08.05.08
Still trying to discern the core of leftism
A few more thoughts occur to me along the vein of last night’s post about livingthe life of a closet-rightie.
Clearly, the majority of my friends and associates are on the other side of the ideological fence from me. It makes me cringe and gnash my teeth, but I know how they’ll vote in November.
Most of them get their news and opinion on the fly as they maneuver through their daily lives – a little Today show or The View while on the treadmill at the gym, a little NPR during the daily commute, Time or Newsweek during the grooming-and-hygiene interlude, the op-ed page of their local paper, stuff that friends e-mail to them.
A few of them make a point of, as far as they understand the term, being highly informed. They regularly check out The Nation, the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews.
It’s this second tier that I’d like to consider here. After all, they ostensibly have the most meat on the bones of their worldview. They avail themselves of sources unabashedly self-identified as progressive.
As Bookworm and Neo-neocon say about such people in their lives, it’s clear from my observation of, and interaction with them that they are not dumb people. Most have done quite well in live. They live comfortably, travel, send their kids to fine colleges, contribute to the civic life of their communities. This is why I am so confounded by their steadfast fealty to an ideology that has demonstrated its intrinsic failure in every area of public life: economics, culture, education, religion, and science.
Implicit in their dinner-party exchanges about how to get more Americans concerned about global warming, or how immoral US involvement in Iraq is, or how large corporations are greedy is that core assumption that America’s main identity is not that of a grand experiment in human liberty, but rather some kind of storehouse in which power and wealth exist of their own accord, andthat it’s just a matter of which classes or vested interests are going to control those commodities.
It’s an assumption that really goes back to Marx. It’s the idea that there’s some kind of power structure that welcomes in those who demonstrate a cynical understanding of how the game works, and excludes those who insist on an egalitarian dispensing of access to the levers of success. In this view of things, a revolution is required to put the egalitarians in charge of admission to the success network, and send the old power-brokers to the re-education camp.
The irony is that reality works in the exact opposite fashion. When free-market economics, as laid out by Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman, is combined with a keen understanding of the Judeo-Christian scriptural narrative and all it has to say about family and character and a devotion-filled heart, as well as a keen understanding of what history shows us about human nature and the evolution of the modern nation-state, you get the freest and fairest possible society.
Especially since the civil-rights triumph of forty years ago, there is truly no substantive obstacle to a United States citizen becoming or achieving whatever he or she envisions. What is it you want to do? If you equip yourself with a full toolbox of the character traits needed to accomplish it – a generally educated mind, knowledge of your field, a friendly dispostition that fosters a network of contacts, mentors and associates, a willingness to find out what material resources you’ll need, and an understanding that life is fluid and you’ll need to adapt to pretty much constant change – the only hassles that can possibly pose setbacks will be random occurrences of bum luck.
A further irony is that this is how these people I know who are personally successful but still harbor the leftist worldview got where they are. What i cannot get to the core of – and, I think, still puzzles even conservatism’s greates minds – is why they can’t see the universal applicability of their own success stories.
It has something to do with this matter of control. I used to divide leftists into two groups – those who sincerely believed that government was needed to make life more fair for unfortunate people, and those who were in it because it was a slick way to talk themselves into power. I look at it a little differently now. I think some sense that human beings ought to be controlled lies at the heart of even the do-gooder impulse. Otherwise, these people would be able to see that they came to their quite favorable junctures- the American dream – without asking anybody’s permission.
Mr. Dings said,
August 5, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Perhaps if the current administration (which you supported as a Republican, but now conveniently damn) had convinced the majority of the voting populace (you do not even address the greater majority here that does not vote) that their ways were right and showed results (but you blame their “opposition” for their failures), there would be a stronger candidate worthy of your most learned and of course accurate attention this presidential election year and all the rest of the blissfully affluent yahoos you call your friends would see your light, march to your beat. Let it shine. Keep on beating the drums of war. Damn the State Department, the UN, the Federal Reserve Bank, Israeli peace-making efforts, anything but greed, hubris, and other downsides in the conservative heart too, that many perceive as the crux of the problem and not at all the current solution.
Mr. Dings said,
August 5, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Don’t forget to include the millions here amongst us filing for bankruptcy, downsized, off shored or just plain put out of their jobs, those victims of corporate fraud who lost their life savings, those who are having their pension funds frozen or who will never begin to even know what a pension is, those 47 Million uninsured Americans (poor lazy dumb bastards, I know), those who send their kids to whatever are not “fine colleges” in your book, those who were delinquent on their mortgages (20 year high in December) in your prayers, if not your empathies, heaven forbid sympathies tonight. Lord grant them the wisdom and courage to see the bloggie’s light. Your fortunate friends must simply be dumb asses, I guess is your point. The aformentioned are only living in bondage to their own ignorance, not anyone else’s, right? Don’t you feel the oneness? But, perhaps they come from and participate in loving, caring families. Is that possible? But this is all simpering wimpering liberalism to you. It’s just that the good ole days seem so long ago and far away now.
