The Decline of the Liberal Mind

The American Thinker ^ | 07/05/17 | Paul Pauker

[pgkdan]

There was a time (as hard as it may be to believe today) when liberals actually had the mental capacity to reason. During the Enlightenment, liberals (specifically, people with principles that were then described as liberal) understood the difference between facts and ideology. They understood that life is not an ideology, liberty is not an ideology, and property is not an ideology. Moreover, they understood that life, liberty, and property exist naturally, even if a nation does not exist and even if a government does not exist. And they understood that if people create a nation, a just government exercises its powers not for the purpose of pursuing an ideology, but instead, for the purpose of securing the life, liberty, and property (i.e., the unalienable rights) of each of the nation's citizens. This monumental discovery, a process of human thought stretching from (at the latest) ancient Rome all the way to 17th and 18th century England, achieved its realization in America, with the founding of a great nation. (Note to liberal readers: the great nation in question is the United States, and these fundamental truths are enshrined in the nation's founding document, the Declaration of Independence.)

Now, in contrast, a recent legal case in Europe perfectly illustrates the state of "modern" liberal thinking. A baby, Charlie, was born with a rare genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. Charlie's parents received donations (equivalent to more than a million U.S. dollars) for an experimental treatment in the United States, but the hospital treating Charlie in England wanted his life support to be turned off, and the English courts as well as the European Court of Human Rights sided with the hospital.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

According to Safire’s New Political Dictionary, the meaning of the term “liberal” was changed - essentially inverted - in the 1920s. Which is why I use the word in scare quotes.