liberals’ or liberals for short, specifically in my liberal racism threads. So I really want to make clear that I am not referring to classical liberals, like the founding fathers of the United States (ones I would agree with on many issues, especially economics and ‘freedom’), or even liberals of the somewhat recent past, like Martin Luther King Jr, and whatnot. I am also not talking about the liberalism that is characteristic of inner city people, that liberalism I find much more reasonable (inner city liberalism tends to be non racist, Christian in general, and in touch with ‘everyday problems’). I am talking about the new breed of liberalism; those rich liberals that control the Democrat party, commonly referred to as limousine liberals. These are the ones that have very little in common with the other liberals I mentioned and they are the focus of my anger.
I am SO glad you raise this point. There’s the classical liberal who is willing to consider all the angles, with lessez-faire respect for others’ rights and opinions.
And then there’s today’s Left, which I find most rigid and il-liberal..
…and not so incidentally, the left is trying to foist this re-definition off on conservatives, saying that it is becoming a dirty word - an uncomplementary epithet.
What I think they refuse to accept is that they have themselves appropriated the good name of “liberalism” without adherism to any of its sense of individual liberty.
I agree True Liberal.
I just finished reading Hayek’s “The Road To Serfdom”, and Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom”, and they both refuse to give up the word liberal to today’s modern day liberals. Throughout the book they continue using it in the traditional sense, and in the way the rest of the world currently understands it. It is only in the United States that the term liberal implies the John Kerry type. Everywhere else, it has a much more conservative/libertarian definition. Both Friedman and Hayek give us conservatives/libertarians a hard time for so easily letting the word get stolen by the left.
I’ve been thinking about coining a new term, maybe using ‘modern day liberal’, or something, to describe these new breed of people. Any ideas?
Hey, Al….
What book do I need to buy? We were talking about books and I forgot the title of the book you suggested…..
Capitalism And Freedom By Milton Friedman, that’s a great book. Even a Professor Of Economics at Dartmouth College agrees.
Hey! I’ve heard of him! Hmmmm.
HP, Republicans pose a far greater threat to America than liberals do, considering the recent admission by the Bush administration that they couldn’t find the WMDs, the record deficit, the administration’s tendency to make decisions first, then look for evidence after—and cook the books on the evidence where necessary—the way that the military was sent into Iraq unprepared and understaffed, the way that the military is still unprepared, even as the President gears up for a $40 million inauguration and— well, I’m just getting started.
And yet your blog continues to focus on the sins of liberals? a group which is out of power and losing fast?
You seem to be using nuclear weapons on ants here. I mean, it’s your blog and you’re free to focus on whatever you want. God knows my blog can be pretty trivial at times. But still.
I’m reminded of a headline on Fark today: “Having solved all the state’s problems, Maine legislators have proposed several goofy bills, including switching to the Atlantic time zone so ‘we would have that extra hour of light,’ and declaring Moxie the official state drink”
I think you under estimate their influence Mitch. When you have John Kerry as the Democrats Presidential nominee, Howard Dean as a contender for the Democratic National party head, and Hillary Clinton as the next possible presidential candidate, you realize that these ‘lefties’ are, as John Kerry said of Hollywood, the ‘heart and soul’ of the Democratic party.
Of course there are other differences I have with liberals in general, I am afterall pro-life, pro-vouchers and economically I lean libertarian. I just dislike these lefties even more.
Thinking about Reeves’s column, I find that I agree somewhat with the first half, but by the second half of the article, he veers off onto another planet.
He makes a cheap shot about liberals being conservationists, teachers and other people outside of the mainstream of American life—the mainstream being the world of business. My first thought was: Have you ever tried to live on a teacher’s salary, Mr. Reeves? Life doesn’t get more real than that.
His comment reeks of the usual conservative slander against liberals: that they’re outside the American mainstream, that they’re an “elite” (what’s wrong with elites, anyway? I know that I, personally, would rather be governed by the best and the brights), out of touch with reality.
If people outside the world of business are out of tough with the world of reality, then what does that say about clergymen, soldiers and their fitness to have political opinions?
His other charge is that liberals are Utopian, believing in the perfectability of man. Again, this is a charge I hear occasionally from conservatives, but which doesn’t resemble any liberals I know. Certainly, anyone who takes politics serious believes that society can be improved significantly.
Finally, the notion that liberals are bitter and humorless is just silly. Hollywood is famously full of liberals, and they seem to be having a good time over there. Molly Ivins, Jon Stewart, even Michael Moore: all liberals, all funny.
He makes a cheap shot about liberals being conservationists, teachers and other people outside of the mainstream of American life—the mainstream being the world of business. My first thought was: Have you ever tried to live on a teacher’s salary, Mr. Reeves? Life doesn’t get more real than that.
It is a fact that liberals dominate in the non-growth areas, and if I had to guess, I would say he means by that that if you live a life somewhat sheltered from the ‘real world’ problems (competition, job insecurity etc) of most people, you tend towards a different philosophy than those who do.
If people outside the world of business are out of tough with the world of reality, then what does that say about clergymen, soldiers and their fitness to have political opinions?
