Posted on 02/16/2008 9:18:39 AM PST by K-oneTexas
Two Fatal Errors of Modern Liberalism by Dennis Campbell
February 16, 2008
Two primary errors of modern liberalism are a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and an inability to learn from history.
Regarding the first, liberals are always chasing the fantasy of human perfectibility, which influences so many aspects of their policies.
Liberals believe that if we give a powerful central government enough resources and authority, wielded by intelligent people of good will, virtually all problems and endeavors of human society can have happy outcomes – poverty, education, racial disharmony, crime, affordable housing, universal health care.
Conservatives, on the other hand, recognize that government is composed of enormously fallible people, weak and prone to doing things in their own interest, and not in the interest of others. The larger the government, the more these problems are magnified.
When self-interest is channeled correctly, through liberty and free enterprise, with an underlying structure of law militating against the depravity found in varying degrees in everyone, it can produce remarkable benefits.
America’s economic system of free enterprise is based, or was in the beginning, on giving freedom to individuals to produce wealth in accordance with their abilities. The result has been the most prosperous society in history. Unfortunately, the liberal proclivity for exercising control over human enterprise threatens to bring that to an untimely demise.
Regarding the second error, liberals seem oblivious to the lessons of history, especially as they apply to dealing with despots and savages. The likes of Barack Obama seem to think that simply sitting down with one’s enemies, having a cup of tea and looking for common ground, is all that is necessary for peace.
This is the same inclination that led Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of England, to advocate the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938. Are there any among us who do not know how that turned out?
One of the most extreme examples of a misplaced trust in the goodwill of mankind is ancient Carthage. A prosperous and powerful city state around the first century, Carthage engaged in a series of brutal wars with Rome. While defeated, Carthage had not been conquered.
As part of a treaty with Rome, Carthage agreed to disarm and place itself under the protection of the Roman state. The treachery of the human heart perhaps has never been better displayed, as Rome turned on Carthage and beseiged the city, whose terrified citizens frantically worked to use every available material to fashion weapons for their own defense. Rome eventually burned Carthage to the ground, killing most of the inhabitants and taking the remaining 50,000 into slavery.
These lessons are never absorbed by liberals, it seems. They remain convinced that negotiation and appeasement will win over despots and savages. This leads them to a fatal conclusion regarding Islam: That we can appease and negotiate our way to a peaceful outcome with what may be the most violent religion in the world, indeed, in history.
Notice I did not say “radical Islam.” Islam always has been a religion of the sword, winning adherents through violent conflict. Its opponents are given three very clear choices: Convert, submit, or die. There is no other way. There never will be any other way. To think otherwise is suicidal.
Another lesson unlearned by liberals regards the Second Amendment, our freedom to keep and bear arms and the one that secures every other freedom we enjoy.
The historical lesson from our own history is this: Where there are liberal (in the true sense) laws permitting the private ownership of firearms, in accordance with our Constitutional guarantees, there is a low rate of violent crime. Where there are prohibitive restrictions on gun ownership, there is a high rate of violent crime.
At the same time liberals have this naïve view of the basic goodness of human nature, it seems they are unable to believe that honest, law-abiding citizens are capable of keeping firearms, whether in their homes or cars or on their persons, without the wholesale slaughter of one another.
The bitter experience of Carthage also comes into play in the issue of gun ownership. The fact is, an unarmed society is a defenseless society, unable to defend itself against the depredations of the lawless or the tyranny of government, as countless societies have learned throughout history.
These fundamental errors of modern liberalism – a misunderstanding of human nature and an inability to learn from history – not only are serious, but are fatal. If we allow the wrong people to steer our country, they likely will drive it right into an abyss.
Dennis Campbell is a freelance writer living in New Mexico. He has been published on many conservative websites.
Doesn't that just about cover everything?
Liberals believe humans are perfectable with the right set if laws and programs. It is the heart of liberalism. It is also the heart of man’s rebelion against God.
Yes. And both errors result from hubris and denial--the stuff of tragedy.
