Thursday, June 21, 2012

Why Liberals are Like Zombies



By Alan Caruba

I hope Barack Obama lives to a very old age. I want him to look back at the wreckage of the Democratic Party and the senility of Liberalism that has wreaked such havoc on the world stage. To me, Liberalism is a zombie philosophy, devoid of any connection with reality, but still able to cause great harm.

It is easy and tempting to conclude that the defeat of Liberalism has begun. It was encouraging to see the public service union movement rejected in the recent Wisconsin recall election. I want to believe that Obama has proven to be such a horror as President that people will draw a lesson from it. But there are just too many people who will still vote for him.

Occasionally I read that the ranks of Liberals have continued to thin over the decades. The Reagan presidency in the 1980s gave momentum to the rise of conservatism that had begun in the 1950s, but the politics of the nation no matter whether a Republican was in office or not still reflects Liberal ideas and agendas. The government and the debt continues to grow.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., founder and editor of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine ranked with The National Review for its influence, has written “The Death of Liberalism” ($19.99, Thomas Nelson). It is blessedly short, written with elegant prose and good humor, and relentless in the way it documents the failures of Liberalism that have brought America to the brink of financial failure as the result of its misbegotten belief in Big Government, unsustainable “entitlement” programs, and its penchant for taxing everything.

Obama is the ultimate culmination of what Tyrrell calls “the Infantile Leftists”, citing the various candidates for the presidency who reflect the immaturity of the 1960’s generation of whom the Occupy Wall Street children are the latest pathetic gasp of what Tyrell regards as a failed political movement. The “Occupiers” tried to grab center stage to demand free everything as if working for a living does not matter. The mainstream media quickly lost interest in their antics along with the rest of the nation.

Tyrrell needed only to point to Al Gore, John Kerry, and John Edwards as the “Infantile Leftists” whom the Democratic Party put forth to lead the nation. Bill Clinton was cited as an example of “sophomoric exhibitionism” along with Hillary Clinton in her bid for the presidency.

Tyrell noted that “in time, Clinton left a legacy of welfare reform, free trade, and balanced budgets—all Republican policies.” The reality is that the Clinton presidency was saved by the 1994 election that returned the power in Congress to the Republican Party. Even then, Clinton’s womanizing got him impeached for the trail of lies he left in its wake. He beat the rap and, in true Liberal fashion, has gone on to be one of Democratic Party’s “elder statesmen.”

“Liberalism may not be dead, but its zombies have not stopped seeking high office. Their antics get ever more amusing…and narcissistic”, says Tyrrell. I must disagree. I find nothing amusing about the crowd running the nation these days.

While both Clintons created false biographies of their lives the penultimate of such autobiographical excess is Barack Obama whom Tyrrell calls “the stealth Socialist.”

Obama’s narcissism is impossible to ignore. He accepts responsibility for nothing that has happened on his watch. It was “George W. Bush’s fault” until that line became a joke, along with his dependence on the ever-present Tele-Prompters. Left to speak on his own every sentence is a long string of ahs and uhms, a stuttering sing-song delivery that is a pale, inadequate imitation of rational thought.

Tyrrell leaves the best for last after reviewing the history of Liberalism and Progressive beliefs, all of which are revealed to be based on a penchant for authoritarianism and totalitarianism that gave birth to Communism, Socialism, and Fascism along the way.

Politically, “For decades they have been losing to conservatism in an obvious but (for them) very troubling way: the numbers.” Citing Gallup, Pew Research Center, and Harris polls, it is clear that the number of Americans who self-identify as conservatives or right-leaning moderates, often called independents, is in the ascendancy. “In polls going back more than three decades, conservatives have almost always outnumbered Liberals significantly.”

Every Liberal program introduced prior to and since World War II in response to the Great Depression and as part of Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty”, is now in some stage of failure. Only conservatives can reform them to ensure solvency. In Obama’s first term, he has engineered the near collapse of the nation’s economy and only his defeat will offer an opportunity to draw back from that cliff.

Now, with the exception of the hardcore thirty percent of true believers, one can only hope that Liberalism has been sufficiently destroyed by the feckless hand of Barack Obama. I want him to be around to survey his legacy and to reap the same well-earned derision that, until now, has been Jimmy Carter’s.

I am not, however, ready to declare Liberalism dead. It is more like a zombie to me.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

8 comments:

Guy in Ohio said...

