150 Things the Government Kinda Did With the Help of Some Left Liberals Some of Which Don't Suck!
The left is passing around a manifesto in cyberspace where they claim sole credit for Western Civilization. by libertreee
(libertarian)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The left social networks, shocked by the signs of backbone suddenly growing in Republican Congressfolks where jelly once resided, are responding in cyberspace with rants about how wonderful liberalism is.
Liberalism, properly understood in its classical sense, is indeed a wonderful human philosophy of government. Unfortunately, at least here in the US, that liberalism label is now properly applied only to a largely ignored few. The self described liberals we see every day are in actuality not quite what they once were. The zombified modern liberals are a shell of the liberals of yore, a slowly walking contradiction of ideologies and fantasies contrived from the sparks of their former existences. Yet, they are quite willing to use government to spend OUR lives and property in pursuit of their feverishly retained blood soaked memories. Liberals should not be shocked that President Obama has followed the Bush doctrine of multiple wars, because the belief held by both of those Progressives that the state should be the instrument of social change will always end in violence.
The modern liberalism tries to prove too much, and winds up proving nothing. Liberals will spin and contrive and lie then retreat and return again with the same tactics until your soul is worn down from the exasperation !
So they are now passing around a Manifesto of sorts, in which they claim that everything from weekends off to modern civilization itself (!) is the direct result of wonderful liberals, and only liberals. The liberals absurdly claim their deadly enemy, the Conservatives, want only to tear down and destroy the sparkling edifice they created through government. The coercion, log rolling and force of arms needed to produce these ends are of course only necessary to overcome Conservative intransigence. The story of modern left liberalism, according to this piece, is a crusade led by concerned legislators motivated solely by an altruistic desire for social justice. Then the second team joins in. Liberal judges have been active, and liberal regulators made fair rules for all based on their dispassionate love of the public interest.
IF ONLY! In fact, for most of their existence, with only a few exceptions, the Conservatives jumped right in and helped the liberals loot and then rebuild then loot some more with great enthusiasm. And the ends of the Conservative political class, as well as the means, are largely the same. Some beneficiaries of largess would change from a Democrat to a Republican administration, but for the most part the game will be played the same when the ball is in either court.
What we see today in politics, with few exceptions in both parties, are simply progressives of different American heritage. The American Progressive: pragmatic, optimistic, self righteous, and most of all convinced everything he does is for the good of society, which translated loosely means for YOUR OWN GOOD. Liberal Progressives will tax you for the good of society, and for your own good as well. They will require you to print their experts' point of view about health on your products or they will see you in court. They will license, tag, stamp, regulate, observe and nudge you ! Sayonara incandescent light bulbs!
But the Conservative is usually just a sub species of the same genera: PROGRESSIVE.
The Republicans come from different strands of the same Pietist vine. They hail from places like Iowa rather than Wisconsin. They favor their religion powerful and political, and the Lord performs his wonderful work not in ways incomprehensible to man but openly through the State. Right on TV, in full view, in fact. For most Republican Progressives, the Lord favors a limited government (except for faith based initiatives inspired by "Compassionate Conservatism), and the Constitution is his secular version of the Ten Commandments. Well, at least Commandment One and Two. Some of the others, like "Thou shalt not kill" became instead "You must loose the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword." All to protect families (and society) while purging the body politic of those individuals who do not quite measure up. You won't understand modern politics until you can think of politicians like Texas Governor Rick Perry as NOT a conservative, but as a certain brand of PROGRESSIVE, a person who when the chips are down will allow the state to mandate questionable vaccinations, and execute social deviants. His strong Progressive religious beliefs go back to the 19 century marriage of the Republican Party with the anti immigrant, anti Catholic, Know Nothings. Progressives come from many American religious traditions, but historically from the Evangelic, or personal experience of God as my Lord and Savior type of Christianity rather than from the high liturgical religions, such as Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism, with their emphasis on sacramental communion with the divine. It is only in modern times that these liturgical religions too have adopted another Progressive tradition, the secularized social justice brand of liberal Progressive thought. In in so doing they have abandoned the independence they enjoyed when Progressives reviled them, but when in fact they stood firm for Jeffersonian principles and the simple virtues and vices of their working class ethnic parishioners.
Libertarians and classical liberals have a dim view of Progressives or any of the rotten fruits of their vine. By temperament suspicious of government we look closely at the claims of the wonders bestowed by the state, and for the most part find them wanting.
The Progressive Era turned Constitutional limits and classical economics on its head in the name of Progress through Scientific Management. It never occurred to them that some of their scientific beliefs, most notably their fondness for Eugenics, would one day be seen in all its implications in the Great Holocaust of undesirables and deviants by the National Socialists, as well as the less talked about but actually greater horrors of the Communist regimes.
Moreover, the Progressive myth of trust busting was in actuality a carefully coordinated cartelization of industry through government anti competitive regulation. The Progressive institutions of the Federal Reserve and the creation and misapplication of the income tax have expanded government power while protecting the interests of big business, big labor and big government at the expense of the living conditions of the average person. The wonderful cornucopia of the market has done the most to raise the living standards of all, to the exclusion of none. The market does not promote eugenics, or inflict harm on others in order to uplift them in the eyes of God or Society. The market does not conscript, wage war, waste enormous resources, put millions under the earth or in cages, and torture innocents. The market really doesn't need rules designed by experts, because it is ruled by consumers, entrepreneurs and workers watching the signals of each others needs and desires, otherwise called prices.
IT IS THE STATE of course that has proven over and over it is capable of doing the most horrible things imaginable. And by their naive belief that the STATE is the creator of western civilization, the Progressives, by feeding its enormous capacity for self aggrandizement needed to justify its fundamental coercion, can only increase the overall violence in society and the world while simultaneously preaching peace. So it has been since they came to power, and so it will be until Progressives of every persuasion stop using statist means in a vain attempt to reach their legitimate liberal ends.
The progress made in the last two hundred years is primarily due to the wonders of the Marketplace, not government. What progress has come about through government came from classical liberals as well as Progressives, liberals and conservatives. The solutions to our present problems are better solved with less government involvement, not more. Taking credit where credit is NOT due is childish and immature. Broad claims of Progress through government must be balanced by a realistic look at trade offs endured, and horrors as well. The debate we are finally having is not just about debt and taxes, but about the proper role of government. This liberal attempt at vainglory adds little to that debate.
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Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: July 17, 2011 08:58:35 AM
Before there can be a market there must be human actions resulting in capital formation. Liberals, modern or classical, cannot claim credit for achieving anything without the capital created by those who came before.
-Jahfre Fire Eater
