Monday, March 07, 2005

Liberalism at the Crossroads, Part III.

John Leo weighs in, noting the Left's corrosive hostility to religion:

"...Worse, the cultural liberalism that emerged from the convulsions of the 1960s drove the liberal faith out of the mainstream. Its fundamental value is that society should have no fundamental values, except for a pervasive relativism that sees all values as equal. Part of the package was a militant secularism, pitched against religion, the chief source of fundamental values..."

Amen.


Battle of the Titans.

Wow! What a finish to the Ford Championship at Doral! Tiger Wood's eagle on the 12th hole, followed by back to back birdies by Phil Mickelson to even it up, only to let Tiger slip away on the 16th by matching his bogie! Exciting to the end with Phil's desperation chip on 18 that curled around the lip of the hole! Hats off to Tiger - he earned the victory.

Aye, laddie, that 'twas a Hell of a ro'ond 'a Golfe!


Facelift for Radio Oblique.

My flea circus of an internet radio station - now with "Formula X4" for deeper cleansing action, has a new playlist of R&B, Oldies, Rockabilly, and a kinder and gentler website. Fightin' the Media Conglomerate Man: heard Enima's latest hip-hop offering on four over-air stations simultaneously - aaahhhhghhh! When will they cue up some Don Woody, eh?




4 comments:

RollCast said...

Ouch. This is getting a wee bit personal...

Point taken. Not all liberals are antireligous. That is not a fair comment. I should have been more specific: the Hard Left is antireligous (the Hard Left I define as the Communists, anarachists, radical neo-Luddites, etc.) Stay tuned for clarification.

Do you have a spare tourniquet on you, perchance?

RollCast said...

Earlier, Trotsky wrote:

"I also hope that you realize that the democrats and many of the liberals in this country are not neo-luddites, communist, or anarachists. That is why there are seperate terms for those folks, because they are different enough to need another descriptor. Much of the democratic party and liberals are not the hard left. Despite the campaign to state otherwise, we are the same as the conservative folks across the street or in the house next door. We believe in God, we hope for security and peace for our nation and the world. The difference between comes not from a "radical agenda" but a fundamental difference in belief in how to accomplish these things. We (the average liberal)are no less honest in our desire than the conservatives. That is the thing that is lost in pejoratives."

I think I have clearly distinguished the Hard Left from others within the Liberal camp. This is precisely what Marty Peretz and John Leo are talking about, too. "Respectable liberalism" has acquiesed and appeased the Hard Left - please explain Deanism
and the hatred of Bush. Why were ninety percent of the delegates to the Dem convention opposed to the war, while the a cross-section of the public is evenly divided? This also has deleterious effects on the Republican Party as well. For example, when the Hard Left gets to define "responsible environmentalism" - heavy on regulation and hostile to private property rights - within the Democratic Party - it gives a great deal of leverage to the faction within the Republican Party with the view that "well, we ain't gonna get the green vote, so let's play to the mining and forestry lobby".

RollCast said...
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RollCast said...

As HAL 9000 said, I really think you should take a stress pill, sit down and think things over.

Addressing your laundry list of accusations wouldn't serve much purpose - I doubt we are going to agree on much. I guess I would conclude my discussion on this thread by saying that these are members of the Democratic party and social liberals of good standing that are expressing great concern about the irresponsibility of their party's leadership and direction. If they want to become the loon party, they have the blessing of many Republicans, although I think that a healthy liberalism is important to the proper gestation of good politcs and good conservative principles.

I was also reviewing some of the comments you have made, some of them seem to be unnecessarily personal, and somewhat presumptuous as to given my profession, how I therefore must think about things. I learned a very, very powerful lesson during the Reagan years, when I saw remarkably gifted intellects all around me in school delude themselves into completely wrong-headed beliefs about the nature of the Cold War and Soviet and Chinese communism. They wanted to be so reasonable, so sophisticated and worldly - and conformist - they couldn't bring themselves to call evil for what it was. Scientists also have a serious weakness in believing that political problems can be broken into pieces and solved in approximations. It leaves them thinking solutions are so obvious and simple. This was really exhibited during the early eighties with the MX, Euromissiles, and SDI events. Ironically, Soviet dissidents were pleading in western and samizdat journals for the US to build the MX, deploy the Pershing IIs and cruise missiles, and develop SDI. Given the overkill that both sides had, it seemed a simple equation to western intellectuals that such actions were silly. They were not. The had a strong political and psychological effect on Soviet leadership that contributed substantially to their demise. The "correlation of forces", as Soviet theoreticians like to say, was not trending toward Soviet power and world influence. Western intellectuals just missed the boat on this. They claimed Reagan provided answers that we just too simple. No way - he provided simple, straightforward goals, but the solutions towards those goals were not simple. I believe much of the same for this period of time, and I believe that for similar reasons as described above, the Left have now missed the boat on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the War on Terrorism.

I admired Clinton's political dexterity - it was simply amazing to watch. He was absolutely brilliant in the manner in which he handled the budget battle of 1995. He ate Newt's lunch. He wasn't evil incarnate, but does have serious character problems that squaundered his talents on dodging bimbo eruptions. He is also an embarassing narssicist. I was sad for him when his dog Buddy was killed by a car - no man deserves that. I wish him good health.