Administrator said,
August 5, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Well, now, there’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start with the phrase “conveniently damn.” I guess I need some futher elucidation into what that means. I “damn” the current administration because it has lost its bearings – that is, those it ever had. Gave Congress a pass on runaway spending. Backpedaled on its original post-9/11 foreign policy by sitting down with North Korea, Iran and Fatah. Went in for a big federal role in education. Swallowed the global-warming Kool-Aid.
There is greed and hubris aplenty in this world, but it’s not in the “conservative heart,” by which I assume you mean the core worldview I’m discussing in this post. And never mind where the greed and hubris is. It’s not important. What is important is a set of values and principles that acknowledges thier inevitability and sets up a system that foster the best in humanity instead. And that woulod be conservatism.
As for 47 million uninsured, that numebr includes a whole lot of young adults who have opted to put off buying it, as well as, aham, a few folks whose papers aren’t in order.
Corporate fraud hasn’t cost very many Americans their life savings. It’s a tiny problem, and our law-enforcement apparatus is pretty well on top of it. Perps get punished when they’re caught.
And, yes, Lord grant all lefties the wisdom to see the bloggie’s light. I’m correct about everything I say I’m correct about.
Administrator said,
August 5, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Unemployment is not the government’s problem. Remember, no one has a right to a job. If there are no enterprises selling their goods and services at a profit, there are no jobs.
Mr. Dings said,
August 5, 2008 at 7:22 pm
There’s a few left of the so-called Greatest Generation that will swear till their dying day, which can’t be that far off, that they’re so grateful that unemployment and having food to eat was the government’s problem in 1933. BTW, June, 2008, was the worst Dow June since the Great Depression. What fraud lurks therein?
Administrator said,
August 5, 2008 at 8:17 pm
None.
Administrator said,
August 5, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I’ve rethought my answer. There is fraud that lurks within and it’s the Pelosi Politburo’s refusal to do the very thing that would start bringing oil prices down, and with them, other prices, and the inflation rate. Specifically, the fraud is the notion they’re putting forth that this can be solved with socialism instead.
Mr. Dings said,
August 5, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Nah, that’s stupidity. You do have to expect a debate on the issue, but O has changed his colors again, barely a month after he said we should not tap the Texas-Louisiana reserves: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080804/ap_on_el_pr/obama
Obama, who as recently as last month argued against tapping into the petroleum reserve located in caverns in Texas and Louisiana, proposed that the government sell 70 million barrels of oil from its stockpiles and said that releases from the reserve in the past have lowered gas prices within two weeks.
We do agree, though, that O is not the answer. And, if we could eliminate greed and graft from the equation, full bore free market economics is by far the way to go in this world. Short of that, which is actually short of the kingdom of heaven, we must have an umpire, i.e. government regulation. There are too many human casualties otherwise, no?
Administrator said,
August 5, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Well, since we agree that O is not the answer, the fact that he changes his colors on some issue is, to trot out a term from another recent exchange, not particularly relevant. What we do know is that if he’s elected president, we’ll see his true colors – namely, jackbooted Stalinism.
I’ve seen this “we must have an umpire” assertion put forth in these comment threads before. What exactly does that mean? Some government body that gets to decide what is “fair” in terms of, say, profit levels or market share?
Greed and graft are not part of the equation in this oil situation, unless perhaps you get to the level of the sheiks and the mullahs.
Mr. Dings said,
August 6, 2008 at 11:00 am
Oversight: The Federal Reserve Bank, the Treasury and Justice Depts., unless you damn them too. Google “greed” and “oversight” and “crisis” to begin your education.
Mr. Dings said,
August 6, 2008 at 11:18 am
Opinion from Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania (a jack-booted Stalinist reeducation camp?):
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/1987.pdf?CFID=70967812&CFTOKEN=45434491&jsessionid=a83056fa881b68672b4b
What caused the crisis? In my view, greed was the underlying factor. Wall Street hedge funds and others are looking for any financial machination that they can find to hype their financial returns. The whole mortgage fiasco is just the latest example. The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s was another instance.
Anyone with any sense knew that during the dot-com mania, you couldn’t sustain high prices for stocks on companies that had no current earnings, only losses. It was a bubble, just like the Tulip Mania that investors lived through during the last century. With the present subprime crisis, the people originating the mortgages had to know that the higher the risk on mortgage terms, the grater the exposure there was to the mortgage going to foreclosure. So did the people who bought the mortgages, securitized the mortgages, and so on.
