SOCIALISM…
The childlike faith that a powerful, ever-growingGovernment couldn’t possibly pose a threat to freedom.
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Category: nannyism
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The Meaning of “Liberal”
Once upon a time “liberal” meant opposition to authority.
Now “liberal” means the worship of government.
Do you see the problem here?
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Don’t worry…
Bernie only wants “the good kind of socialism.”
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The savvier economists (and intellectuals like Steven Pinker) like to remind us that it is progress that must be explained; poverty is natural.
But when you see poverty settle in like an infestation of slime mold, staining a whole modern city or region, you begin to wonder. As Ron Bailey wonders in his excellent Reason report on West Virginia’s impoverished McDowell County …
WHY DON’T THESE PEOPLE JUST MOVE?
The feeling of being trapped in your community — in your hovel, in your own blighted life — does not come, these days, from mere poverty alone. I remember the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath; my family has a history. Once upon a time, folks in America, when industry ran out, left. Traveled. Migrated — to find work where industry boomed.
And sure, McDowell used to be much more populated. Bailey’s family left two generations ago.
But the stragglers?
Almost any community has its specific enticements.
But one thing becomes clear, as you read through Bailey’s sad survey (in part memoir, since he has family ties there): government is the worst culprit.
A lot of welfare goes into McDowell, and a huge percentage of the population is retired or on disability.
“If you get public assistance to supply your needs without any effort from you,” explains one young man who came back to his beleaguered hometown, “you’ve got no incentive to better yourself or your situation.”
Government subsidizes poverty. Sure, it prevents destitution. Utter misery. But it also traps people, robbing them of their wherewithal to get up and go and achieve something.
Modern government is in the stasis business. Our assistance programs don’t just assist.
A modern American nightmare.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
We saw glimmerings last year when Twitter began to selectively enforce “policy” against some (Milo Yiannoupolis) and not against others (the hordes of leftists who threatened to assassinate Donald Trump).
You could see it in Hillary Clinton’s campaign; after Trump won, it loomed to eclipse all reason.
And on Thursday I noted Congress’s reaction.
I refer to the hysteria over non-Democratic “memes” and “fake news” that trumped the erstwhile gatekeepers of the Fourth Estate and the political classes — including the lobbying and bureaucratic cliques — and stymied the ascension of Mrs. Clinton to the Most Powerful Office in the Whole Wide World.
Now Facebook has come on board with a way to combat this freewheeling flow of ideas.
Fact-checking.
Hayley Tsukayama, writing in the Washington Post, explained the new program:
The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users.
If those articles don’t pass the smell test for the fact-checkers, Facebook will pass on that evaluation with a little label whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story.
The problem, here, is not a First Amendment issue: Facebook is not the government; when it tampers with your communications, it does not break the law.
The problem is that the Internet’s self-proclaimed fact-checkers are not exactly fair-minded, or even capable of sticking to the facts. I quoted Nietzsche yesterday (“there are no facts, only interpretations”), today I will merely reference Ben Shapiro, who has a history with false fact-checkers, and riff off of Juvenal: who will fact check the fact checkers? (Obvious, I know.)
Meanwhile, the folks behind new social media service minds.com offer an innovative posting promotion system, and promise never to sneakily favor some ideas over others.
The proper response to a business firm’s discriminatory policy is to provide market pressure.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.”
Finally. Some sense from the New York Times.
Mark Lilla, in “The End of Identity Liberalism,” delivers a valuable lesson about political correctness — without once mentioning the term “political correctness.”
Now this is a lesson we can get behind.
The problem is “diversity.” The center-left became so obsessed with it that it helped sink the last election for Hillary Clinton, Democrats at large, and the coherence and legacy of President Barack Obama.
“However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt,” Lilla wrote in the Friday think piece, “it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own.”
Fixating on diversity of gender identity and racial make-up in business and government has scuttled the rights-oriented approach of the older liberalism.
Alas, Lilla is not talking about the liberalism of J.S. Mill or Lord Acton. He is talking about FDR.
But compared to today’s “identity liberalism,” FDR’s burdensome promises look like sheer genius. And Lilla understands at least one thing about diversity: “National politics in healthy periods is not about ‘difference,’ it is about commonality. And it will be dominated by whoever best captures Americans’ imaginations about our shared destiny.”
He does not bring up the real liberal message: that the way to find commonality is to avoid making government all things to all people. It is to limit its scope, instead, so the president of the United States isn’t every school’s bathroom monitor.
Perhaps an essay on The End to Hubristic Liberalism is required?
Another day. And probably another paper.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Original (cc) photo by James Cridland on Flickr