I read this Jonah Goldberg post that seemed to be complaining that liberals don't cite enough sacred texts that can then be debunked (and therefore gain an unfair advantage by keeping our true theological roots shrouded in mystery) with some puzzlement, so I was glad to see him eventually clarify that he thinks a handful of inane pranks can rectify the situation.
« Leaving on a Jet Plane | Main | Why Such Flops »
A Very Serious Argument
28 Nov 2007 04:47 pm
Comments (47)
Well, maybe we should quote from His Dark Materials a lot more, because everyone knows that liberals only quote from Karl Marx or J. R. R. R. R. R. R. Tolkien.
Do conservatives actually swear loyalty to Burke and Hayek in the way that Goldberg claims that Liberals ought to swear loyalty to Rawls, or whatever? What on earth is he talking about?
Stop it Mat. It's beneath you to shoot this fish.
OH THE HUGE MANATEE!
I'm surprised the DoughBoy didn't include Star Trek and BSG in his list of conservative sacred "texts."
As for his ignorant BS about no "liberal bible" - what prejudicial poppycock - as if all Christians are conservatives.
Right, because all liberal politicians are atheists. What an idiot.
Goldberg and his ilk think that "because X said so" is an interesting and valuable argument. The other side, not so much.
Does any liberal argue that the state is "an all-purpose problem solver"?
It never ceases to amaze me what conservatives think the liberal position is. As asinine as his essay is, it might be a good idea to work on packaging liberal ideas in ways that would be easier to convey.
I think there are some very clever and eloquent liberals who have written down some good ideas. I don't think any of them are a priori omniscient. I don't think any of them have flawlessly trascribed the manifest wisdom of a perfect being, either. Admittedly, I could be wrong about this, but none of them have threatened me with eternal damnation, or even a kick in the balls, for doubting them.
Well, I respond to the argument that liberals should cite more sacred texts by referring Mr. Goldberg to Matthew 6:5-6
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Lucianne's not-so-little boy: it is very frustrating that liberal politicians do not offer up a paper trail for people to scrutinize the way conservatives do. Liberalism has a dogma as rich and serious as conservatism, but you can't go to a liberal politician and ask: Are you loyal to John Dewey? Richard Rorty? John Rawls?
Well, who the fuck cares? Forty years ago, conservatives in this country used to give the left a whole lot of grief, some of it deserved, about being academics and theoreticians, disconnected from the real world.
But that particular polarity has completely reversed itself: now it's the right that takes pride in their theoretical underpinnings without giving a shit whether their ideas are any good in practice, while we liberals simply want a government that works well in practice for the American people, and look around to see what's already been working elsewhere for awhile that ought to work here, too.
We're right. They're wrong. That was easy.
That's not an inane prank, its the method Hitler used for his rallies.
Oh, and it's not central to Mr. Golberg's post, but note this:
Woodrow Wilson and the New Deal cemented a new conception of the primacy of government in our lives.
Is he claiming that Woodrow Wilson was responsbile for the New Deal? That's certainly a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care . . .
What in the world would it mean to be "loyal" to Richard Rorty? It sounds like the kind of thing that would make Rorty spin in his grave.
I think he has a point about asking questions open to a broader spectrum of ideas. I liked those questions.
I think where he fails is that he equates Conservative with Christian. As John alludes to above, conservative thought has a lot more to it than just Christian theology. Are we really supposed to believe that Guliani is against torture, condom use and the War in Iraq because he is Catholic?
If you are going to run as a "Christian Leader" then it is perfectly acceptable to look at the ultimate example of such a leader and you can find it in a book. If you are running as a former Mayor of New York it is perfectly acceptable to look at you record but there would be no book to read.
Goldberg refers to liberalsim as the "bookless faith of good deeds". That works for me. And now that he mentions it, "the opposite of good deeds" makes a nice working definition of modern conservatism.
We really need to reframe the debate. Progressives have values, too. Community values. We believe that we're all in it together, and that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." (Martin Luther King Jr.) It's about standing up and standing together to take on the issues and find solutions that benefit everyone, instead of just maintaining the status quo.
That's the focus of the Heartland Presidential Forum, co sponsored by Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, this weekend. Over 5,000 people are expected to be in Des Moines to hear candidates talk about real issues with real people. There's a great discussion at www.movementvisionlab.org, and they'll have a live webcast and live blogging on Saturday.
Marginalization of poor Jonah Lucianne is seems to be complete, as no one noticed even for ridicule this gem from the author of Liberal Fascism which claims Hitler was a liberal because he believed in the power of the government:
But noting that X does many of the same things as Y does not mean that X and Y are the same thing.
