Have you dated liberals before? If so, any difference you can tell between liberal and conservative guys? 

Absolutely. It’s kind of like night and day. I have always had a policy of not dating liberals, but once, after a bad break-up, I dated a couple of liberal guys…

First of all, they don’t have the same values and I find that to be a fundamental problem. I know a lot of people are willing to accept that, but I’m not. Their whole world view is different from someone who has conservative values and traditional values as a way of life.

Being focused on yourself, and your rights, and materialism, and no ultimate sense of morality — because I guess when you believe in a more secular way of life, a more liberal viewpoint, it’s all about what you can do for yourself and how you can be happy…and you don’t have any belief in absolute truth or religious principles to guide how you live. You get guys who are selfish and into themselves and don’t care so much about humanity, other people, or me — that just leads to a lot of problems. I also have a problem with guys who are into things like getting completely trashed and doing drugs…

1. I love that, in Sharon Soon’s apparent moment of vulnerability, she turned to Liberalism.  She obviously tolerates the welfare state when it suits her dating needs.

2. I equally enjoy the fact that most of these women find Liberal men intolerable because they may be too selfish and into themselves; yet these women–being the “female conservative bloggers” that they are–are probably proponents of the kind of laissez faire capitalism that would breed guys with such an attitude.

Perhaps their being single is a market correction.  I think Althouse agrees.

More at memeorandum.          

Kevin Sullivan, the most right-leaning “liberal” in the blogosphere, wouldn’t attend the UN’s funeral and James Joyner seems to think a different, democratic, alternative would be better for U.S. interests than the UN is, writing that “Attempting to get that business done through a smaller coalition of more like-minded states only makes sense, and it’s a far sight better than either going it alone or waiting on the UN to achieve consensus.”

But here’s the rub – what happens when the League of Democracies tries to impose its authority on a non-democracy and the latter says it doesn’t recognise the authority of a body it hasn’t been invited to send representatives to and has no voice at?

We bomb them? 

I think Cernig’s primary hang-up here is how he views the UN, and what precisely the role of such a global, deliberative body should be.  The problem with his argument is that the UN was not an institution built for growth, but rather, an institution built for results.  There were 50 founding members in 1945; including the permanent members of the Security Council.  Even then, there were nations outside the organization that weren’t going to immediately recognize the authority or the legitimacy of the body (and you also had Stalin attempting to pack the body with his Soviet satellites, like Belarus and the Ukraine).  There were in fact membership regulations imposed on applicant nations, and even upon membership you had efforts to incorporate weaker states into the global system (the Group of 77, UNCTAD, and so on).  These groups have to start somewhere, and the opinions held by those who are outside looking in shouldn’t be the roadblock to a good idea.

I think something resembling the Bretton Woods System would be a good start.  You can lay out the rules for membership, but the ideals must be the core of the institution.  Building a global body premised on democratic planning, freer markets and collective action is a good thing, and it’s no wonder that it bothers someone with a Socialistic outlook on the world.  To Cernig, “liberalism” means non-aggression and bureaucratic haggling.  This doesn’t, however, foster peace or progress.  Cernig relishes the thought of a global body that impedes the democratic nations of the world; instead focusing its time on perfunctory activity like condemning Israel and scolding the United States. 

Such wasted time, energy and resources would madden a genuine liberal (as it does!), but it’s precisely the kind of world Cernig wants to live in.  Peace, prosperity and trade are all fine in rhetoric, but throwing that monkey wrench into the machinery of the evil corporate powers makes for a much nobler goal in their minds.  To the global socialist, this is the job of the UN.  But we mustn’t confuse this as progress, or liberalism, or whatever else they’ll call themselves.  We’ve tried their bad ideas, so maybe it’s time to start over.  

Oh, and as for who the “league” bombs or doesn’t bomb–Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman bombed plenty of people during the era of global deliberation and compromise.  Nations that bomb other nations unjustly will be held accountable by other global actors.  With the merging of markets and finance, it doesn’t make sense for arbitrary bombing campaigns and invasions to go on, because they’re obviously bad for business. 

