Posted on 06/19/2002 10:52:56 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
When you write a treatise titled, "Why I am not a conservative," and follow it up with one titled, "Why I am not a libertarian," you are, according to popular demand, obligated to publish a third discourse titled, "Why I am not a liberal."
This may prove to be the toughest challenge of all. For me, it is like explaining why I am not a communist, or why I am not a Nazi. Where does one begin? I've never been mistaken for a liberal.
Let's start here: Liberalism, as we know it in the United States in 2002, is an evil ideology inflicting massive suffering, misery, injustice, oppression and death wherever it gains power and influence.
You will notice I never use "liberal" or "liberalism" as an epithet. I rarely use the term at all, because I believe it is a misnomer and a label that is widely misunderstood. But, for the purposes of this column and this column alone I am going to critique liberalism just as I critiqued conservatism and libertarianism.
Liberalism is the dominant ideology in Washington, D.C., today no matter which political party runs the White House or Congress. Liberalism controls the Republican Party only to a slightly lesser degree than it controls the Democrats.
Liberalism proffers that it is a good idea to forcibly take the wealth and property rightfully and legally acquired by one party and redistribute it to others. Of course, liberals always take a sizable cut of the transaction for themselves sometime as much as 80 percent.
My friend Walter Williams accurately describes this process as "legalized theft." There is no better way to explain it. Legalized theft is the central creed of liberalism. Liberalism is not possible without it. All manner of justifications and rationalizations are made for this process the greater good, helping the poor, leveling the playing field. No matter what you call it, theft is theft.
But theft is only the beginning of the evil liberals spread.
Liberalism also kills.
It kills in a thousand different ways. Let me give you a few:
Liberalism is less an ideology than utopian wishful thinking. It cares not about the actual results of its policies, only about doing something. The "something" that it does always empowers government at the expense of people.
Liberalism, as we know it today, is simply a new name for an old-fashioned idea formerly known as socialism. It stands on its head the basic concept of liberty as the Founding Fathers thought of it. Liberals think the government that governs most, governs best.
The sheer volume of laws it passes is staggering. No one has the time to read them, let alone live by them. Yet, each new law is another nail in the coffin of a free society.
Liberalism believes government is the best vehicle for solving problems not the worst, not the course of last resort.
Government is the god of liberalism. And that's why I am in no danger of being mistaken for one. My god is God.
Uh huh.
It kills in a thousand different ways. Let me give you a few:
Farah speculates that these utopians care not about their policies. This demonstrates a logical disconnect by Farah and others. As the evidence at *Death Cultivation mounts, how can anyone not make the connection between those policies and the constant reference to too many people in one place or the other, indeed on the entire planet? As the sophisticates of Weimar Germany didn't take seriously the intentions explicitly laid out by Hitler in Mein Kampf, too many of us are not taking the enviro-wacko call for drastic human population reduction as not fair warning.
While the "liberals" Farah upbraids may take no note of the consequences of their policies, the same cannot be said about our megalomaniacal elitists who see gains flowing from the blindness of these useful idiots.
Even here at FR, where there are significantly more morally aware thinkers, there are not an insignificant number who read the enviro-wacko ideas and say "ya know, Av, they do have a point."
Well, if they have a point, why don't more of you fellow travelers tell us what it is you like?
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