Posted on 03/21/2007 9:09:18 AM PDT by kellynla
What constitutes the essence of modern liberalism?
Conservatives will return to decisive victories only if we come to terms with liberalism’s visceral appeal. The best way to overcome our ideological adversaries is to understand their approach to major issues.
While conservatives obsess over distinctions of right and wrong, and insist that inevitable consequences must flow from good and bad behavior (see last week’s column), liberals focus on differences of another sort entirely.
The rhetoric of today’s left shows that they see society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and victims.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
The left also sees "life" as zero sum: the powerful got there by holding down the powerless, the rich stole their money from the poor, etc.
Yes, that P.J. O'Rourke quote is quite apt.
This is IMHO actually a well written and thought out piece in spite of the hyperbolic title.
"While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion."
Nail on the head!!!
But the truth is, liberals don't give a rat's rear end about the 'less fortunate.'
Their motivation is the self-congratulatory pat on the back they award themselves for being 'compassionate' or 'standing up for the little guy.' (Of course, by throwing around taxpayers' money, not their own.)
Thomas Sowell wrote a whole book about this: The Vision of the Anointed.
"Blessed the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:5)
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)
"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20)
What I have been seeing lately is so called conservatives DEVOLVING into social darwinists which is what I see in this article my Medved.
A true old school 'conservative' is a defender of rights and of life and of the helpless.
Social-Darwinisim masquerading as conservativisim.
I'm a huge Medved fan and this is a great column! He will be broadcasting from Las Vegas on Monday and I'll be there! Looking forward to it! ;-)
What Medved described is not the essence of conservativisim.
I have felt, for a very long time, that they way to defeat the left is to point out to these "victim" groups, who exactly has made them a victim. Every "victim" group in the US, for the past 50 years, has been a direct result of some liberal policy or world view.
Every election cycle, the GOP national Committee should give out thousands of bumper stickers like the following:
Want to stay on the plantation: Vote Democrat
Vote Democrat; it's all about your skin color
The government can be your babies' daddy; Vote Democrat
Society isn't divided....politicians are divided. Have you seen the debate on the budget yet? Republicans claim that Democrats want to spend all of the Social Security money on things other than Social Security. Democrats say they are wrong.....they only want to spend 1.03 trillion dollars of the SS money on things other than SS. Bunch of hipocrits. They shouldn't spend any of the SS money on anything other than SS.
In what way?
Longinus, I think you at least partially mentioned the point. The article isn't advocating *not* helping the helpless. He's merely pointing it up as being an overriding frame. A conservative would want to help the helpless because it's the 'right thing' to do, and consequently will want to achieve that goal without doing anything 'wrong' (IE, stealing from the rich to give to the poor is still stealing and still wrong). Whereas he's saying that the liberal point of view is that fairness is the overriding concern, fairness is 'right', and so it doesn't matter how it's achieved.
As I understand the etymology of this phrase, the word for "camel" is interchangeable with several other Hebrew words, and that the earlier translators locked onto the interpretation "camel" for convenience. As many Hebrew language scholars have purportedly pointed out, the word in Hebrew is more easily translated as "rope." So, which makes more literary sense, "It is easier for a ROPE to go through the eye of a needle," or "It is easer for a CAMEL..."
ping.
In two pages Medved has done what others often try to do while missing the mark: distilling post-modern liberalism to it's understandable essence. His article would make a wonderful speech on the floor at the GOP Natl Convention.
Your multiple replies are duly noted...now, for the sake of humanity, give it a rest.
Conservative Christians and Jews like Medved have much in common while liberals from any stripe have nothing in common with the two groups above. The Judeo-Christian view on economic, politics, social justice is based on good and evil. The Left has its views based on power, how the state can deal with this power and what coalitions can bring about the power to keep the Left in power! One of the things that the Bushie view fails at is the fact they have tried to compromise with the Dem-socialist-pacifists with niceness! That will not work in the Kingdom of Man. When Jesus rules the Earth, He will keep all sides under His sway. But, today, Bush is faced with a domestic enemy that will not really build consensus unless he and the GOP-conservs et al kow tow and surrender to them. It is as simple as that.
btt
btt
Oh, and here's a clue newbie, Medved wrote this article as a way of explaining ultimately what the left and right see as the role of government, especially the federal government, in our day to day lives. Or do you actually believe that he thinks conservatives shouldn't help the poor, down-trodden, etc.?
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