New Republic Magazine says Liberalism is Dying

Don't want to irritate the Mods, so I won't post the entire article (you'll have to register to read it all).

Bottom line is that some on the liberal side are actually starting to get it - understand why they lose and what it would take to do something about it. The article seems to also lament the fact that it seems unlikely that enough key liberals will catch on to save the philosophy.

From a very liberal magazine:

LOSING OUR DELUSIONS.
Not Much Left
by Martin Peretz

Post date: 02.18.05
Issue date: 02.28.05
I think it was John Kenneth Galbraith, speaking in the early 1960s, the high point of post-New Deal liberalism, who pronounced conservatism dead. Conservatism, he said, was "bookless," a characteristic Galbraithian, which is to say Olympian, verdict. Without books, there are no ideas. And it is true: American conservatism was, at the time, a congeries of cranky prejudices, a closed church with an archaic doctrine proclaimed by spoiled swells. William F. Buckley Jr. comes to mind, and a few others whose names will now resonate with almost nobody. Take as just one instance Russell Kirk, an especially prominent conservative intellectual who, as Clinton Rossiter (himself a moderate conservative) wrote, has "begun to sound like a man born one hundred and fifty years too late and in the wrong country."

At this point in history, it is liberalism upon which such judgments are rendered. And understandably so. It is liberalism that is now bookless and dying. The most penetrating thinker of the old liberalism, the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, is virtually unknown in the circles within which he once spoke and listened, perhaps because he held a gloomy view of human nature. However gripping his illuminations, however much they may have been validated by history, liberals have no patience for such pessimism. So who has replaced Niebuhr, the once-commanding tribune to both town and gown? It's as if no one even tries to fill the vacuum. Here and there, of course, a university personage appears to assert a small didactic point and proves it with a vast and intricate academic apparatus. In any case, it is the apparatus that is designed to persuade, not the idea.

Ask yourself: Who is a truly influential liberal mind in our culture? Whose ideas challenge and whose ideals inspire? Whose books and articles are read and passed around? There's no one, really. What's left is the laundry list: the catalogue of programs (some dubious, some not) that Republicans aren't funding, and the blogs, with their daily panic dose about how the Bush administration is ruining the country.

Europe is also making the disenchanting journey from social democracy, but via a different route. Its elites had not foreseen that a virtually unchecked Muslim immigration might hijack the welfare state and poison the postwar culture of relative tolerance that supported its politics. To the contrary, Europe's leftist elites lulled the electorates into a false feeling of security that the new arrivals were simply doing the work that unprecedented low European birth rates were leaving undone. No social or cultural costs were to be incurred. Transaction closed. Well, it was not quite so simple. And, while the workforce still needs more workers, the economies of Europe have been dragged down by social guarantees to large families who do not always have a wage-earner in the house. So, even in the morally self-satisfied Scandinavian and Low Countries, the assuring left-wing bromides are no longer believed.

New Republic Article

That would be death of Democracy .(hope we still have one)

Imagine where everybody is ultra conservative, Bible huging, Free market lobbist.



But then again there are longer lane of cars wanting to go over to Canada.

I hope that the Democratic party and traditional liberalism die. I'd much rather see a more Republican/Libertarian balance and marketplace of ideas rather than the tired old lies of the Democratic party and the liberals.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I hope that the Democratic party and traditional liberalism die. I'd much rather see a more Republican/Libertarian balance and marketplace of ideas rather than the tired old lies of the Democratic party and the liberals.

I think that is where we are headed. As the Republican party becomes the party of big government more and more every day, a lot of its members that are more concerened with personal freedoms and less interference in other countries affairs are looking toward the Libertarians.

I wouldnt be supprised to see a future where the Republicans were the "left" and Libertarians were the "right"

Bible thumpers can go to hell. Liberalism still exist. The republican based media just makes it seem like its dying out.

Originally posted by AndrewTB
Bible thumpers can go to hell. Liberalism still exist. The republican based media just makes it seem like its dying out.

Read it again s l o w l y. The source of this thread is a well-recognized liberal magazine.

I think the Democratics might be heading the way of the Whig Party. I would love to see the Libertarians take their place as a major political power.

Liberalism in its simplist way of defining it sounds like a good idea. From www.dictionary.com

Liberalism-
2a. A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority.