The problem is that even people who think of themselves as conservatives are prone to falling for the endless promises of goodies coming from our ruling class. Until people wake up and realize that they themselves are part of the problem, and quit falling for all the pandering, things aren't going to improve much.

It seems that Benjamin Franklin was probably right when he said ... "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic..."

If we can get enough of the population to realize the wisdom of those words and start acting like adults instead of children, we might have a chance to turn this around, but I'm not holding my breath ...

Lime Lite said...

And yet it's liberals who are in power where it matters: heads of government departments and local councils - where the general conservative population have to live under their loony rules and regulations. Liberalism will never die - there is, after all, a fool born every minute. The Greenies and the liberals should be banned to their own little island where they can live in their hessian sacks and in peace with one another and leave the common sense people to their own devices!

LarryOldtimer said...

I am neither a "conservative nor a modern liberal. I am a realist. It is not large federal spending progranms that are bad, it is the purpose of those large federal spending programs that is useless.

Being a professional civil engineer, I am very qualified in the matter of "Enginering economics", calculating all of the real costs, calculating benefits over the life of the constructed device, (wind and solar enery devices) and it is obvious to me that the cost of constuction for solar energy and wind installations
and the maintenanance are far geater than any energy benefits derived. In other words, these concepts when constuced and put into actual use are noting more than economic follies.

There have been large federal spending projects which caused very returns on investment.

Some are the Rural Free Delvery of mail, the Rural Energy agency, and the space program.

In my humble opinion, the only federal spending should be on positive programs which indiduals or groups of individuals could not do for themselves.

All other federal, state and local spending is nothing than govermental taxpayer waste.

Rich Kozlovich said...

It turns out that the Liberals are in a quandary (both parties). There is not enough money to throw at everyone and their traditional allies have eaten up so much of the public’s finances that they are in a position to bankrupt all the local governments in the nation, especially the teachers unions.

Now we have Democratic mayors fighting the very people they catered to; public and teachers unions which they signed super sweetheart contracts with to gain their political support; because the local people have had it with all of these insane deals.

We have the racial issues that have been the backbone of the Democratic Party ever since the Republicans passed all the civil rights laws that the Democrats fought against and now claim credit for as their own.

Illegal immigration is a jobs issue. Blacks will have to compete with these illegals and they don’t like it; and the illegals, especially Hispanics, want ever more latitude regarding what is legal….and of course everyone is ignoring the decent, patient and honest immigrants trying to get in through legal channels that can’t come into the country because there are so many illegal’s taking their place.

The Jews have traditionally been liberal and Democratic voters for almost 100 years and has been a rock hard foundation for liberls. However, that is changing. The leaders of the liberal party and movement, have turned anti-Semitic and anti-Israel to the point that Jews worldwide, including Europe, are being openly persecuted and they are scared. Rightly so! Although the story is still fascinating. New York Jews wil still be voting liberal...although that is changing.

The two groups that have absolutely been foundational to liberalism is Big Labor and Big Green. Now they have to turn on Big Labor to appease Big Breen, i.e., the XL pipeline, and they will have to turn on Big Green to appease Big Labor. Both of whom are coming under attack from the public.

As we review this situation the question that one has to ask is this. What reason do they have to exist at all?

They exist to have power. That is all the more reason to reject their views, their actions, their philosophy and them personally. I keep hearing that the left isn't evil, just wrong. Wrong!

Leftists, including the fascist and communist monsters of the 20th century and the environmentalists, have killed over 200 million people in the last 75 years, and the greenies are still at it. Anyone who supports them share in the blame for the evil they have wrought.

Alan Caruba said...

Rich: So many stupid people and policies. So much of a mess to clean up, if we have the time left to do it.

Congratulations on a great analysis.

Gemma Rosaleen Hurley said...

I was hoping to learn some actual facts, rather than opinion based silly propaganda from this blog.

Are you seriously suggesting the world financial crisis is caused by a democratic party that stepped in at the start of a global crisis that has been brewing for years - instead of the free markets implemented by republicans that created the problem in the first place?

Alan Caruba said...

Gemma, you need to read history, particularly that of Woodrow Wilson's term in office where much of the current woes began.

Guy in Ohio said...

No Gemma, we're suggesting that the Democrats caused the problems in the first place. Allowing them to "step in" to fix the problem they created makes no sense, but that's what liberals always expect. They create the problems, and then try to convince everyone that someone else caused it, and they can fix it. History shows us time and time again that the free market is the best economic system, and your proposed "solutions" to problems that your heroes created are always big mistakes ...