Not everyone kept playing the game until the roof fell in. T. Rowe Price, early on, got out of the market because of the high risk level, as did others on Wall Street who bet against this Ponzi scheme. Greed reflects a failure of leadership; turning your head to ignore the high risk because you are making big earnings today certainly shows a lack of leadership. How many people on Wall Street have been subject to less than robust oversight by their organization because they were producing such big contributions to
the firm’s earnings? Allowing your organization to be a party to contributing to this scheme — even if you know that you will not be directly affected — is not a mark of leadership. It is a sign of greed.
Mr. Dings said,
August 6, 2008 at 11:36 am
As for the alleged jack-booted Stalinist hold-outs in Congress with our oil in protected places, aren’t they going to have to cave to the will of their constituencies? There is no indication that Pelosi, for instance, is in trouble going into the November elections. We may see a mandate for change then, with other Demo hold-outs; if not, hold your peace for another two years. We do seem to want the oil and we want it now!
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
August 6, 2008 at 1:46 pm
As for the analysis offered in the Wharton piece, I think it points out the beauty of the free market. T. Rowe price did the smart thing andgot out before the bigdownturn. Others did the dumb and greedy thing and got their asses burned. It still comes down to individual responsibility. When you sit down with your investment advisor, it’s your responsibility to size him up, discern his character. Does he seem to have integrity, wisdom and patience? If not, thank him for his time and leave hisoffice before signing anything.
Now, as for your observation that San Fran Nan isquite likely to retain her Speaker position. This is something I’venoticed a lot lately in your comments. You take this sort of disinterested-observer tone to these developments, along the lines of “It sure looks like the Democrats are doing fine in such-and-such situation,” or “It sure looks like there’s economic trouble on this front”. It would be interesting – in fact, highly conducive to a productive exchange – to know how you feel about such developments. How are you with Nancy Pelosi having that kind of power for at least another two years?
I’ll tell you straight-up how I feel about it. Well, actually, I already have many times. See above term: “jack-booted Stalinism.” Why doesn’t she call off the House’s vacation, come back to the Hill, turn on the lights and allow and up-or-down vote on a drilling-is-the-first-priority engergy bill? Then there’s the list of examples of her idiocy and freedom-hatred over the last two years: a minimum wage hike as the most significant achievement of that first session, her visit to Assad in Syria, this recent apology for slavery business, her instituting of a far more expensive and silly-ass “organic” menu in the House commissary, her crediting of the surge’s success to Iran’s goodwill, her leadership in theHouseProgressive Caucus, a group with explicit ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, her support for food stamps to illegal aliens.
Actually, Stalinism is only the first phase of her design. The second phase is America’s defeat at the hands of its enemies.
And therein lies the perplexing madness at the core ofthe modern Democratic party vision. The level of freedom that the United States of America has introduced into the world has been such a blessing. I don’t know why the Democrats are so zealous about seeing it destroyed.
Mr. Dings said,
August 6, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’d like to think the T Rowe Price did the moral thing, but , you pegged it, it’s merely smart, still greedy, getting out before the downturn, winners/losers of course in that game of greed. You are in serious denial about greed.
And you talk about productive discourse, but all I hear is bitching and am expecting to hear a lot more of it, and downright dirty name calling, from the likes of Rush and his dittoe heads. The great fact is that we live in a representative democracy, so what I think about what Pelosi does is not going to get her on the losing side in her district. I would, however, love to be able to dispense and obtain medical marijuana for my depression, in her district. The former would be quite legally lucrative; the latter would be a quick fix for actually trying to give a shit.
Administrator said,
August 6, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Oh, no, never any bitching here at BN – or on Rush’s show, for that matter – that’s not backed up by extensive substantiation of how the objects of the bitching are destroying freedom and the West’s chances for survival.
You’ll never find bitching for bitching’s sake here at BN or any other respectable conservative outlet.
Also, what’s greedy about T Rowe Price getting out when they did? What more moral course of action could they have taken? Did they not maximize yield for their clients? (That’s called delivering on what you say you will. The essence of business integrity.)
Mr. Dings said,
August 6, 2008 at 3:48 pm
You are glossing over the apparent fact that our entire economy was seriously adversely affected by the greed of the unregulated mortgage and credit market swindles. That is why I do not trust the big shots. You can’t. They’ll take you in a heartbeat for their booty. And you call them hard working enterprising Americans.
Dave said,
August 6, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Kudos BQ!
For taking off where your “Americans looking for substance” article left off in The Republic on 8/3. I’d love to see some form of this “core of leftism” published as a part 2 of that article. Of course, the names would have to be changed to protect the delusional (”left”, to perhaps, Federalists). Also, I’d add a third group: those who genuinely misinterpreted their teachers/elders/clergyman’s teaching of “The Golden Rule” to imply that we must force others to follow it.
