"LIBERALS" HAVEN'T CHANGED

Why are Americans who advocate broadly the reverse of what 19th century English liberals advocated still called liberals? The answer given to that is usually in terms of a steady Leftward drift and that explanation has its merits in isolation. But consider another much less well-known but even more striking phenomenon: What American "progressives" believed in the early 20th century. I have already documented what that was at some length elsewhere so I will just summarize here: The Left of American politics from the beginning of the 20th century up to FDR and the "New Deal" were essentially Fascist. They believed in eugenics, in nationalism, in national uniformity, in war as a purifying force, in the inferiority of Jews and blacks etc. Nowadays the American Left rejects all that with apparent horror (though the antisemitism does seem to have roared back with a vengeance recently). So how did THAT huge change in doctrine come about? I think there is a single explanation for both changes. And that explanation is a psychological one. Psychological explanations for conservatism (e.g. Norton & Aughey, 1981; Gilmour, 1978; Feiling, 1953; Kirk, 1993, Scruton, 2002, Standish, 1990) are routine (though Leftist accounts of conservative psychology are amazingly counter-factual) but I think Leftism also has to be explained psychologically.

As I have set out at great length elsewhere, the primary motive for most Leftist activists and intellectuals (though not for most Leftist followers) is to get acclaim for themselves. That is a perfectly normal human motivation but one that is pursued by Leftists more or less to the exclusion of all else. But how do you get acclaim? The surest way by far is to adopt as one's own whatever it is that the population already acclaims and become a great champion of that. If people generally think it is unquestionable that blacks and Jews are inferior and need to be kept down then a Leftist will become a vigorous advocate of keeping blacks and Jews down. And Leftists did just that in the early 20th century. Up until World War II Harvard had an excellent relationship with the Hitler regime, for instance and Hitler in turn took American eugenic policies as a model for his own. But if certain world horrors take place (WWII) which cause people to change their views and see tolerance is a virtue above all else then Leftists will immediately become great preachers of tolerance. And that too has now happened.

And something similar happened in the 19th century. England was at that time enormously influential and powerful so whatever was characteristically English came in for great scrutiny, not the least in England itself. What was it that made England great? And as I have set out at great length elsewhere, the English themselves had for centuries seen their liberties as a great national treasure. English liberty was a byword and its virtue was unquestionable. So again Leftists did the sort of thing that they always do. They became great champions of liberty. They supported laissez faire in business and writers such as J.S. Mill pushed ideas of liberty to just about their logical extreme. Conservatives, of course stuck with the ideas of extensive but not unlimited liberty that had been normal up until that time. That the "liberals" of that time really were just Leftists can perhaps most clearly be seen in the case of Mill himself. As I have set out briefly here and here the actual policies Mill advocated in parliament were often quite socialist and interventionist. If he could get acclaim for himself by advocating various government interventions in people's lives, all his pro-liberty principles suddenly vanished, just as eugenics suddenly vanished from the Leftist vocabulary after Hitler.

So conservatives just plod along with their boring quest for balance and realism (including, as always, liberty up to a point and tolerance up to a point) while Leftists push what are usually good ideas to extremes. Leftists once masqueraded as extremely pro-liberty. They now masquerade as extremely pro-tolerance. But they believe in neither. Their behaviour always gives them away as believing in nothing but their own entitlement to power. Leftists who get virtually unlimited power (Stalin, Mao etc) soon show how much liberty and tolerance they believe in.

References:
Feiling, K. (1953) Principles of conservatism. Political Quarterly, 24, 129-133.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Kirk, R. (1993) Ten conservative principles. Russell Kirk Center.
Norton, P. & Aughey, A. (1981) Conservatives and conservatism. London: Temple Smith
Scruton, R. (2002) A question of temperament. Opinion Journal, Dec. 10th.
Standish, J.F. (1990) Whither conservatism? Contemporary Review 256, 299-301.

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ELSEWHERE

Ben Stein has the best comment yet on "Deep Throat" and Richard Nixon. Ben was a Nixon speechwriter so he knows it all.

Austin Bay has a good comment on the recent destruction by Amnesty International of its own credibility. I was a member myself once but withdrew after some one-sided criticisms of Israel from them.

Feser on "legislating morality:" It's not just a Christian thing "For as we've seen, liberals and libertarians themselves appeal to certain moral principles in defending their favored policies. So how can they consistently criticize conservatives for doing the same? Isn't the liberal trying to 'legislate morality' when he advocates redistributing wealth in the name of fairness? Isn't he thereby 'imposing his moral views' on the wealthy? Aren't libertarians also 'imposing their moral views' on liberals by trying to stop such redistribution? If libertarians who think that redistributive taxation amounts to theft could enact a law forbidding it, wouldn't this too amount to 'legislating morality?'"

Who do these hysterics think they are persuading? "On April 29 and 30, liberal activists gathered in New York City for a weekend conference on "Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right." ... The conference was sponsored by People for the American Way, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the National Council of Churches (NCC), along with the left-wing periodicals The Nation and The Village Voice... The tone of the speakers was often quite shrill. "Jim Jones [the 1970s cult leader who led followers in a mass suicide] has gone mainstream!" cried journalist Katherine Yurica. "Today we are living in a nation governed by an unholy cult!" Yurica maintained that the Republican Party had gained power through "Hitlerian tactics." She insisted that evangelical leaders from Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell "had to have read Hitler's Mein Kampf." She explained, "I say this confidently because anyone who has learned to quack like a duck has studied ducks!""

This article in Harpers about "America's most powerful megachurch" seems to have got a lot of attention. It is very informative but the author never misses a chance to sneer.

Jimmy Carter: "It was Carter's pacifism that allowed the fall of the shah in Iran, giving fundamentalist Islam a nation-state to control. Subsequently, it was Carter's pacifism that encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan, creating a rallying point for mujahadeen and, as Hayward notes, reviving the idea of jihad. Taken in concert, these two events are the catalysts that have forced the war on terrorism to its present stage. Carter's pacifism, be it de facto or de jure, shaped the modern Middle East and helped Islamic fascism survive its infancy. This is a much more dire legacy than the simple corruption of Democratic ideology."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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