This is another one of those ideals I was talking about.                         

The broader point that needs to me made is not that Iraq specifically has prevented money from being funneled directly to your specific demographic group, but that excessive military spending in places like Iraq drains massive amounts of money from our nation as a whole. The Iraq war is our major national project right now, equivalent to the Apollo program or the New Deal. Do we want that as our national project? I don’t think many Americans would agree. Do we want a series of transactions to specific demographic groups and issues to be our national project? Even if is vastly preferable to making the Iraq war our national project, the truth is that isn’t very appealing either. We need a different framing around what we want our national project to be, and we need a Democratic leader who is willing to make that case to the country as a whole.

This discussion about the appropriate “national project” is kind of a curious one.  After all, the Apollo program–which was, obviously, the “Apollo program” of its time–wasn’t directly beneficial to the American people in a policy sense.  Of course, the program indirectly helped us make advancements in rocketry, avionics, medicine and computer technology, but those were otherwise secondary products of the stated goal–”landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”  That was it.  It was inspiring, exciting and a wonderful Cold War victory, but it didn’t produce the substantive results that a national “project” would presumably yield. 

The New Deal is a whole other matter, and shouldn’t even be compared to the Iraq War.  If something of that magnitude were attempted today–in real, post-inflation dollars–it would be seismic.  They’re not even in the same ballpark.

Secondly, I find it kind of ironic that the far Left sees strategic value in appealing to the isolationist and illiberal sentiment throughout the country.  Their basic assumption goes as follows: Americans supported invasion, but don’t want to build up a nation they don’t care about.  Promise them a direct financial benefit in the place of said nation building, and you can precipitate a more rapid withdrawal.  I suppose they’re right to think this, but that doesn’t necessarily make the policy right.  I, for one, think rebuilding and stabilizing a nation once terrorized by tyranny makes for a pretty good “national project.”  Making sure, at the very least, that our allies in Kurdistan and other parts of Iraq are safe and allowed to live free from such tyranny seems like a pretty Liberal ideal, but apparently this money could be put to better use elsewhere.

In his latest installment, Matt blah blah blahs all over the pages of FireDogLake about some book Eric Alterman wrote.  I like Alterman–he strikes me as a pretty reasonable guy, and his comic strips make me laugh.  Matt Stoller tends to make me laugh as well, but for entirely different reasons.  Take this doozy for example:

Now, I have fought with traditional top-down liberals a lot. And I believe in fighting and argument, and I don’t always think the liberal groups deal in good faith. But it rubbed me the wrong way that an argument for a strong independent movement, once that operates to influence both parties, is considered a mark of ideological purity. The right-wing has been successful by taking over the Republican Party, but also by influencing the Democratic Party through politicians like Joe Lieberman and through funding networks like the DLC and the Koch brothers. They own the GOP, and about a fifth to a third of the Democratic Party depending on the issue. I don’t see how that can be considered anything but an independent and strong conservative movement, and while I don’t agree with their value system, I don’t understand why we shouldn’t recognize this as a remarkable organizing success and something to replicate.

So if conservatives own the GOP, and if they own a healthy chunk of the Democratic Party, why hasn’t the welfare state been dismantled?  Why is the size of government only growing?  Why did George W. Bush–with a Republican Congress, and apparently at least 1/5 of the Democratic Party in his pocket–fail to pass social security murder reform through the Hill?  I’m sure Stoller would equate war and tax breaks with conservatism, but that would be stupid.  So yeah, he probably does believe that.  The problem with that theory is that Liberals started a whole bunch of wars throughout the 20th Century, and even cut taxes.  Democrats have wavered on matters of trade since the party’s inception.  The problem is that Stoller confuses genuine Liberalism for all the stuff Matt Stoller thinks is right.  Thus, conservatism is basically the stuff he doesn’t think to be right.