More of this nonsense
here
It's funny how Goldberg just sort of assumes that the normal MO for everyone is to memorize some "great man" of the past by rote and obey his dictates (whether concealing that obeisance (evil liberals) or parading it openly (good conservatives)). It seems never to occur to him that most people might read a bit of Mill, find a few things they like and don't like, read a bit of Nussbaum, find a few things they like and don't like, read a bit of Rawls, etc, and generally arrive at their own set of views drawn from a mix of their own ideas and ideas they've picked up elsewhere, sometimes (although hopefully not too often) without remembering precisely from what sources they picked them up.
But never mind. Goldberg's claim that liberals have created some sort of special immunity for themselves by not citing some sort of sacred text that's subject to attack is wrong in the first place. Often when conservatives do cite sacred texts -- real sacred texts -- they do so in a political culture in which such criticism isn't well tolerated. (NOTE: I am not saying that the Bible is somehow a piece of conservative political philosophy. The point is, conservatives often use it that way, and insofar as liberals' views are in concord with Biblical views, they generally don't justify their views in those terms) If a conservative cites Leviticus 20:13 as a reason for opposing some form of civil rights for gays, saying, "the Bible is wrong there" is widely viewed as an unacceptable response. (Someone who claims that the Bible is wrong will be branded as a secular inquisitor, out to persecute believers and impose his godlessness on the faithful.) Liberals can try to finesse the idea, or claim it really referred to paedophilia or the like, but openly criticizing the source is much more controversial than, say, criticizing a secular source that makes up the canon for the alleged "liberal religion," like Rawls, Dewey, etc. So the claim that conservatives leave a falsifiable paper trail when they cite the Bible and liberals don't because they don't cite Rawls or whatever is silly so long as conservatives don't allow criticism of bona fide sacred texts anyway.
As ever with a Dumb Jonah post, I check to see when LibrulFascism is due out. Last time I looked, it was the day after Christmas; now it's January 8th.
Whoever added 'editor promised cake' to the Amazon tags, chapeau.
Does any liberal argue that the state is "an all-purpose problem solver"?
It never ceases to amaze me what conservatives think the liberal position is. As asinine as his essay is, it might be a good idea to work on packaging liberal ideas in ways that would be easier to convey.
Well, you know, if we'd spell it out in our sacred texts, maybe they'd have an easier time of grasping what we think.
The ultimate irony, natch, is that Jonah's been running with this 'what are your books, liberals?' line for ages, when his Corner postings make it clear that he can't make it through a pamphlet without blegging for assistance.
That post, though, is plain silly. A 'bookless faith of good deeds' sounds closer to Mr J. ben J. setting aside the dogma of the Sabbath to heal the sick than dogmatic Doughy. It's a praxis.
"The beauty of religious conservatives is that their dogma is open to scrutiny and investigation. Conservatives generally have a written canon that includes everything from the Bible to scores of political books."
This is bizarre in its wrongheadedness. Religious dogma is open to scrutiny and investigation, but religious people - including religious politicians - almost all see fit to distance themselves from various elements of standard religious texts, either for the sake of consistency or because doing otherwise would make them look like extremist nutters. So the "paper trail", no matter how long and detailed, isn't enough, because religious conservatives allow themselves a greater or lesser degree of interpretational latitude.
Goldberg is led astray by the "secular religion" theory. Religious doctrine isn't the same as political philosophy. Christianity is pluriform, but it all stems from observance to the same text. This is not the case with liberalism; there is no Liberals' Bible, and people are not threatened with eternal damnation if they do not observe the liberal moral code. Also, liberals don't often explicitly invoke liberal doctrine to explain their policies, as people like Huckabee do with religion. The minute liberals do the same, we should start hectoring them about their doctrine the same way we do with religious conservatives. If John Edwards invokes Rawls to explain his commitment to universal healthcare, it's valid to ask him about the finer points of social contract theory. Until then, the comparison is silly.
I would not expect Jonah Goldberg to know this but, Jesus was a liberal.
This is what Jonah meant? Ridiculous.
In their most famous stunt, they showed up at a television studio for a televised talk by the governor of New Jersey. They peppered him with questions, in Doherty's words, "as if their ideological universe was the norm and his some sort of aberration."
"What, governor? You are for public schools? Where did you get such strange ideas? Can you recommend any books on this subject?"
I wish we had more of that sort of thing.
Where are the vulgar Marxists when we need them?
This idea that modern conservatism is a distillation of Judeo-Christian values, classical liberalism, the writings of Edmund Burke, and other venerable traditions handed down through the ages is absurd.
Conservatism is (and will always be) a project conceived and sustained in the historical present by persons, classes and institutions anxious to defend their existing privileges.
