This blog is now read by more machines than humans: RSS robots, spam-laying insectopoids, echoes of blog-gathering .edu projects. This essentially is the state of affairs that all human activities w
Cleaning Up the Nation
Austin Bay:
If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at
Rank Materialism
Freedom. I am now the proud new owner of a Gateway 6020GZ laptop, perfect for students and others with limited means. I can now go into a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble and look like I'm doing some
Fallujah Fonda
Uh-oh. From the Telegraph comes this exciting news:
Jane Fonda is returning to anti-war activism and embarking on a cross-country tour to call for an end to US military operations in Iraq.
Acros
John Pilger: Partner in Terrorism
In an outrageous piece of terrorist propaganda appearing on the cover of today's New Statesman, John Pilger puts the blame for the 7/7 London attacks not on the terrorists, but rather on Tony Blair:
George Bush: Liberal Ideologue
Every 200,000 years or so, the earth undergoes a magnetic polar inversion in which the north and south magnetic poles switch. Magnetic north becomes weak and diffuse for a few decades or centuries and travels to the other geographic pole, and strengthens and focuses there. The same happens to magnetic south, in the opposite direction. We seem to be overdue for the next inversion.
Political changes on the planet tend to occur somewhat more frequently. At this point the most liberal mainstream politican in the US is one George W. Bush, self-identified compassionate conservative, scion of the Republican Party, and liberal utopian. He seeks nothing less than the liberation of the whole wide world. As a bonus, he's also looking to free the average American from the tyranny of high taxation and government programs such as Social Security, which in return for lifelong obligation pay questionable dividends.
Opposed to him are the true conservatives. Misguided by romantic notions of non-Western societies, they seek to conserve the world's status quo in the form of third-world poverty and dictatorships. They seek to conserve the inefficient and authoritarian control of people's money, which is to say, future.
Contrary to popular belief, even on the right, it was not 9/11 that caused George Bush to rethink these matters and come up with his liberal thinking. He demonstrably held these ideas before then. From his June 2001 speech in Warsaw:
We must work toward a world that trades in freedom -- a world where prosperity is available to all through the power of markets; a world where open trade spurs the process of economic and legal reform; a world of cooperation to enhance prosperity, protect the environment, and lift the quality of life for all.
We must confront the shared security threats of regimes that thrive by creating instability, that are ambitious for weapons of mass destruction, and are dangerously unpredictable. In Europe, you're closer to these challenges than the United States. You see the lightning well before we hear the thunder. Only together, however, can we confront the emerging threats of a changing world.
Compare that to this, from Bush's second inaugural address:
We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
Not so different, is it? He was very comfortable with his liberal sensibility even before 9/11, and knew it to be the key to world prosperity.
What does the modern left offer? Opposition to free trade, opposition to deposing dictatorships, and opposition to spreading freedom and opportunity. The left wants an exit strategy. They are isolationist conservatives at this point, and the serious left are defenders of Saddam. What could be more conservative?
The monkey wrench in this diatribe is Bush's social conservatism, which I mostly don't share. There is some light between my and the president's views on these issues. But when it comes to liberal politics, there is no difference between us. We're both as liberal as Adam Smith, FDR, and JFK, although the manifestations differ according to the time period. Neocon is just another word for liberal. We should remind the so-called liberals that they haven't done much for liberty lately.
The narrative of my political awareness isn't unusual. I was a young lefty in my college years, and in the years immediately before and after. Later, to some extent, I was aware of moving to the right, but I became aware also that many of the qualities I admired about the left were actually quite authoritarian, and therefore quite illiberal.
The big political naming convention inversion won't happen. There's too much inertia there. Regardless, what do I admire most about George Bush? He's an old-fashioned liberal. And so am I. The anti-globalist, anti-progress, political Luddites in the Democratic party are the conservatives. I'm not looking to conserve much- only America's history of ever-widening freedom. Like Bush, I want to advance freedom and liberalism. Again quoting from Bush's second inaugural address:
From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.
There's nothing conservative about that.
So to all you "conservatives" out there, don't let the "liberals" give you any crap about being a conservative. What we're conserving, and spreading, is liberalism. And to you "liberals", I have to ask what's so liberal about opposing the spread of freedom at home and abroad?
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