Liberalism is Intellectually Bankrupt

The reason conservative ideas work, and will continue to work, is that they are based on an understanding of how the real world actually works.

Liberalism is Intellectually Bankrupt

Liberalism is full of conceits, none greater than its pretensions to intellect.  Indeed, the very term that they so often apply to themselves - “progressive” - carries with it the intrinsic claim to being those who advance knowledge, who solve problems, who come up with innovative solutions.  Anyone who’s ever dealt with liberals for very long knows that they love to pat themselves on the back for being the side that comes up with new ideas, while conservatives are the stupid ol’ sticks-in-the-mud who want to hang onto failed ideas from the past because of our inability to look ahead.



Yet practical experience and common sense both tell us that this is diametrically the opposite of the way liberals actually are.

If you think about it, what new ideas have liberals really come up with in, say, the last several decades?  The answer to that is “none.”  The answers they give to the “problems” we face today are the same ones they’ve always promoted – tax more, spend more, multiply social programs, restrict freedom more and more.  Every idea they have is something that they’ve already been trying for almost a century before.  Even in Obama’s recent State of the Union address, it was just more of the same ol’ Communist, same ol’ – class warfare rhetoric, social division-making, and promises of yet more government programs that will fail to solve the problems that the previous government programs also failed to solve.  The American people are frankly getting tired of it all (as evidenced by the fact that his speech on Tuesday had the lowest viewership of any since 2000).  Having seen high-octane, unadulterated liberalism in action for the last six years, it’s no surprise that the American people have studiously kept the House of Representatives in Republican hands (and no, lefties, it isn’t because of gerrymandering).http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/its-the-geography-stupid.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&_r=0


Which explains why Chairman Bow has to promise to circumvent Congress to force his will upon the American people. 

It’s time for the people of this country to face facts – liberalism is a failed ideology.  It doesn’t work.  Wherever modern liberalism (i.e. post-1913 welfare-statism, not the classical liberalism to which conservatives and liberty-lovers hold), socialism, communism have been tried, they have failed.  They have brought misery to the masses.  They have concentrated wealth and power into the hands of a very small cadre of politically-connected revolutionaries, as well as their Outer Party hangers-on (which is exactly what we’re seeing now between Washington DC and the rest of the country).  The only thing the left wing is good for is spreading misery and enriching itself at our expense.

It certainly isn’t good at coming up with rational public policy that actually helps, rather than hurts, the people.

The “liberal answer” to just about everything is failure.  Gun violence?  Don’t punish criminals – instead, treat law-abiding citizens like criminals and punish them by restricting their freedom.  Health care costs?  Let’s nationalize health care (which is what liberals want to do when ObamaCare’s corporatistic public-private “partnership” inevitably fails) – which has worked so poorly in the United Kingdom and Canada that Canadians routinely come to the US for our expensive health care and old British people die on gurneys in their hospitals after going 48 hours without treatment.  Problems with crime?  Don’t do anything to actually discourage criminals from recidivism, just coddle them and tell them it’s all society’s fault.  Poverty?  Let’s just keep paying people not to work, keeping them right on the razor’s edge of dependency.  Failing schools?  Let’s just keep throwing money at them so they can fail more expensively.  On and on and on goes the parade of liberal failures when it comes to trying to intellectually and rationally grapple with public policy issues. 

So why are liberals unable to comprehend these failures, and why do they continue to cling so bitterly to the laughable notion that they’re “intellectual” and “smart” because of their ideology?  The reason for this is the bubble in which liberals live.  Because many liberals do not actually interact with normal people on a day-to-day basis, they find themselves both insulated from any opposing arguments that might be articulated against what they believe, as well as being able to invent caricatures of their ideological opponents which they then mistake for reality.  After all, it’s a lot easier to “defeat conservative arguments” when the arguments you think you’re defeating are simplified, hollowed-out straw men that barely resemble at all what conservatives actually believe.

Liberals judge a person’s intelligence and ability by how closely they hold to left-wing orthodoxy on the issues.  It’s really that simple.  A politician can be a complete moron by the standards of normal people, yet if he or she matches the Democrat talking points checklist, they are suddenly a “statesman” whose mindboggling brainpower will surely solve all the country’s problems.  How do you think Obama – who is demonstrably not very intelligent in any objective sense – nevertheless maintains his reputation with other liberals and the media as some sort of Spock-like human supercomputer?