Jesus was a religious leader from Roman Judea whose ideas can variously be interpretted to support facets of liberalism or conservatism, but who existed before modern notions of liberalism or conservatism and who espoused his own creed, which mostly concerned itself with matters other than politics, and the politics of which are not easily translated to the 21st century USA.
Ya Rly!
I forget who said this, but all this talk about What Would Hayek Do is a dodge - a way to deflect attention away from the steaming pile of shit that is the result when conservative ideas are put into practice.
I actually liked that inane prank. Harder to do, though, in a lot of cases - for instance, showing up at a Pentagon briefing and asking, so you believe in mass murder as a policy tool? How interesting. Do you have any books on the subject? You have to get through security, if you are going to do that, and it is a good bet you will be hustled out and arrested.
But I have to hand it to the brave libertarians in this state worshipping society, how they braved the jack booted thugs of the New Jersey state police and evidently weren't sent to liberal concentration camps for re-education, even. Real dissidents.
Perhaps some Fourierists can show up at Giuliani's next press conference to congratulate him on bursting the oppressive chains of marriage and promoting free love in his family, his city, and his nation by his example. I'd like to see more of that.
This whole mindset of Goldberg's reminds me of that story out of Baghdad about some Islamic zealots going around with their AK-47s to all the falafal sellers in the neighborhood saying they could no longer sell falafals upon pain of death on the grounds that since falafals were never mentioned in the Koran they must be unIslamic.
So the falafal sellers all threw away their falafals, though one of them later told a reporter he'd felt like asking the zealot whether AK-47s were mentioned in the Koran either...
I try to take Jonah seriously.
I really do.
Every once in a while I'll read one of his columns and I'll often follow a link to NRO and read whatever it is he has to say.
Heck, I've even watched a couple of those horrible, "What's Your Problem" Bloggingheads ripoffs that he and little Peter Beinart do over at TNR.
(Talk about torture! Those little conversations would be infinitely more effective than any waterboarding.)
But try as I might, I always end up thinking that this guy is the ultimate cautionary tale about nepotism run amok.
He is the ultimate example of how a not-very-bright, inarticulate boob can, through family connections, rise and be placed in fairly important positions. By friends of friends or friends of family. To a point where he is embarrassingly incompetent and there for the whole world to observe.
Oh sometimes, he'll make a reasonably cogent point about a matter small and simple. But whenever he tries to stretch and actually write or say something that would justify the status and positions he's attained, he reveals how truly mediocre and simpleminded he is.
He just leaves you shaking your head.
He is the ultimate example of how a not-very-bright, inarticulate boob can, through family connections, rise and be placed in fairly important positions.
Check the White House and you may want to downgrade that to penultimate.
If secular humanism is a religion...
Does that make bloggers its priests? Do they get tax-exempt status for their preaching? If bloggers like Matt are priests who get their earnings exempted from taxation, do commenters such as myself (Who are what? Deacons?) get at least partial tax exemption?
Ed Marshall,
You are absolutely correct!
How could I have overlooked Team Bush!
Shorter J.G.: "Liberals today aren't pharisaical enough." Check.
He's right: "The assumption that the state should be an all-purpose problem solver is a deeply ideological — I would argue religious — position."
It is. And liberals do indeed hold that position.
Which is why liberals reflexively hate libertarians who hold that, at best, government is a necessary evil (except for the "Big-L" Libertarian Party politicians, of course, who think government is just dandy - as long as they're running it.)
Anarchists on the other hand know that the state and religion are the root of all evil. Whereas liberals think it has something to do with money - unless the money's going to them, of course.
And people like me, considerably wiser, know that humans are the root of all evil. The only difference between a liberal and a conservative is how they justify their coercion.
Liberals as "do-gooders"? Don't make me laugh. Yeah, they'll "do good", all right - and they'll kill you if you try to refuse them "doing good" for you.
Like the Phil Collins song says, "You can wipe off that grin, I know where you been, It's all been a pack of lies..."
I didn't know prisoners and bankrobbers listen to Phil Collins. Maybe I should have guessed so from "American Psycho."
"And people like me, considerably wiser . . . "
Best self-parody of the thread. Thanks.
Or from just a tad later in Matthew: "If you have done this for the least of my brethren, you have done it for me."
I'll believe in the inherent virtue of the self-identified Christian community when I see more bumper stickers that say "Matthew 25:40" than "John 3:16."
"He is the ultimate example of how a not-very-bright, inarticulate boob can, through family connections, rise and be placed in fairly important positions."
I disagree. I think you would be very hard pressed to find someone as lacking in intellectual capacity who is more articulate. Very rarely do you see examples of writing that so clearly and forcefully convey the author's complete lack of understanding.
"It is. And liberals do indeed hold that position.