Throw in the usual references to Joe Lieberman, get a DLC mention in there, and something about the ”right-wing noise machine,” and you have the usual inanity that is Matt Stoller.  I won’t go any further, but feel free to catch up on my previous love letters to Matt.          

In the last three weeks, several workers have been fined and flogged in the city of Sanandaj, according to a report by the National Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers of Iran. Their crime? Taking part in May Day celebrations in 2007, which the mullahs deem to be “anti-Islamic.”

Today’s protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London is a timely solidarity with Osanloo, Salehi and all the workers of Iran. It is coordinated by the International Transport Workers Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation, and supported by the Trades Union Congress and the unions Aslef, GMB, RMT, TSSA, Unison and Unite.

Similar protests are taking place in more than 40 countries worldwide, involving hundreds of thousands of trade union members.

Notably absent from the protests in support of Iranian trade unionists are most activists from the “revolutionary left” and “anti-imperialist” movements. They protested night and day when Franco, Pinochet and Botha jailed trade union leaders. But with a few honourable exceptions, many of them are now silent about the anti-worker regime in Tehran. Their justified opposition to US war threats against Iran has led them into a wholly unjustified collusion with Tehran’s Islamist tyrants.

Tyranny is not too harsh a description. Both Osanloo and Salehi have suffered sustained persecution by the Iranian authorities for campaigning peacefully and lawfully for workers’ rights. They have been beaten, denied medical treatment and imprisoned because of their legitimate activities as trade union organisers.

Free Osanloo!

For me, Obama’s appeal is inextricably linked to the re-branding of American Liberalism.  It’s about fighting a conservative noise machine which has spent the last 25+ years turning the word into a pejorative.  It’s also, incidentally, about taking the word back from the likes of Chris Bowers, who often hold a flimsy and indifferent view of the word.  Linguistically browbeaten by the Right, the factional Lefties and careerists now prefer the label “progressive.”  Their attachment to this word is lacking however in any kind of ideological foundation, and has simply replaced one word that once held meaning for another lacking in meaning. 

Are they La Follette progressives?  Bull Moosers?  Does this mean they support socially conservative policies of the past, such as prohibition?  Are they isolationists, or are they Wilsonian progressives? 

Believing that you hold the patent on “progress” doesn’t necessarily make you a progressive.  Words have meaning.

Thus, Obama’s wavering on the matter is a bit of a letdown.  This is a sharp departure form what has otherwise been a bold, Reaganesque attempt to sell Liberalism (when truly understood) to the American public.  It’s instead a wishy-washy trek down the road of “third way” triangulation, and it is a road that leads to nowhere.  

More at memeorandum.            

I don’t dig making lists of dos and don’ts for good Democrats, but a couple of things are pretty simply.  You vote for the bankruptcy bill and the repeal of the estate tax, and you are not working in the best interest of middle-class Americans.  See yourself out.  

More at memeorandum.    

Beyond specific errors, lapses in logic, etc. the biggest problem with Goldberg’s book is actually that Goldberg himself has the wrong ideology. A certain strand of libertarian, perhaps Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com, could have credibly written a book with the form of argument “today’s liberals rightly identify fascistic strands in contemporary conservatism, but ignore the fascist mote in their own eye” and deliver a diatribe against statism in general and seek to tar everyone, left and right, with lax deployment of the brush of fascism. But that’s not Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg is, instead, a loyal foot soldier in the Republican Noise Machine. He’s a steadfast supporter of the political party representing the dominant ethnocultural group in the United States, the party that supports torture and unlimited surveillance, the party that supports a larger and more aggressively employed military, the party that supports a more punitive criminal justice system at home, the party whose backers are prone to fretting about low birthrates, the need to police gender roles more rigidly, etc.