3a. An economic theory in favor of laissez-faire, the free market, and the gold standard.

4a. A 19th-century Protestant movement that favored free intellectual inquiry, stressed the ethical and humanitarian content of Christianity, and de-emphasized dogmatic theology.
b. A 19th-century Roman Catholic movement that favored political democracy and ecclesiastical reform but was theologically orthodox.



liberal:
1a. .Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

2a. Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor.
b. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes.

3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation.
4. Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education.



No one is going to admit to being a liberal if the masses have something against liberalism, whatever is good for ratings goes on most shows. Republicans becoming the "left" and liberal the "right" doesnt sound too far off. From what I've seen on the television the democratic party is lost.

The meaning of liberal in a modern western political sense has nothing to do with the dictionary definition.

Here's the current beliefs of Western liberals:

Liberals believe in the fundamental helplessness of man and that government must provide all support, guidance and care for him from cradle to grave.

Liberals believe that capitalism breeds poverty and exploitation and it must be highly controlled, regulated or abolished.

Add:

Liberals also believe that man is incapable of making wise decisions for himself or his family and that government can spend his money for him much more wisely, thus should call for high taxes.

[edit on 2/18/2005 by djohnsto77]

As much as I would like to see a change in the field of political parties I think the article is right and we are headed for a long stint where the goverment is made up almost completely of ultra-conservative people and anyone who doesnt toe that line will be left out in the cold after being labled some decreipt old liberal clining to old ideals. People can talk all they want about the right-wing approach being the only way and the sensible way, but even this election didnt cement that dispite lots of gum flapping. The farther we inch towards a 100% consertiave govemrnet the farther we fall from any semblance of democracy.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
The meaning of liberal in a modern western political sense has nothing to do with the dictionary definition.


[edit on 2/18/2005 by djohnsto77]

Thank you captain obvious.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Liberals also believe that man is incapable of making wise decisions for himself or his family and that government can spend his money for him much more wisely, thus should call for high taxes.

Sounds like a democrat, not a liberal.



[edit on 18-2-2005 by jrod]

Not Dying, Just Re-Euphemized

Liberals aren't disappearing, they're just called "progressives" now.

Give it a few years, they'll be calling themselves something else.

Liberals/progressives/etc/wth they are will always be around, but hopefully they will no longer have a stranglehold on a major U.S. political party, whatever it be named.