Yes there are. Many. In your own words:
"...liberals seem oblivious to the lessons of history."
We are on our way to Utopia
—Liberals believe humans are perfectable with the right set if laws and programs.—
Rousseau teaches us that human beings were essentially vice-free when they were primitive hunter-gatherers. What we call human nature, original sin, or what-have-you began to manifest itself when human beings became civilized roughly 10,000 years ago. NO civilization, whether laissez-faire capitalist, totalitarian, or social-democrat can perfect human beings as it is the nature of civilization (all civilizations in all places) which brings out the “badness” in mankind. Since few people wish to return to a lifestyle where we men would don animal skins and hunt large-game over the tundra while the women gathered roots and berries, we are stuck with human nature (or, if you are an Augustinian, “original sin”).
Liberalism ignores the fact that ANY system involving human beings is prone to compromise and eventual failure. This is an incontrovertible tenent of human existence.
Of course, the system in question generally fails more miserably when it is controlled by liberals/socialists/communists... the very same people who lay claim to the mantle of Perfect Beings. But, that is another inconvenient truth that this same group ignores.
This is true, yet we consistently find the politically correct people playing Chamerlain's role in frittering our future away. Islam is a cult that delights in lopping innocent peoples' heads off or killing whomever happens to be unlucky enough to be in a market when some nut job decides he has no other way to meet girls. To those who want to tell me that "all Muslims are not that way", I say fine...then why don't they speak up and throw the radicals out of their own house? The message can't be more clear:
Convert, submit, or die.
What will it take to wake people up?
“Regarding the second error, liberals seem oblivious to the lessons of history, especially as they apply to dealing with despots and savages.”
A very good analysis, but here I must disagree with the author, not that he is wrong, but that he is incomplete. That statement is only true if the despot is a Leftist (Communist) or otherwise anti-American. Liberals froth at the mouth when it comes to any national leader who is imperfect and who is a friend of the United States (think Pinochet, Chaing kai-Shek, or the Shah of Iran). Then no punishment, no criticism, is strong enough.
So, too, with Liberalism’s internal oppostion, we Conservatives. Quite frankly, they hate us. We are not merely misguided, or mistaken in our opinions, we are eeeevil; racists, homphobes, etc., etc. Liberals spend far more of their time and energy defaming Conservatives and their own country than they have ever given over to opposing such thugs as Stalin, Mao, Castro and, now, the miltiant Islamists. They are truly blind and stupid.
I was just about the reply with the same comment!
Can I add another two fatal flaws?
3. Basing positions on subjective emotions and feelings, despite contrary logic and facts.
4. Their tremendous inability to truly admit when they are wrong and rationalize their own failures.
And in California, thanks to Ah-nold, they are on their way to Fruitopia...
Rousseau did more damage to Western Civilization than the Islamic empire ever did.
So, in their history, liberals can be for racism and discrimination and at other times against it. They can be for allowing pollution and environmental degradation and at other times oppose it. They can be for free speech and at other times for censorship. They can be for economic growth and at other times oppose it.
When listening to a liberal, if you must, just ask yourself, how does this make the speaker morally superior to others? How is the speaker trying to relieve his own guilt by making everyone equal?
I've argued that liberalism ought to be opposed as a governing philosophy, because it is a religion and violates the separation of church and state.
With Obamania and his Benny Hinn act of fainting women, this is becoming clear to even the most dim.
This “perfectibility” issue is giving me a nosebleed. OF COURSE humans are perfectible, we wouldn’t be discussing the issue via computers if they weren’t and you wouldn’t be on a constant lifelong quest to upgrade your skills and knowledge in order to solve life’s problems more efficiently if you weren’t. This is a total no brainer.
The question to be resolved then becomes- What are the conditions that enhance and amplify the inherent human characteristic to perfect oneself and one’s surroundings and what are the conditions that stifle and suppress that characteristic?
Who said the Islamic empire has finished yet? In 50-100(25 in Europe) years, lets see if that statement holds true.
Great minds think in the same ruts...
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