I’m not going to say that means contemporary conservatives are fascists. I agree with Goldberg that that’s a superficial line of argument that completely ignores the sociocultural roots of American conservatism and European fascism. But nobody with allegiances like that can seriously turn around, point at the other ideological camp, at start yelling “fascism” at the slightest whiff of collectivism.

This is pretty spot on.  I’m only about half way through, so I can’t speak with such certainty.  But I think Yglesias is right to call out the moral authority of the author.  The inclination to be a real life concern troll–or to succumb to Goldberg’s “totalitarian temptation”–is just as pervasive in the modern GOP as it is in modern progressivism.  Any time a Republican repealed a tax cut, or increased social programs, or passed a smoking ban, they were, basically, exhibiting their own form of smiley face fascism.  To be fair, Goldberg admits this throughout the book.  And he clearly is concerned about the future of conservatism in America.

But this is a book best authored by the likes of Ron Paul.  You can’t ride the Republican wave of the last three decades, and then point the finger at the progressives/Liberals.  The GOP never would’ve broken the deteriorating New Deal coalition had they not appealed to social populism.  Without the appeal to “silent majorities,” or crime in America’s cities, or even the appeal to America’s traditional values, there’d be no such thing.  There’d have been no conservative revolution, no Reagan ascendancy.  Even Reagan’s primary message–a “Morning in America”–sounds a lot like the third way, transcendent politics that Goldberg associates with Liberal Fascism.  Minus the appeal to the male, white working-class vote, and we probably witness none of that.   

Anyway, I’ve said too much.  I need to finish the book.  I’m actually enjoying it a lot more than Yglesias did, but I still have my concerns.

What explicit definition of ‘fascism’ is Goldberg operating with, if any? To judge from reviews, the author’s own comments, his ‘results’, he must be applying the term to any sort of ‘statist’ or ‘collectivist’ political rhetoric, policy proposal, or legislative act, especially such of these as entangle the state in coercive action on behalf of ‘communitarian’ values or ‘identity’ politics: values that subordinate the individual to the whole. The trouble is: pretty much the only sort of conservative who is notgoing to come out fascist, under this umbrella, is (maybe) the likes of F. Hayek, when penning essays with titles like “Why I Am Not A Conservative”. Otherwise, the whole tradition of conservative thought, from Burke to Kirk and beyond, is ‘fascist’. Hillary says it takes a village, but Burke would never have settled for small-time socialism. He thundered about “the great primeval contract of eternal society.” No doubt ‘it takes a village’ is pretty weak, qua anti-fascist vaccine. But switching to the belief that you would do best to unquestioningly submit yourself to some sort of primordial, vaguely mystical, hierarchical social order is not going to inoculate you either.

Bravo, Sir!  I must admit, my copy is in the mail, and I’m excited.  It will either be thoughtful enough to sustain my interest, or monumentally terrible enough to keep me turning pages.  It’s a win-win, really.

I avoided the whole kerfuffle over Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism, mostly because I haven’t read the book yet.  I don’t care about snippets, and would rather give the book a fair shake in its entirety.

With all that being said, here’s my problem with the crux of Goldberg’s thesis:

• The book is clearly not intended to create meaningful or constructive dialogue.  I suppose most books aren’t, as the idea here is to sell books.  But with that kind of title–essentially correlating Liberalism with statist Fascism–you are obviously pandering to a particular audience that will lap that kind of hyperbole right up.
• I think Goldberg confuses authoritarianism with outright Fascism.  The American Left is certainly capable of being intolerant and illiberal, but mostly in how they choose to achieve their ends.  But Fascism is a much different “end” than the stated goals of most American Liberals and Progressives. 
• The kind of Liberal elitism Goldberg warns against–which he links somewhat questionably, it would seem, to the eugenics movement (pull out the Pivot of Civilization quotes)–seems to run contrary to the “fasci” in Fascism.  This is not a binding national ideology, but rather, a collection of do-gooder know-it-alls who want to run your life for you.  The two are in conflict, since one relies on the people, whereas the other at time spurns them.