Liberal myths
I received a liberal education (in conservative Orange County, Calif.) and spent years in liberal social work in the liberal late 60s in liberal New York City. Then and since I have steadily read the liberal N.Y. Times, Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times and have found liberal has been often used as the good housekeeping seal of intellectual thought. A liberal is portrayed as progressive, educated, compassionate, open-minded, egalitarian, and generous.
But many liberal programs have been disasters because they were based on the false assumptions of:
Negative
Since the world isn’t ideal, he is quick to portray those with less as victims, those with more as greedy, capitalism as the cause, and conservatives as guilty.
Old is bad
The liberal faults the past. He runs down the l9th century as one of exploitation of the masses by the robber barons of Wall St. who conned Main St., bled Mid-western farmers, and fleeced immigrants. He’s mistaken; the standard of life for the common man rose dramatically, the number of farmers rose, as did their property value, the flood of immigrants persisted, charity and private education flowered, and libraries and cultural activities grew significantly.
In disparaging the past he doesn’t learn from it – a fatal mistake. The past contains the wisdom of traditional values gained at great cost, but he believes old is bad and …
New is good
New ideas from new fields are something he can sink his teeth into; psychology, socialism, ‘modern’ economics, and other social ‘sciences’ are ‘technologies’ which can ‘engineer’ a ‘new man’, New Deal, New Frontier, Great Society, etc. While he might claim to believe in traditional values, he postpones them indefinitely.
Equal
As Robin Hood he wants redistribute the wealth. He wants to push working class people through college, when many are not interested.
He is sure our poor are trapped, when immigrant poor, with limited English, pass them every day.
When it comes to bums and criminals, he has a thousand excuses for them.
Secure
He wants a world free of risk and want. The earlier days of heroism, tragedy, and the free market are to be leveled for predictability and safety. This can only be done through programs that promote:
Socialism
Where socialism [heavy government involvement] has been tried (India, China, and East Germany in the 50s & 60s), development has been hindered. Where it has been held back, development has flourished (Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and West Germany). He doesn’t see this; for most problems, he wants socialism. Thus he tends to be:
Anti-private
He’s not interested in understanding how privatizing schools, charity, prisons, nursing homes, fire depts, mail, transportation, utilities has or could work.
Anti-business [capitalism, the free market … ]
He sees the high salaries of top executives as great inequities. Henry Ford the 1st put the country on wheels, but the liberal sees that Ford was rich while others were poor, and goes on to support the graduated income tax, capital gains taxes and other measures which penalize the Ford types.
He sees profit as exploitive. If nursing home A makes a profit and clearly does a better job than non-profit nursing home B, A is bad because it makes a profit.
Caring
The liberal claims to have the corner on caring and ‘love.’ His is the soapy, coddling kind. It spoils those he’s trying to help. He can’t imagine anything hardnosed or authoritarian as ‘caring.’ He needs to know that coach Vince Lombardi and General Patton were hard on their men because they cared about them.
Permissive
Seeing the past as repressive, believing in psychology, and seeing himself as a ‘caring’ person, he is tolerant of vice and seeks to ‘understand’ crime. He doesn’t believe strongly in authority or discipline, and considers punishment ‘medieval.’ When ‘boot camp’ programs help troubled youth, you won’t hear much from a liberal – it’s outside his frame of reference.
Overly-generous
He spoils children; spoils the poor by paying them not to work; and spoils 3rd world countries with foreign aid. His programs pay farmers not to grow and the American Indian to be dependent.
The traditional conservative [not the far right] disagrees with all the above. He is often older, more experienced and realistic. He venerates the establishment, capitalism, and traditional values; he sees social classes as overlapping, natural, and healthy; his ‘caring’ meets a person only half way; he holds bums and criminals responsible for their behavior; he shows how the private sector has taken over some government functions and done a better job.
Let’s hear more from traditional conservatism. Let’s promote it in academia and the media. Let’s remind our youth, as people get older, they get more conservative because a lot of liberal ideas are idealistic and flawed.
As much damage as liberals have done, they deserve credit for:
- -More rights for minorities, women, gays, the handicapped.
- -More openness about battered spouses, lgbt, addiction, child abuse, incest, abortion, etc.
- -More acceptance of ethnic diversity and intermarriage.
- -More acceptance of separation & divorce.
- -More use of psychology to get to the roots of one’s problems instead of ‘keeping it all in’ and enduring ‘long suffering.’
- -More openness about public figures instead of putting them on a pedestal.
- -More open-minded about premarital relations in long term, responsible relationships.
- -More questioning of religion.
- – Integrating newsrooms with minorities and women [in the 1970s].