Administrator said,
August 6, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Yes, Dave, the maximizing of freedom entails walking a fine line. Every time I find myself flirting with libertarianism – I’m completely on board with their devotion to a free market economy – I find myself pulling back from their views on foreign policy and morality-related issues. For every time I pump my fist and yell, “right on!” while reading Reason magazine, I also turn a page atwo and say, “What kind of do-do is this?”
Administrator said,
August 6, 2008 at 4:26 pm
What I’m saying, Dave, is that, yes, legally we must give the live-and-let-live ethos a wide berth, but the admonitions of the clergy must be part of our society’s public-policy conversation.
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 12:11 am
Yeah, welcome to the relatively “new blood” here. I know Dave has posted from time to time before. It might be the best year ever for the Libertarian candidate, but without campaign $$$, certainly there will be no go, byond say 2 or so % of the vote. T he LP had its greatest success in 1980, when Ed Clark ran for president and won just over 1 percent of the popular vote. We will likely get the prettiest package this year, and the blogmeister is correct that the majority of the voters can/will/do not delve deeply into the core of the issues, right, left or moderate, but, still, more stay home than go to the polls on election day in this country–a miserable state of affairs in this greatest experiment in democracy. Things are so bad now that this change thing is apparently really resonating with the electorate, per the polls. Of course we’re not “right” enough for the bloggie. I, for one, don’t salivate over the left of the Oman. If you’re not right here, though, you’re either a jack-booted Stalinist leftist (sometimes merely Marxist) or a reasonable gentleman. Bloggie’s blind to whiter shades of pale, but black is black.
Administrator said,
August 7, 2008 at 1:13 am
Well, it would be interesting to know what a whiter shade might look like. Letting government take your hard-earned money but only reacting with a please-leave-me-something kind of simpering smile?
A semi-pumped eighth-of-a-fist show of enthusiastic support for yet another UN/EU/State Department round of do-dah in response to the latest assertion of intransigence on the part of those sworn to our obliteration?
A stroking of the chin at the next world-body proposal that the most developed nations scale back their progress in the name of an utter fraud cooked up to hasten their demise?
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 11:52 am
Funny! Well, I presume bloggie has found, as have I, that the spectrum of opinions range all the way from white to black, with lotsa blue on blue, heartache and sorrow–our apparent human condition unless transcended–so why hasten the day for those who don’t necessarily see it your way? But he’s always been a ‘be a man, take a stand’ kinda fellow, sometimes jolly (growing older and grumpier?), as long as I’ve known him. There’s room for his ilk here and the likes of the rest of us. Try as you might, you can’t stomp or stop “the other.” In this country it’s still all a grand debate, and change (more of their own opinions than the way things are) seems to rule the day for both candidates. It all fits, doesn’t it? Would we could all fit in.
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Yes, it appears that better red or dead than a reasonable gentleman, though, to the bloggie.
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Thinking of the last time the world was one. It has to be after we all had heard the news, oh boy, about the Twin Towers. One world, for one shining moment (and longer, until shock and awe.) But I know it’s possible, during moments of awe, like the first walk on the moon back in ‘69. Perhaps it will take an alien invasion to unite us all in the end. One world, under God. Until then, piss and moan. Or groan, with all creation….
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
August 7, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Well, we weren’t all quite one on that day. There were the gleeful Palestinians passing out candy in celebration to the children of Gaza.
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Terrorists!
Mr. Dings said,
August 7, 2008 at 6:48 pm
You know, there are 16 basic personality types and 64 variations, according to one popular personality test based upon Jungian archetypes. There are 3 main learning styles and 7 types of multiple intelligence. Then there is good and evil, yin and yang. left and right, liberal and conserative. How can it all fit into one view? I hear Rush, Hannerty, Beck et al (btw, Bill Bennet’s Morning in America is outside the mold, the most intelligent and decent conservative talk shows on the air) and often the blogmeister foaming at the mouth and frothing at the pen that their views are the correct ones and everyone else’s are stupid, ignorant, dangerous, and worse. Perhaps I’m waxing unreasonable in my questioning.
Administrator said,
August 7, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I’m interested in what it is about Bill B that appeals to you where Rush, Sean, etc. turn you off. Bill is every bit as conservative – just as commited to freedom, Western civilization, common sense, God and human dignity. Is it a stylistic difference?
Mr. Dings said,
August 8, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Intelligent and decent. One of a variety of radio types. I don’t think the left necessarily disembodies committments to the 5 you mention, but they sure scare you. Common sense is certainly in the eye of the beholder, as is God. No?
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
August 10, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Well, maybe, but the smell test tells us that some folks act like that’s what they’re motivated by, but we can see (get a whiff?) that they’re just plain jivin’.