Since Jonah Goldberg seems confused about this let me note that the difference is that race has historically been the central issue in American politics, whereas whether or not Fidel Castro's regime is repressive isn't even the central issue in American Cuba policy.
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The Difference
24 Dec 2006 11:43 am
Comments (26)
Actually, let me whine that there's another difference because Goldberg's statement about a "long liberal love affair" with Castro is pretty much bullshit. Americans who love/like Castro are overwhelmingly liberal or to the left of liberal. But that doesn't mean there's ever been many of them. Why, just recently we had a Republican senator who had run for president on a segregation platform and was still damn proud of it. Has there ever been a senator who said America had something to learn from Castro? One of the most famous and beloved liberal senators of the past half century (I mean Robert Kennedy) had been actively involved in efforts to kill Castro.
Goldberg's post strikes me as another example of a conservative stock-in-trade: regular-guy bemusement over striking examples of liberal hypocrisy that don't exist and can be simulated only if the conservative screws up one eye and puts his hands over his ears to keep out contrary evidence. (The giveaway: "this is simply a fact.")
At least he admits conservatives were on the wrong side of the civil rights issue. What is funny is that some conservatives can, with some reluctance and only with the caveat that they are totally not racist anymore, admit this but still not see that women or homosexuals might be just as deserving of the same civil rights as everyone else. Nor can they admit that many of their constituents are still very racist, and that their politicians use thinly-disguised (if disguised at all) racist appeals to get elected (Confederate state flags, anyone?).
I suppose that pundits have to pay attention to Jonah Goldberg for the same reasons that law professors have to pay attention to Glen Reynolds and Ann Althouse. But can we please please please not pay attention to Jonah Goldberg anymore? I understand that he's an intellectually dishonest fool. Let's not waste our short lives on what he thinks about anything ever again.
Kyle is right--aside from the silly false equivalence, he has yet to provide actual evidence for his claim that "American liberals" have a "love affair" with Fidel Castro...
I think Jonah's point was that liberals, like conservatives, have "dirty little secrets" - unreasonable or extremist groups that, when forced to choose sides in America's bipolar system, gravitate to one movement or the other.
This is just the kind of argument/attack that Jonah habitually uses. It's like a 7-year-old kid saying "Yeah? Well you suck too, nyaaah!" He utterly fails to address or even acknowledge the problem of Republican pandering to racism.
This is why Jonah Goldberg is just about my least favorite pundit in existence...
People liked Castro because of what they thought the world was--they thought Castro's policies were effective, or that his crimes were exaggerated. They probably turned out to be wrong, but they were wrong about facts, not about morality. Stupid, not evil.
People liked Jim Crow because of what they though the world should be--they thought whites should get more respect than blacks. Evil, not stupid.
Same difference for people who liked the Soviets vs. people who liked the Nazis. You might be deluded into liking the Soviets because you thought they stood up for the workers of the world, but there's no reason to have supported the Nazis other than evil.
"Intellectual history" matters only to the extent that the source of mistakes in the past remains a source for future mistakes. Stuff like Castro, Pinochet, and eugenics don't really meet that standard. Jim Crow and Leo Strauss, some of us believe, do.
let's see: there were those, in the early '60s, who admired fidel for replacing an oppressive dictatorship that didn't care about most cubans with a benign dictatorship that did care about most cubans. there were those, in the late '60s, who as part of the venceremos brigade, went to cuba to help cut sugar cane.
that pretty much covers the leftist affection for fidel, and there were more racists in the state of alabama, or mississippi, or georgia, or sundry other members of the old confederacy than the combined total of both categories.
meanwhile, let me join in with those who suggest that jonah, being an idiot, isn't worth matthew's time: it's a cheap way to come up with a posting....
RWB -- A very good point, I think.
Howard -- Your closing point is undeniable. And yet, and yet . . . What else does JG exist for?
kyle, good point: i never really considered that jonah may be filling an important niche in the ecology of the blogosphere!
and in the interim, i was remembering that there were those in the black panthers who admired fidel as well, so we can add that to the lengthy list of lefty pro-castro voices!
I've never been able to figure out if conservatives don't understand the difference between left and liberal or they do know conflate the two according to the argument they are trying to make.
The problem with ignoring Goldberg is that he isn't your run of the mill blogger. He's not even just a Cornerite. The guy has a nationally syndicated column despite being an awkward writer at best and an incredibly lazy intellect. You ignore him and he'll be the next Bob Novak, writing Republican junk for 50 years without any oversight.