/Dons her flame retardent suit and zips up
I am
*Pro-Choice-until you agree to carry whatever bunch of cells is in MY belly don't dictate to me what I can do with it. Until it stops looking like something out of alien, it's my choice whether to carry it or not. Any frothing at the mouth by anyone with a penis or who thinks some book is the be all and end all will be ignored in favor of people who actually have 2 brain cells to rub together.
*Pro-Gun ownership(for non criminals)
*Pro-death penalty(in fact I feel it should actually be used for things like rape, child molestation and killing someone while driving drunk, killing or abusing your kids, lots of reasons and none of this 20 years later c*** either)and I feel the victims should have the option to pull the switch. OH and none of this touchy feely omg its mean injections either, shoot em, hang em, gas em put em in old sparky or use em for medical experiments, whatever make it HURT for what they did.
*Liberal economics makes me want to scream, A Liberal_01 says *whaaa I want it NOW, screw the future, let them worry about the debt I made I DESERVE IT NOW, the world OWES ME!!!!*
*The ACLU and ADA need to be HEAVILY overhauled
*Welfare needs to be gone except on a VERY temporary basis and actually make em work while they are on it doing all those *jobs no americans want to do* that illegals are doing now.
*Illegal Immigration needs to be stopped, by force if necessary.
*Drugs and prostitution should be legal and taxed and regulated
*Relgious tax exempt status needs to go UNLESS 90% of thier income goes to help the, hungry, homeless, mentally ill etc. whatever thier relious feelings of goodwill tell them they need to do. Just keep it out of my face. I help people who need to be helped so unless thier exempt status goes the way of the Do-Do I should get to be exempt too. Whatever fantasy-mythology book they belive in should not make the rest of us pay for thier share of the tax burden, so they can get a new Mercedes every year. Hey, here is an idea, let all the religions take over welfare and get the Govt out of it all together. Then I'd agree to let em be tax exempt, because they would actually be practicing what they preach.
*Actually pay teachers what they are worth and get rid of ones who don't do thier job.
*Actually pay cops and firemen etc what they are worth
*Make people who file frivolous lawsuits AND thier lawyers have to pay the person/people they sued 50% of whatever they sued for. Regardless of if it gets thrown out before going to a jury or not.
*Make it mandatory to have more than 2 brain cells to rub together to BE a juror.
*The whole idea of plea bargaining and victimizing the victims needs to STOP.
*Treat criminals like *gasp* criminals. No TV, water+a healthy gruel to eat, no weight machines(hi I we don't need supermen criminals for cripes sake) chain gangs brought back, tent city jails like in arizona for non violent offenders or short term stays. Once we let loose all the non violent druggies there will actually be room for the people who need to be locked up and the key thrown away.
*using the term *Politically Correct* for getting your feelings hurt should land you a $100 dollar fine. I'm an old honkey with a pizza face omg oh nos my poor widdle ego will be crushed if you call me what I am /sigh
*actually make parents be, ya know, *gasp* parents. People whine and cry about how many kids are turning into monsters, well if parents started parenting instead of letting kids rule the roost because some daycare kid mill is raising em, maybe, just maybe they'd learn things like how to be a human being.(and no I don't mean abuse em before you gimps spout off about spankings and s***)
*If you break into my house and get trapped, hurt, bit by my dog, shot or wtfever I should get a reward for removing yet another anti-social gimp criminal off the streets, not charged with a crime or sued by said gimp criminal.
*All kids whos parents failed horribly at parenting 101 and have anti-social tendancies should be forced into the military, let them fight for whatever it is they thinks society *owes* them.
*If there are really people out there dumb enough to iron thier shirt while it's on and get burned, or any other *Here's your sign* situations... please bring back eugenics, don't let them breed we have enough problems to worry about.

ok /novel off, just a *few* of my thoughts/frustrations with todays world. Pheeew I feel better now hehe
I have more detailed ways/thoughts on how to implement my ideas, but my post would be an even bigger book if I just spell em all out here It's long enough now

A while ago someone posted that a comet or some other natural disaster needs to happen to *fix* the human race, personally, I agree. We have gone so far overboard(not just in the US, the whole damn world)we need the herd thinned or just wiped out.

Lil

Your Sentence Has Been Handed Down

Lilroanie, for the crime of holding sensible points of view and expressing them here in a straightforward and honest manner, you are hereby sentenced to be flamed by the usual suspects until you use up the measly ten slots allowed in your ignore list.

It is a harsh punishment, and I hate seeing bad things happen to good people, but ATS law is ATS law.

May Mod have mercy on your virtual soul.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Liberals/progressives/etc/wth they are

will always be around, but hopefully they will no longer have a stranglehold on a major U.S. political party, whatever it be named.

Yes, because god forbid a good percentage of Americans should have any say in how things are run

I remember one historian at some point saying that the history of the United States is made up of spurts of progressive advances, tempered by periods of conservative course corrections... which makes the U.S.' progression quite moderate. What's wrong with a diversity of point of views on how society should be run? Or rather... what's wrong with democracy?

Of course liberalism is dying. As is the United States itself. When it goes, along will go all its political ideologies, including conservatism, and that won't be too far off from now.

[edit on 18-2-2005 by Frith]

