What the Heck is Wrong with Harry Reid?

From Ginna Cobb:

Well, American politics are changing rapidly, and the meanings of Right, Left, Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian are getting redefined. The ‘problem’ begins with the overwhelming successes of liberal democracy, gobbling up all the other ideologies.

Here’s what I mean. Liberalism appeared as a cohesive evolving philosophy from the late 1700's, coming from John Locke, the new leaders in America, later on John Stuart Mill, and many others. The basic ideas centered on the power of the people, as expressed through parliament. This was opposed to conservatism (or Toryism), which emphasized the traditional powers of the monarch and the aristocracy. The emerging liberals believed in democracy, popular empowerment, freedom of choice, liberty, freedom of control from the church, and education to empower the electorate to enable them to self-govern. These political philosophers are now called “Classical Liberals” (eg. John Stuart Mill, ‘On Liberty’ [1859]), and they wanted to use democracy and the rule of law, but they did not want to bother people, or intervene in their lives unless absolutely necessary. The state was to maintain a “night watchman” role. They believed that people should be free, and they could to do good or bad, but they could be held responsible if they did bad, using the rule of law. Behavior that did not harm others should not be regulated.

But Liberalism changed again, as Charles Dickens and others, with stories like ‘Oliver Twist’, and ‘Scrooge’, advocated the use of the state to provide social justice. If people became victims, the state should intervene. When modern liberals govern, if people are seen to suffer, they empower the state to remediate the problem. This new version of liberal democracy, promoting tolerance, reciprocity, and mutual respect, with its quiet and almost self-apologetic ideology, is taking over the world. It has crushed fascism, pushed aside communism, and is now rolling over Islamism.

George Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” is really modern liberalism, using a philosophy similar to Charles Dickens. True Toryism, the rock-ribbed conservatism that supported the power of the king, has disappeared from American politics, to be preserved in only a few places on earth, like Saudi Arabia. Bush has rid himself of the religious right, bringing the Republicans to the middle high ground. As this liberal democratic monolith spreads and consolidates its global control, it now encompasses more than 75 countries (Mauritania just now begins on that path).

Until about 15 years ago, neither Democrats or Republicans were internally homogeneous. They had big business, blacks, southern racists, northerners, the poor, intellectuals, populists, and communist hunters mixed up in each party like two similar batches of cookie dough. By then, they had both abandoned Classical Liberalism. Then, enter, stage left, Karl Marx. His philosophy of dialectical materialism said political opposites would unite and merge, and then new opposites would appear. This seems to have happened with the Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats have always had a socialist fringe, but now, rear-ended out of the middle of the political intersection by Bush, Democrats have shed modern liberalism in favor of socialism, the only unique game left to them.

With the communist scare gone, socialism is now safe, as long you call it ‘progressivism’, or some other euphemism. ‘Progressivism’ advocates big government, social control, economic leveling, and controls on capitalism, behavior, and thought, imposed from top-down political structures where citizens cannot be trusted to govern themselves. Free citizens would “shoot up the place” or some such thing. The Progressivist scope is global, they want global economic controls, global environmental controls, global government, and no wars between nations because they do not believe in nations. To themselves, Progressives hum the ‘Internationale’.

At last, the Democrats have a manifesto of their own, but to make it work, it must be done quietly. Communist revolutions didn’t work, too dramatic, bloody, and reversible. Instead, they chip away at the foundations of liberal democracy bit by bit, ‘progressively’, as they have been doing in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere for decades. As the liberal democratic machine steamrolls on, ‘Progressives’ try to chew up the road behind it.

So there you have Reid, Obama, Kerry, Kennedy, Pelosi, and the rest. Of course they want to stop all American wars, since these would be victories for Republican liberal democracy, not socialism (er, ahem, ‘Progressivism’). To them, and their fellow-traveling main-stream media, anti-war posturing is not treasonous, because they are not loyal to America. Like most socialists, they loathe modern liberalism, and especially George Bush’s use of it, because it is their main competitor, their antithesis.

So what to do about it? Well, the first thing is to CALL THEM OUT. The citizen electorate has a right to know, very specifically, how the ‘Progressive’ agenda differs from socialism. The onus is on the Democrats to prove the difference. At least in Europe they call it what it is. As for the handbook on successful ideological combat, I refer you to my other piece, already here on GINA COBB (thank you so much, Gina), entitled, “How to Argue with Leftists about Islamism: An Ideological Combat Manual.” Enjoy.