The problem with this – as with any other cadre throughout history that has walled itself in behind the iron curtain of ideological insularity – is that liberals are nothing more than a hidebound, rigid, staid, mindless political orthodoxy of the type they would profess to want to tear down.  Like the Legalists in ancient China who couldn’t adapt to the intellectual challenges of their day, like the Babylonian priesthood in ancient Mesopotamia still clinging to a language and set of traditions that had been bypassed for half a millennium, so do liberals cling to tired old canards that still do not work and have been shown as failures.

If we want to see genuine forward progress in this country – which must be define as “restoring liberty to the American people” – then we need to get serious about putting, and continuing to put, conservative ideas into place whenever and wherever we can, and tossing the liberal ones out onto the scrapheap of history where they belong.

Now, in some superficial ways, the liberal critique of conservatives as not coming up with “new ideas” is true.  It is accurate that we are not jumping from one ridiculous new-wave notion to the next.  But the thing is, the old ideas that we hold to, we do so because they work.  And that ought to be the measure of whether an idea should be put into policy.  The evaluation of whether an idea is “smart” or not ought to depend on whether it works, not whether it falls in line with an approved political orthodoxy.  I would rather reuse one idea from days gone by that actually works and brings peace, prosperity, and freedom to our people than to chase after a thousand pie-in-the-sky ideas invented by “progressive” political science professors who have no idea how the real world works and how real people act. 

So the difference between conservatives and liberals is not that the former holds to “crusty old” ideas while the latter comes up with “innovative new” ideas.  The difference is that our “old” ideas work and produce results, while theirs do not.

And our ideas – when actually put into practice – have and do work.  When taxes are cut, the economy grows and prospers.  When Kennedy cut taxes, we saw a decade of prosperity during the 1960s.  When Reagan cut taxes, we saw prosperity that lasted all the way through the next decade.  When Bush cut taxes, it brought us out of the post-911 recession.  When the Republicans forced Clinton to sign off on welfare reform, our welfare rolls were reduced and the workforce participation rate increased because people were getting jobs.  Here in North Carolina, Gov. McCrory and the Republicans in the state house made the unpopular but necessary decision to refuse to extend unemployment benefits – and what has happened?  Unemployment in the state is plummeting because we’re no longer paying people not to work: the jobs are there, if people are willing to look for them instead of depending on a government check.

Yet, it is incorrect to say that many of our conservative ideas are not innovative.  Conservatives for decades have proposed inventive ideas that are rooted in our timeless traditions, but which are adapted to meet present circumstances.  What were enterprise zones but an effort to reintroduce the free market and entrepreneurship – two of those timeless traditions – back into urban areas in our nation where these have been almost completely extinguished?  Conservatives have pushed for alternative school choice options that have allowed thousands of kids to escape failing schools and better themselves, and could allow millions more to do so if liberals were not standing in the way.  We could lower the cost of medical care while maintain its world class quality – without nationalizing or corporatizing it – through means of needed free-market reforms such as tort reform, forcing insurance companies to compete by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, and other ideas that have been advanced that would remove the strictures that government has put on the free market and which have distorted the market and driven up costs.

Liberals try to argue that none of these would work – but how would they know?  Because of left-wing obstructionism, there’s never really been the chance to put these into effect to see.  Instead of school choice, liberals just seek to keep kids in failing schools and refuse all efforts at reform.  Instead of trying to get people back to work by cutting taxes, growing the economy, and making welfare an unfavorable option compared to working, liberals prefer to continue to destroy the ability of business owners to expand, create jobs, and put more people back to work, while paying people to not work.  Instead of actually doing things that would bring down the cost of health care, liberals saddled us with a monstrosity that is jacking up the cost of insurance (for those who still have it) while reducing access to doctors, hospitals, and needed care.  Conservatives try to increase worker access to the job market by freeing labor from the chains of forced unionism, while liberals try to keep workers in bondage to a 60+ year-old system that is completely unsuited to the modern economy.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/its-the-geography-stupid.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&_r=0

The reason conservative ideas work, and will continue to work, is that they are based on an understanding of how the real world actually works.  We understand how human nature operates, and try to use it to maximize benefit to as many as possible.  That is what qualifies as “smart.”  Coming up with ideas that make things better instead of making things worse – that is what is “intellectual.”  Liberals can never really be these things because they cannot see outside the box of their own self-imposed mental limitations.  The true obstructionists are the left-wingers like Obama and his mis-administration, as well as congressional Democrats, who have worked for decades to prevent genuine reforms that would help the American people by making us freer and more prosperous.  If there are obstructionists who need to be bypassed, they’re the liberals.  It’s time for us to get serious about bypassing them.

