The Failed Party

American Thinker ^ | October 22, 2007 | Jeffrey Schmidt

[vietvet67]

The Democratic Party hasn't just taken over the title of The Stupid Party, as Professor James W. Ceaser characterizes it in his much-admired article of the same name in The Weekly Standard. Professor Ceaser insightfully argues that today's Democratic Party is what it is because of philosophical diffidence readily exploited by the bullying of a "network of techno-thugs," all Leftists. But his erudite argument confines itself to the realm of ideas.

In the world of facts on the ground, the Democratic Party is also The Failed Party. The larger truth is that liberalism, as a governing philosophy, is a spent force. Its failures are manifest, and those failures started to be evident in the 1960s.

Professor Ceaser characterizes the convulsions experienced by the Democratic Party in the 1960s as "tragic, in that it involved the fall of something worthy, however flawed." Scruffy student radicals, barbarians that breached the Democrats' gates, did so, according to the professor, because liberalism lacked a "firm theoretical foundation."

This foundational weakness is attributed to the discrediting of the idea that progress is inevitable, and that "social intelligence" could be smartly applied to nudge progress along. In other words, absent the fanciful notions that progress is a given and that government, dressed up as "social intelligence," could boost progress, liberals were unmoored and open to the challenges of Tom Hayden and others in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), whose fealty to the Socialist Ideal and anti-Americanism made accommodations with the liberal establishment unthinkable.

The professor's argument that the New Left brought down liberalism misses the other story. The leftist enemy within played an important hand, but the failure of liberal governance and the developing critique of liberalism by conservatives were great factors in the unraveling of the dominant liberal consensus.

[PGalt]

Socialism is a bankrupt philosophy. Read more here (pick a link, any link that interests you)...

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

Many thanks to FReeper raygun for the link.

[edsheppa]

Then you agree Truman did not abandon SK like Nixon/Ford did Vietnam and Reagan did Lebanon. Rather it was a mistake like the Bush I Admin's mistake in Iraq (actually two mistakes, first not making it clear to Hussein ahead of time that we would go to war over Kuwait and, second, not removing him from power, or at least isolating him, after thye First Gulf War).

In case my point isn't clear, I suggest you save the bashing for America's real enemies like AQ and the Enemy Media and the America-hating left. Truman was a good American. But being President is tough and even good Americans can make big mistakes. It's what they do after their mistakes that tells the tale.

[syriacus]

But being President is tough and even good Americans can make big mistakes.

How true!

But, it's no coincidence that the Korean War is so neglected by school books.

It's time to let good Americans know the untold facts about that war.

It's a good thing to remind hypocritical Democrats that their president Truman "killed" as many Americans in one month in Korea as Bush "killed" in 4 years in Iraq.

It's a good thing to remind hypocritical Democrats that full wartime censorship was imposed under Truman during the Korean War, not under Bush during the Iraq War.

It's a good thing to remind Democrats that it was their president Truman who used the draft to send young men off to Korea, not President Bush who used the draft to send young men off to Iraq.

Presidents make mistakes, but it's unfair to accuse one president (Bush) of making mistakes that another President (Truman) was actually guilty of making.

[syriacus]

Ten times as many men died in 30 months in Korea under Truman, as died in 30 months in Iraq under Bush.