I don’t think he is implying that ‘out of touch with reality’ necessarily means you don’t have valid political opinions. It seems to me that his overall goal in that post was to describe liberals, not critique them, he just wants to bring it to our attention why they have different (sometimes vastly different) views than the ‘common people’.
(what’s wrong with elites, anyway? I know that I, personally, would rather be governed by the best and the brights)
I’ve been thinking about writing a blog about this, but for now, suffice it to say that I differ strongly with you here, I would much rather live under the ‘peasants’ rule than the rule of the intellectuals, or elites. It was intellectuals that fucked shit up in the 20th century…Stay away from intellectuals!!!
Finally, the notion that liberals are bitter and humorless is just silly. Hollywood is famously full of liberals, and they seem to be having a good time over there. Molly Ivins, Jon Stewart, even Michael Moore: all liberals, all funny.
Hollywood is a perfect example, only don’t stop there, look at all of hollywood. And you’ll see they are a total mess.
The 20th Century was fucked up? Could’ve fooled me. Would you rather be living in 2004 or 1904? Intellectuals in the 20th Century brought us the Internet, television, the polio vaccine, the automobile, the airplane, some of the world’s greatest art, including four entirely new art forms: talking movies, silent movies, television and (relatively briefly) radio.
Stalin wasn’t an intellectual. Neither was Hitler, or Mao, or any of the other villains of the 20th century.
And in what way is Hollywood a “perfect mess”? They create a lot of art and a lot of wealth. They’re one of the most successful industries in America.
I’d like you to explain to me how “conservationists, social workers, civil rights activists, and teachers” are out of touch with reality. Pay particular attention to teachers now: they work all day with children, they get paid very small wages, and they get very little respect from society (Exhibit A: Mr. Reeves’s column). Doesn’t get more real than working with children.
Also, Reeves says liberals’ personal lives are in a “shabby state”? Certainly most of the liberals I know and see around me seem to lead reasonably happy personal lives, no different from the conservatives I know. Depression and dysfunctional families seem to be spread out equally on both sides of that particular ideological divide. Can you point me to some of these liberals whose lives are in a shabby state? And contrast them with the Religious Right, in particular those preachers who seemed to get busted regularly in the 1980s for doing business with hos. And the high-level, conservative Washington staffers who were paying for sex with Washingtonienne?
If I were looking for an example of someone with a personal life in a “shabby state,” I’d want to find someone who came from a family with a long history of government service: father a U.S. President, grandfather an influential Senator (and Nazi sympathizer). I’d look for someone whose family connections and inherited wealth had shielded him from the repercussions of a life as a wastrel and drunk, even to the point where he could be elected President of the United States himself. I’d look for someone who sent young American men and women off to die in a war fought based on, at best, faulty intelligence, and, at worst, outright lies, while this man’s own daughters drank illegally and partied at college. Sound like the description of any liberals you know?
Hmmmm….. I think your anti-spam filter is set up to force moderation all comments that contain external links. You might want to change that to permit a certain minimum of external links, unmoderated. Moveable Type seems to work pretty well by allowing four or fewer external links in any individual comment.
Hey Mitch,
You’re right about my spam filter. I need to find a better one because currently, if I allow even one link, a large amount of spam will get through…I’ll try to find a plug in that fixes that.
The 20th Century was fucked up? Could’ve fooled me. Would you rather be living in 2004 or 1904?
Right, but it was also ‘intellectuals’ that were the strongest supporters of Communism/Socialism, in fact, it is only intellectuals currently that argue for ‘democratic socialism’. Intellectuals are good, don’t get me wrong, they have their purpose. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’d want to be ruled by them. I much prefer the current system of a Republic/Democracy than plato’s being ruled by philosophers.
As for hollywood, I think it is pretty self evident to most people that they are one of the most emotionally bankrupt group of people around. You always see them getting divorced, drug rehab, caught stealing, etc…It’s so common that it doesn’t even make front page news anymore.
And as for social workers and what not, I didn’t mean to imply that they weren’t important. Or didn’t do a good for society. What I meant to say is that if you live a life detached from the normal worries of society (unemployment, growth etc), you tend to have a different view of life. I’m not saying that view is necessarily a bad view, just that it tends to be different.
As for liberals being unhappy, well I guess that is easier for someone to see from the outside than from the inside…But lest you think I am completely off, there was a poll recently published that showed conservatives to be happier and more sexually fullfilled than liberals. Of course that poll isn’t conclusive, like I said before, I think this is easier seen from the outside than from the inside. And like with most generalizations, hard to ‘prove’ to someone else.
Oh, and as for your Bush comments…don’t make me start comparing him to Clinton
Clinton was quite sexually promiscuous. Maybe he still is. Still, I don’t see that as a personal flaw, I see it as a lifestyle choice.
So, yes, I’d say go right ahead and compare Bush to Clinton. Clinton looks like fricking Abraham Lincoln compared with the foolish boy prince we have in the White House today. Eight years of peace and prosperity is hard to argue with.