Giving Back

Giving Back

Wrongheaded liberal or collectivist ideology is frighteningly pervasive, often in forms in which it is unlikely that the people involved are even aware of. Well, I've had it. I'm pointing at it, every time, and making a fuss.

As I was watching the latest professional golf tournament, I counted at least a dozen instances in which the announcers used a phrase with subtle, skewed implications. In reference to several PGA professionals' impressive charity work, the announcers referred to the activity as "giving back." As a paraphrase, they would say, "It really is impressive, Jim, how David Toms has taken the time and made the effort to give back." Or, "you can really see that these guys think that 'giving back' is really important." Or, "My goodness it's good to see these guys giving so much back to these communities, Bob."

It is not sufficiently tempting to simply write this off as benign happenstance of word choice. There are too many more obvious, and more longstanding phrases to describe the charity which these pros are performing. The term "charity" is still used quite frequently, but always in association with this vague notion that something is being returned to someone. Why use the term 'back'? Why aren't they just giving? Who took something? When did they take it? How did they get away with it? Why was no one sent to jail? Was someone sent to jail? They took something from the Boy Scouts? St. Jude's? -- gasp -- from the Clinton foundation? This is a travesty! They darn well better give it back!

Wait a minute:

Giving "back" implies that the property they are giving to the various groups was somehow once 'taken' from those groups in some sense. This is the evil idea that has been propagated (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not) by collectivists for, well, forever.

When those who have property or wealth have come by it by looting or parasitizing their fellow man, as occurs in feudalism, tribalism, socialism, fascism, communism, (and crony capitalism), then, yes, for such a wealthy man to give to another in need could be considered 'giving back.' But in a free politico-economic system of capitalism, wealth is created by individuals who think and exert themselves to provide a product or service which is demanded by the freely choosing people who make up the market as a whole. The method by which a man in this system becomes wealthy is the moral 'day' compared to the moral 'night' of the listed collectivist systems. It makes all the difference in the world. A wealthy man within capitalism has created the good, the wealth. The market did not create it. The consumers did not create it. The producer created. It is his life that went into creating it. The others recognized the objective worth of his creation and freely traded value for value. Nothing is 'owed' to those who sought and traded for the valuable good or service that the wealthy man created. Nothing. The collectivists have never gotten this right in their heads. They want to bring the same assumptions that were correct in all the collectivist forms of government and try to apply them in politico-economic system specifically designed to avoid the tyranny of pull, of 'who you know,' or 'who you paid off,' or who's your bother, or who's your bought legislator(s).

Granted, the collectivist efforts over the past 100 years have made the ground quite a bit more muddy and the air more foggy. But we have to wave the banner for the morality of capitalism and freedom within the rule of law, where physical force is kept out of the market. It's hard to say that without twitching a bit at the knowledge that there is so little remnant left, but someone has to stand up and say that that was what was intended, and why.
So to say that the pro golfer or any honest wealthy man is "giving back" is tantamount to saying that, like the despots, like the tyrannical mob of socialism, like Attila, or like the feudal lord, the honest producer has in some sense 'bled' the public or wrenched from their grasp that which was or could or should have been "theirs." And now, our golf announcers can benevolently nod approval that the wealthy man is somehow doing his just penance and returning some of the good life that he 'took' from them by 'giving back.' This is terrible. Though subtle, it is as great a wrong as can be committed. It is the calling the good, evil, and the evil, good. It perpetuates the uncritical ingraining of an evil idea into the vernacular, and that's a dangerous place for an evil idea to be! It continues to fuel the hatred or resentment of the successful. It furthers the continued unthinking acceptance of the idea that all wealth is generated by a manner of theft, and that therefore rightful claim to wealth is only, at base, with those who earned or created nothing (because if you created a value, you must have had special privileges, or helpful regulations, or pull, or took advantage of workers, or, on and on...)