Isms are like historic buildings. As long as they are there people are happy and pay little attention to them.
One day a painter shows up, suddenly everyone is arguing about the paint type and color so the painter walks away.
One day someone notices a board is warped and splitting, so a carpenter comes along with a new board and people is arguing about the type of wood, is it new treated stuff, it's not from the origional species, so the carpenter just leaves the old board in place and walks away.
Not until the roof caves in that people finally realize they have to do something about it and fix the thing. The problem is, now it's a rush job, wood type and paint are sensative issues and so no one wants to touch the issue so the thing finally collapses and is replaced with a whole newone. People are convinced it is the same but it never is the same again.
IMO
Conservatism fell appart in the 70's and was replaced by globalists that hate everyone who is no in their club. They lied about kennedy and tried to discredit everything he did. Nixon was a disaster and was the product of his own insecurity and made the White House something to distruss. Ford was fairly neutral, but some of the same people from Nixons cabinet were still there tying his hands from progress. Carter tried to correct this by attempting to get everyone to aggree on something. He tried to reduce economic burdens on the people but ultraliberals in congress increased social programs and spread the wealth too far and failed to put enough controls in to prevent abuse. The conservative side was increasing military spending, there again no checks and balances. The economy had been heading in the right direction and actually picked up. Enter reagan, looked and smelled like a moderate but was just a consevative puppet. Fighting in congress and the oval office along with reaganomics let the steam out of the economy and became more militaristic, terrorized small countries, ran backdoor deals, blew massive amounts of money on military systems that would never work and stalled hopes of democracy in other countries. Bush I, spoken of as the quiet one in some circles but was involved in more deals and shadey operations than will ever be admitted (BTW I voted for RMR and GHWB, please forgive me and my last GOP vote). Clinton enters the scene and attemps to focus on the people, but is faced with a new problem, terrorist attacks and instability around the world. He does quickly respond to the problem, suspects are arrested and measures taken to reduce the threat.
With all the bs comming from the GOP machines about "Tax and Spend Liberals" the people are conned into voting in more so-called conservatives. The beginning of the Newt era. With the name calling and lies being generated good programs get trashed such as healtcare and fiscal responsability. Instead BC has to veto most of what is coming across his desk. We end up with HMOs, healthcare skyrockets and the people who have no healthcare or medicare foot the bill for the HMOs who are cutting deals, Yes Cash customers and medicare pay the full inflated cost while HMOs get a discount.
Oklahoma happens but it's an American terrist, but a leason is learned and security is tightened. Several attempts were twarted by 2000 but the government was being racked by all the BS that the neocons (Newtites)
the GOP machine just starts cranking out more doomsday scenareos and trashes government. Later these democracy hating politicians fall on their own swords having commited the kind of sex scandles and deals they tried to say the Clintons were doing, hypocracy at it's best. In all of this, national productivity reached it's highest yield in decades, low unemployment, crime rates dropped, a good number of countries switched to democracy and more of the world was finally at peace
Enter Bush II (stolen election, lies about Al Gore, more neocons voted in Florida. pick one are add your own). We ended up with someone who seems to have never told the truth is more of a front face for a machine that just has it's mind on destruction of democray and morals that benefit the people. They closed their minds to the information from the Clinton administration has given and ignores threats. Remember, Clintons people were tracking global operations and intelligence. that this group is to pios to admit they ignored. And not the information was not on a harddisk erased, or had been sh** on by staffers from before as was broadcast on the Faux networks (another lie). This information was given over but thrown asside by the holyier-than-thoughts. The rest is unfolding now and can be read elsewhere.
The point is both Conservativism and Liberalism are both being destroyed where most people tend to be moderate and use the benefits of both to keep checks and balances.
The GOP needs to kick out the corporate backers and go back to being the party that tightens spending and stops throwing money at Impiorialistic world conquests, corperate giveaways and runaway spending. (Try spending the money on the troops for a change and miltary hardware that works, not the Privatization that we have today).
The DNC needs to focus on it's core issues, caring about the people, but no free handouts for everyone, just those who need it. Keeping the environment a top priority, a large percentage of other countries are in support of cleaning up while we reduce our controls. Human rights, rights of choice and preservation and protection of the constitution form people who think they can rise above it and vilate the priciples set forth.
Commerce, Media and Religion should be their own institutions out of government while still following the laws that are governed of and by the people.

Well, that's your revisionist view of history. Liberals are good at revising history to suit themselves. If you need a job, they can probably use you revising school textbooks. See if you can "improve upon" the person that revised Mt. Rushmore out of the history and geography textbooks because the statues are only of white people.

Liberals might be dying out but the tax and spend (well just the spend, let someone else worry about paying for it) Big Government in control of your life Party is going strong (Republicans).

And they still have yall thinking they are for smaller government, more freedom, etc.

Can anyone show me ONE thing they have done to insure personal freedom or reduce the size of the Government. They are doing the same thing they accuse the left of doing and all the Republicans are buying it hook line and sinker.

The only true conservative parties now are the Libertarians and the Constitutionalists