We saw the same sort of BS recently when numerous RW outlets fawned over that bucolic old fascist Agusto Pinochet and berated liberals for supporting Salvador Allende, who was only the lawfully elected President of Chile. It kind of makes me wonder just how far "conservative" fetishization of dictatorships really goes.
Ed Marshall,
What is the difference between left and liberal? Seriously, I'm curious. I understand that left-of-center usually indicates someone that votes for Democrats, and sometimes the word is used interchangably with "progessive." But during some periods of history "liberal" was used to refer to John Stuart Mill or Adam Smith types. Contemporary liberalism can be distinguised from classical liberalsim then.
So really, I'm sincerely curious, what would you say the contemporary difference is between liberal and leftist?
Adam Smith isn't a bad archetype for a contemporary liberal. He was skeptical of imperialism so he would probably get *called* a leftist and objectively pro-slavery, and so on by The New Republic.
The difference between being a leftist and being a liberal depends on what the New Republic thinks of you and/or vice versa? What an important magazine!
Kyle, near the top of the thread, has it absolutely right. And this seems to be a habit of conservatives when comparing the respective radicalisms of the left and right: to ignore the reality that the most prominent lefty supporters of a given radicalism were generally college professors and movement activists, but the most prominent righty supporters of a given radicalism were generally governors, Senators, and the more than occasional captain of industry.
That's a pretty big difference: lefty radicals have been able to get some attention, but have almost never had real power; even when the Dems as a party have had power, lefty radicals have not shared in that power, and have rarely had their phone calls answered by people in power. Righty radicals have wielded power, and the biggest class of righty radicals that didn't directly wield power - the Falwells, Robertsons, and Dobsons of the world - have been catered to by Republicans in government.
There's really no comparing the two. Goldberg isn't just confused; he's dumb.
This statement:
"Recently, I wrote that liberals had a long love affair with Fidel Castro. This is simply factually true."/em>
pretty much defines Jonah Goldberg's style. He makes a highly questionable, overly broad statement, simply asserts that it's true, and then proceeds to derive any number of silly sub-arguments from that central unproven statement (frequently involving a complete misunderstanding of the term "moral relativism.") He's just lazy.
"So really, I'm sincerely curious, what would you say the contemporary difference is between liberal and leftist?"
This question wasn't meant for me, but I'll supply my personal rule of thumb. Liberals believe in the profit motive and the need for a military. The left tends not to (or at least not in the need for a U.S. military).
Of course many other people also believe in the profit motive and the military. We call them centrists and conservatives. How you distinguish between them and liberals is a different question, one with answers that, in my view, are very flattering to liberals, not at all flattering to centrists, and downright insulting to conservatives.
This may come as a surprise to Matthew, but the American struggle for racial equality, long and important as it has been, wasn't the central issue of the last century. The central issue of the last century was the struggle against totalitarianism. That struggle for the last half of the 20th century was the struggle against Communism known as the "Cold War." It isn't surprising that liberals want to forget it, but it is asinine to pretend it never happened or to try to demote it to a footnote.
Thomas,
Matthew didn't say "the central issue of the last century." He said "historically has been the central issue in American politics." An arguable point, to be sure, but not what you're claiming.
But then again, your only reason for posting here was to imply that liberals want to 'forget' the Cold War. Why - because their side lost? Because liberals = communists? Are you, in actuality, Jonah Goldberg? Because your comments are just as stupid as something he'd say.
Yeah Thomas, it's not like the United States fought a civil war over racial equality followed by a 30-year period of reconstruction that fundamentally altered our understanding of the Constitution and the role of the federal government in people's lives, which was followed 50 years later by a generation of social upheaval.
And it's hardly like all that happened in the context of a culture that has been consistently shaped by the relationship between black and white society -- I mean, phrases like Uncle Tom, black face, Sambo, Aunt Jemima are all HARMLESS. No tension in those! And it means nothing that most American slang has originated in the ghettos. The white establishment abuses yet envies black culture while blacks envy yet despise the white establishment.
Obviously the Cold War -- which most high school students today can't relate to at all -- is a much more dominant theme in American politics than something that has shaped our society from the 3/5's compromise all the way through to Emimem.
Go meet some Americans, Thomas. Go read a book. My grandfather fought Nazis for a few years when he was in his 20s, but he lived in racist society every day of his life.
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Comments closed January 07, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
You could have just left this as "Jonah goldberg seems confused" and it would be a basic all-purpose post about him. (I like how he seems to think Althouse is "reasonable" and "nice" and also a liberal. He really is confused!
Posted by Matt | December 24, 2006 12:08 PM