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| Source:Heritage Foundation. |
I always find it entertaining to hear Neoconservatives at the Heritage Foundation and other places, who pushed for the Iraq War fifteen years ago and want the Federal Government to be able to decide who gets to marry in America and who bash the nanny state as they promote it with the War on Drugs and marijuana criminalization, talk about the big government Un-American tendencies of American liberalism. Because, it gives me the opportunity to show educated people, or at the very least people who are willing to be educated, to see how ignorant and, or dishonest other people are. And how they speak so much about something they don’t understand and how they know so much that isn’t true. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan. Someone that Heritage claims to understand.
As I’ve blogged before, what is called modern liberalism, which is what these guys are talking about, is not liberalism. They’re talking about socialism, both democratic and otherwise. And to a certain extent New Deal progressivism, which is classical progressivism. Which is much different from the New-Left of the 1960s and today. Who are Socialists and to the Left of Progressives politically. Liberalism, is about freedom for the individual. Protecting and expanding freedom, not dependence on the central state for the people’s well-being. Socialism, is about the big central state and what the state and government can do for the people. But Liberals, want to use government to empower people who need it to be able to take care of themselves. Which is what freedom is. The ability for one to have self-determination and be able to make their own personal and economic decisions. And live with the consequences of their decisions.
And these guys at Heritage and everywhere else on the Tea Party and Neo-Right, could spend the rest of their lives talking about liberalism as if they’re were talking about communism, Marxism, collectivism, or any other big statist collectivist ideology. But to paraphrase the great conservative philosopher Ron Reagan. They would only be knowing so much that isn’t so. Speaking so much about something that they know very little about. Like a mechanic, trying to give a lecture on brain surgery. Or a fish, giving a lecture about NASCAR. If you want to talk about liberalism, you first need to know what is you’re talking about. And then you need to know that liberalism is about individual rights. The right for individuals to be free.
Because of what liberalism actually is and where Americans tend to be, liberalism is in very good shape. And moving to a period where Americans still want their personal freedom and even have it expanded. Like on issues having to do with marijuana and sexuality and even sexual freedom, including prostitution, which is just behind marijuana. And they also want their privacy protected and even have strong protections for it. As the Patriot Act debate showed last month. But they also don’t want big government with both of their hands in their wallets, taxing most of their money away from them. And this is where Center-Left Democrats tend to be. Wanting to use government to expand freedom for people who don’t have it. And based on this liberalism, is in very good shape in America.