On the one hand, I do certainly believe that the use of the phrase 'giving back' does perpetuate these insidious notions. On the other hand, what is going on here with respect to those who use the terms is a bit more complicated than the notion that they're all just a bunch of commies. I suspect that some of the 'give-backers' have no idea that it doesn't just mean plain old charity, and they've never even suspected anything else. These are the sheeple happily grazing on the vernacular weed. (I'd ask them to think about the 'back,' and suggest they reconsider its use, say, by writing a lengthy rant about the issue.) Then, I expect some of the 'give-backers,' the ones actually doing the giving, really did come by their wealth in a way that they feel or know was in some way dishonest or by way of forced, unearned market advantage, or pull. Heavens knows it's getting harder and harder to find a large business interest that isn't playing footsie with the government. Well, these folks really mean it. Most of them feel relief that the masses seem to be fooled into thinking what they are doing in a golf charity is generosity. They feel guilty. Or, perhaps, they think everyone stinks the same. Then there's the media, most of whom are secretly or nakedly uncertain about whether they themselves have truly earned anything, and are thus quick and ready to claim those billions from corporations just had to be made by use of some government pull or by shaking down the masses, and should certainly be 'given back' in a hefty helping. Then there are the recipients; some of whom are rightly oblivious to all this stench, and some of whom are quite certain that the petty millions being sprinkled their way are insufficient payment for the misdeeds of nefarious businessmen. Why, they've seen it in the movies, and heard it in the classroom. It's hard for them to remember in which setting it was more dramatically portrayed. I'm sure there are more players, each with varied crust of collectivist grime caked onto their moral apparatus - from immaculate to immobile. Regardless, I realize that the shades of culpability in its use are many, its presence in our common language, unquestioned, is more than concerning.



We find our governments fornicating with corporations, or seducing them, and we don't stop it. We just tell them to hide it. Call it fancy names, like "stimulating" this or that sector. Sure. It's an appropriate choice of a word. But regardless, keep it covered up. Or we find our government playing mob boss, and making made men out of this or that business interest. You know, setting them up proper, and takin' out regulatory or contractual or legal hits on 'their guy's' competition. So what? These friends -- they're too big to fail. Never mind the colossal untold history of destroyed families, crushed businesses, broken dreams, stillborn genius, aborted inventions, and on and on that these blind bureaucrats have left in their wake as they 'thought they knew best" and peddled their measure of brute force to whatever corporate or special interest with some campaign or political capital would bed them. Never mind all that! They were working for the 'common' good. Right? Well, just remember, we see just the tip of the iceberg of all those 'unintended consequences' from legislative and executive mucking around in the stew of market variables. The bulk of those 'unintended consequences,' are individual's lives and livelihoods. Just take a moment and imagine that history -- that looming hulking weight of anguish and evil that these men, entrusted with defending freedom, have perpetrated in the name of the public good.
Well.... in light of all that, maybe I should just be a bit glad that somebody, somewhere is giving back?

Let's Hear It for The Low Information Voter

Let's Hear It for The Low Information Voter

During the 1956 presidential campaign, an enthusiastic supporter called out to the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson: "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person. Stevenson wistfully called back: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

Once known as the "silent majority," now as the nation's "low-information voters," these citizens perform their civic duty on election day. But they have no real clue for whom or what they are voting. Yes, when it comes to their occupational callings, investment, or sport picks, they may be highly rational. It's just politics and public affairs that hold no interest for them. It has long been hoped that the silent majority would one day wake and grow politically engaged. In 2010, the Tea Party Movement did just that. But it yet speaks as no more than a marginal voice. The majority remains politically asleep. And this silence understandably draws the ire of those who can see the fiscal calamities to come and care deeply about the country's future. But perhaps the community of the concerned should reconsider its position. The "know-nothings" may yet hold the key to "taking our country back."

