Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The Left is No Longer Liberal

Michael Lumish

My primary quibble with Dave Rubin is that as a "classical liberal" he fails to address the problems of economic injustice that reside within laissez-faire capitalism and, thus, within "classical liberalism" itself.

Aside from this Rubin is directly on the money.

Because there is nothing liberal about judging people according to the progressive-left Hierarchy of Victimhood - i.e., according to the color of their skin rather than the "content of their character" - identity politics is stripping liberalism out of the Left.

18 comments:

  1. What Rubin elaborates on as 'classical Liberalism' is something between classical libertarianism and old guard conservatism with a dollop of Wendell Berry-esqse agrarianism. In the US you'd look at Robert Penn Warren and Wendell Berry (yes I know that's a contentious issue), as distinct from Catholic/Christian conservatism of say, Evelyn Waugh. But in many ways modern American conservatism is a branch of the liberal tree that sprung forth in REACTION to the explosion of 'left liberalism' in the 1940's and 50's. Lionel Trilling proclaimed in 1950 that 'Liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition'. And he meant left-liberal New Deal social welfare nanny state liberalism. And that's actually a mutated form of conservative 'localism', that is, the village, the community, the school, the commons, the church.

    In any case there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. As others have said conservatism (or liberalism) isn't stance it's an attitude. What they call themselves? Do American Liberals have an actual philosophy a core set of immutable positions or do they have agendas which if you lump enough of them together start to sound like a philosophy.

    To be honest I really don't understand Rubin's confusion. There hasn't been a liberal espousing what he calls liberal in his lifetime.

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    1. Well, if nothing else, this entire conversation requires a better definitions of terms.

      btw, I did not know about Wendell Berry.

      A little bit of beauty in the day is always welcome.

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  2. I am sure you have seen Trump´s latest. So congratulations, we now live in a country dominated by hate. And if you think the hatred stops with Mexicans and Muslims, you are living in an isolated place indeed.

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    1. Innuendo, the left's specialty. What has he done that got you so upset?

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    2. Obama's summer of love has ended.

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    3. we now live in a country dominated by hate

      Saw it in full force courtesy of Ashley Judd, Madonna, Chelsea Handler, and a slew of others. We see it every day.

      Let's not forget Hillary Clinton and the deplorables. When Trump said that she had hate in her heart, he was 100% correct.

      The same is true for many progressives. They should clean their own latrine before dumping on others.

      Only someone pretending not to know would suggest that Democrats and progressive are just about love trumping hate and being stronger together, when it's obviously fake.

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    4. oldschool,
      Joseph is just referring back to that old saying, the one that goes "it never ends with the Mexicans and the Muslims." Should this go on, there could be a time in the future where, say, kids on college campuses voice their displeasure with Jews. They might someday start using 'Zionism' as a pejorative, or "zio" as a prefix for ideas and people to be shunned, e.g., zio-Nazi, etc., or even come up with distortions such as "Isra-hell."
      So, you just never know.
      There are those who just don't understand that massive illegal immigration is a civil right. Borders are meant to be crossed. Am I right? I think it is only fair to throw all rational argument out the window, press the panic button, and scream "racism."
      Madonna, Chelsea, Ashley, et al, have nothing but love in their hearts. Unfortunately, their brains are problematic.
      I look forward to the day when we Americans, documented as well as un, can live Sharia-compliant, fact free lives, under our first cis-female president, Linda Sarsour, vice president Ellison, and Secretary of State Noam Chomsky.

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    5. Trump didn't create this hatred, Joseph.

      Nor was it he who roused its slumber.

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    6. Jeff....that was scarier than heck.

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    7. He may not have created it, but he certainly got eñected because of it. We cherish Le-Champon-Sur-Lignon. What are you prepared to do?

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    8. to Jeff: DING DING DING DING!!!

      to Mike: I love extreme vetting!

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    9. He may not have created it, but he certainly got eñected because of it.

      The hate and deceit coming from the anti-Trum, progressive side has more significance in the result.

      If the media had covered Obama with any semblance of balance, exposing his wrongs, then perhaps those so surprised by the result would not have been so wrong about so many things, especially the nature of Trump's support. Instead, they showed themselves out of touch.

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    10. Extreme vetting? Absolutely. Look at Europe who didn't do it.

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  3. The "left," was never liberal. Two different animals.

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    1. Seems like "left" means different things to different people.
      If humans are divided into those who want to control others, and those who want to be left alone, the "left" are the former. Naturally they support coercive power of the "collective" (usually the State) to impose rules upon, and to take resources from individuals.

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    2. the pre-Obama US left was. Then Barry Hussein came, made the diversity-first crowd "woke," and ruined a once great party.

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  4. Dave Rubin actually has conversations with people with whom he sometimes disagrees. He participates in the free exchange of ideas. I say we need to boycott him. Shun normalization with Dave Rubin. He's probably a Mossad agent and a hater. He is a racist, fascist, apartheid, homophobe (even though he's gay), and is committing cultural genocide against the Progressive People.

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