As for Hollywood: (1) Is everyone in the entertainment industry as messed up as you say, or just the actors? All the actors, or just the stars? And can you really make a case that there’s a causal relationship between liberal politics and messed-up personal lives, or is it simply that Hollywood stars are … stars. It takes a strange sort of personality to want to get famous in the first place, let alone wanting to get famous for impersonating other people.
As far as I can see, sexual promiscuity, in particular, crosses ideological lines. Remember the Clinton prossecution? Remember how the Clinton’s leading opponents turned out to have bits of fluff of their own on the side? The only difference between liberals and conservatives on that score is that it’s the conservatives who are hypocrites.
I think Clinton’s big sin in the eyes of his prosecutors wasn’t that he fooled around, it’s that he fooled around with women who were so common. If he’d dipped the presidential penis into girls who were from the right kinds of families, nobody would have cared.
Clinton was quite sexually promiscuous. Maybe he still is. Still, I don’t see that as a personal flaw, I see it as a lifestyle choice.
That’s not all he was known for. There is a reason they call his administration ‘one of the most corrupt administrations in USA history’.
And can you really make a case that there’s a causal relationship between liberal politics and messed-up personal lives, or is it simply that Hollywood stars are … stars.
It wasn’t me that brought up Hollywood, that was you. You brought them up as an example of ‘happy liberals’, and they sure don’t seem happy to me.
HP: That’s not all he was known for. There is a reason they call his administration ‘one of the most corrupt administrations in USA history’.
“They” would be the people running the country today, who call themselves conservatives, and the reason they call Clinton’s administration one of the most corrupt in U.S. history is simple: they’re liars.
In fact, the Clinton administration was one of the most honest in American history. His Republican enemies engaged in a massively funded attempt to discredit his administration, and the best they could come up with was a bunch of rumors. Oh, and also the fact that he liked to have sex outside of marriage, and lied about it.
I figured out what else bugged me about Reeve’s article—it took me a few days, but I finally am able to articulate it. It’s this:
Reeves singles out for disapproval this group, whom he says are the core of what’s wrong with liberalism today: Many are conservationists, social workers, civil rights activists, and teachers, those who stand outside the business rat race that consumes the lives of most Americans.
What do these groups have in common? Well, they’ve dedicated their lives to service of ideals, or service to others. They’re not just looking to get rich, like the rest of us, they’re primarily motivated by the desire to make the world better for other people.
Such people are suspect, says Reeves. Be afraid of idealists, trust only the greedy.
“They” would be the people running the country today, who call themselves conservatives, and the reason they call Clinton’s administration one of the most corrupt in U.S. history is simple: they’re liars.
It’s not just us right wingers Mitch. It’s the historical community as well (a group of people that is by far liberal in its political beliefs). Don’t you remember the recent interview with Clinton, where the ABC(or was it NBC) reporter asked him about what he thought about his administration being labeled the most corrupt administration in history, or something like that. Clinton got all uncomfortable and what not. So again, it’s not just us, its the average joe also.
Reeves singles out for disapproval this group, whom he says are the core of what’s wrong with liberalism today:
Your wrong Mitch, re-read his article. He specifically says these people are ‘good people’. He didn’t single them out for disapproval. Like I said above, his point here is not to criticize, but to give a description.He is trying to show why these people are idealists (or what I would describe as unrealists).
You also write, What do these groups have in common? Well, they’ve dedicated their lives to service of ideals, or service to others. They’re not just looking to get rich, like the rest of us, they’re primarily motivated by the desire to make the world better for other people.
That reminds me of this article by Economist Walter Williams. Here’s my favorite part,
“People in the education and political establishments pretend they’re not motivated by such “callous” motives as greed and profits. These people “care” about us, but from which areas of our lives do we derive the greatest pleasures and have the fewest complaints, and from which areas do we have the greatest headaches and complaints? We tend to have a high satisfaction level with goods and services like computers, cell phones, movies, clothing and supermarkets. These are areas where the motivations are greed and profits. Our greatest dissatisfaction is in areas of caring and no profit motive such as public education, postal services and politics. Give me greed and profits, and you can keep the caring”.
My point exactly.
We tend to have a high satisfaction level with goods and services like computers, cell phones, movies, clothing and supermarkets. These are areas where the motivations are greed and profits. Our greatest dissatisfaction is in areas of caring and no profit motive such as public education, postal services and politics. Give me greed and profits, and you can keep the caring.
A life in which the highest degree of satisfaction is derived from consumer goods—like computers, cell phones and movies—is an empty life indeed.
There’s only one thing that makes a man or a woman run into a burning building, try to defeat an armed criminal or serve his country in time of war. And that thing is not the profit motive.
“Public service” is not a dirty word.
A life in which the highest degree of satisfaction is derived from consumer goods—like computers, cell phones and movies—is an empty life indeed.
I don’t think he meant it as personal satisfaction, in the way you’re taking it. In other words, he doesn’t mean personal fulfillment. He means it in the sense at servicing the customer, supplying the widest range of products that make the most people satisfied.
And when that is the measure, ‘greed’ is the best means.