For one thing, low-information voters are not committed liberals or progressives. They are more given to common sense than some "higher" utopian vision. And it's easy to respect the mood that drives apathy. First, there is cynicism. Americans have little use for their elected leaders and disdain for the political process, as such. Politicians plead for their votes but rarely keep their word. Any position or solemn campaign "promise" can be "recalibrated" two weeks or two campaign miles down the road. "They are all only in it for themselves." Sadly, that's all true. But apathy is also fueled by skepticism. If the cynic believes there's nothing we can do about the hopelessly corrupt system, the skeptic believes that there's no way of knowing what to do. He easily sees that the so-called "experts" all sound persuasive one at a time, but sharply disagree when pitted together. Both the cynic and the skeptic withdraw, feeling helpless to put things right.
But most of all, public apathy is the simple desire to live and be left alone. It is a penchant to care most about the things that matter most: making a living, managing expenses, handling emergencies, and raising the kids. Leisure hours are given to rooting for favorite sports teams, escaping into entertaining fictions, and spending quality time with family and friends. Americans place a premium on the sphere of privacy. They go about their business and, to evade government's interfering ways, will do business "under the table" or "off the books." They'll fudge on their tax returns and trade in the "black market." "[N]ot since the days of Al Capone," a top tax official told NY Post columnist John Crudele, "has the underground economy been so pervasive." It was a story about "zappers," cash registers rigged to make transactions "disappear" and enabling store owners to avoid paying sales taxes. America's legendary spirit of independence is alive and well and living all over. Long accustomed to doing as they please, citizens aren't likely to put up with backbreaking taxes and onerous mandates forever, much less goose-step to any would-be-tyrant's tune. As Jefferson wrote, "Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing [or just reforming] the Forms to which they are accustomed." Most families do not yet feel the heavy yoke of government on their backs. Those that do, "vote with their feet."

Let the heavy hand of government really intrude on the pleasant routines of daily life, leaving no chance of escape, and Americans may well rise to the occasion. Could it happen? It wouldn't be unprecedented. By 2010, millions with no prior history of activism rose up against a new president's plans to take over the health-insurance industry and go $787 billion deeper into debt in a doomed effort to stimulate the economy. An earlier health reform measure, HillaryCare, spurred Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and led to a Republican rampage in the next mid-term election. The 1978 Proposition 13 tax revolt in California resulted in a 50% reduction in property taxes that still stands. And just let our lawmakers fire a volley, i.e., draft a bill, for stricter gun control measures. When the smoke clears and the loud blast of public opinion sounds, the lawmakers hightail it to the tall grass.

What deprivations must Americans suffer before they grow really restive? The answer may lie at "ground zero." Before a summer's last sun could set, the fall of two tall towers cast a pale shadow of peril over every American home. Then came the iconic photo. Upon the rubble of two fallen towers, three fearless firefighters raised a flag. They could not know they had lit a torch to light the skies and lift the spirit of every county in the country. By week's end, a wave of patriotism not seen since the end of the Second World War was everywhere on display. It raced westward like a wind-propelled fire on a parched forest floor. No commentator could miss or mistake it, as personally unacquainted with the phenomenon he or she may previously have been. Many told us how hard it was to find words adequate enough to describe the depth of our sorrow. Few in the media even looked for words to explain the pain-mitigating pride that bravely battled the awful hurt in our hearts.

So, why patriotism? Deep grief over the terrific loss of life, a blinding rage over the terrorists' success, even a consuming thirst for vengeance would need no further explanation. But there was something else at work. Americans who so proudly displayed the American flag did so to express their abiding devotion to "the republic for which it stands," aka "the land of the free." We love this land so much because, more than any other, it allows its citizens to live and be left alone. Yes, in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, we tend to take our treasured possessions for granted. And as always, the full depth of the love is only felt upon their loss. In a flash, terror fatally struck the routine of daily life. Three thousand died just for going to their jobs that morning. And it wasn't just about the dead and grieving. Terror struck us all. For as it was said so often in the ensuing days, "if we do not feel safe we cannot feel free." Americans overwhelmingly supported the war on terror and joined the armed forces in droves to ensure the safety of their wives, parents and children.

Peace and prosperity between 1982 and 2008 have allowed Americans to ignore the stinking business of politics. Then the housing bubble burst and times got tough. Now, ObamaCare with its attendant hardships and sacrifices promises to reduce the pleasantness of daily life even more. The putative Affordable Care Act threatens people's well-being as nothing before it could. The need to give health care to all and contain the exorbitant cost of doing so will confound everyone's freedom to choose. It is the response to that impending impact (or perhaps some other unforeseeable threat) that will ultimately measure this nation's resolve to remain free. When will the average American wake up and reach for her ballot? When the agent from the National Institutes of Health is standing in her kitchen demanding to know precisely what she is feeding her family?

Over time, more and more families will come to feel the pinch of big government's blade against their throats. When friends, neighbors and coworkers are ready to listen, this is what they'll need to hear: since each person's well-being is to an enormous extent affected by prevailing social and economic conditions, since, in a countless variety of ways, those conditions are the product of a nation's political enactments, and since here, in America, we freely elect the men who write the laws, which create the conditions in which we all prosper or perish, each citizen needs to be informed about the political programs that are being proposed and implemented in his name and make his voice and vote felt.