Which is why liberals reflexively hate libertarians who hold that, at best, government is a necessary evil "
It's funny!
Nonliberals who stake out government-hostile positions consistently make the assumption that liberals must have an equal and opposite government-positive position, rather than the government-neutral position more generally held.
A liberal shouldn't care about whether healthcare or the schools are run by the public sector or the private sector per se; a liberal believes those things ought to be part of the public sector [i]because it's more effective[/i] -- in cost, reliability, universality, egalitarianism and/or any number of other metrics.
Don't know where anybody gets the notion that liberals are "government neutral".
I don't know one single issue anywhere on the liberal agenda that doesn't entail the government having a central role.
I have never once heard any liberal suggest that the government stay out of any issue.
The previous post makes no sense - on the one hand, liberals shouldn't care that critical functions be done by public or private - but then argues that such functions are NECESSARILY done better by the public sector - despite massive and continuing evidence to the contrary. Manipulating the metrics by refusing to note that the "private sector" is not the "free market" but instead state capitalism is not an argument.
Ah, but the liberal says, "Well, no, it's just that the government programs aren't run by ME! It's run by those incompetents put in at the last election!"
Well, no - the bottom line is that it has been demonstrated repeatedly that there is no way a government can effectively run a society. This has been demonstrated by economic theory. Every complaint against the "free market" is dependent on not noting that there is no "free market" in this country or any other - it's all under the control of the state and corporations - which are entities legitimized by the state.
Meanwhile, every single government program in existence has been demonstrated to be ineffective or inefficient (and usually both) in achieving whatever limited goals it had. From education to NASA to the military, it's all been the same - limited to no achievement at massive cost to the taxpayer and lost opportunities due to diversion of investment from the private sector.
I mean, really...half a trillion dollars for the military? And we STILL can't conquer one frickin' country?
None of which matters to liberals because, as stated, their belief in this situation is religious, not rational.
"I have never once heard any liberal suggest that the government stay out of any issue."
This liberal suggests that government stay out of the decision of a woman as to whether she should carry her embryo to term.
This liberal suggests that government stay out of the decision of whether people chose to have sex with a same-sex partner.
This liberal suggests that government stay out of the decision of whether citizens choose to smoke marijuana.
This liberal suggests that government stay out of the business of promoting any religious belief, statements or icons.
"Meanwhile, every single government program in existence has been demonstrated to be ineffective or inefficient (and usually both) in achieving whatever limited goals it had. "
Wrong. The NIH is a world-wide model for effective support of biomedical research. The VA hospital system is more efficient than the current private sector health care. We have the world's most powerful military, though I wouldn't argue that it is the most efficient.
"I mean, really...half a trillion dollars for the military? And we STILL can't conquer one frickin' country?"
We conquered both Afghanistan and Iraq, and in very short order and with remarkably few caualties on our side. The failure to maintain a successful military occupation in both countries is testimony to the inability of our military to do something they aren't trained to do. They win battles, they don't do police work.
Smarter trolls, please.
"This liberal suggests that government stay out of the decision of whether citizens choose to smoke marijuana."
So the "War on Drugs" ended under Clinton?
Thought not.
"This liberal suggests that government stay out of the decision of whether people chose to have sex with a same-sex partner."
Ah, Clinton's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy?
And when I say "one liberal", I mean a liberal with some influence on the movement, not some random poster on a blog. Obviously people calling themselves "liberal" can have a variety of views, as can conservatives. The issue is whether the consistent view of the liberal movement is that government has THE critical part to play in most of the issues on the table. And that IS the consistent view. Anybody denying that is living in an alternate reality.
Not to mention that many of the issues cited aren't specifically "liberal" views in the sense that only liberals have them. The four issues cited could also be legitimately called "libertarian views" despite the knee-jerk association of the word "libertarian" with Republicanism.
Anybody who thinks the VA health system is better than the private sector is nuts. That's not what I've heard from articles on returning vets.
As for the military, powerful - and ridiculously expensive - is not necessarily either effective or efficient, as I have pointed out. Iraq and Afghanistan were not "conquered", they were occupied and are now being lost. The US military rarely "wins" battles, they BUY them with excessive expenditures of money, lives and materiel.
Smarter troll-bashers, please...
Richard Steven Hack believes no influential liberal has criticized don't ask / don't tell.
Richard Steven Hack is puzzled by the fact that when debating public policy, liberals consistently fail to advocate the dissolution of our Constitution and as yet do not embrace anarcho-capitalism.
Richard Steven Hack notes that "it has been demonstrated repeatedly that there is no way a government can effectively run a society." He cites for this proposition not an empirical study, not history, not even an anecdote, but "economic theory." Troll alert.
Ah, my little Hack. Your problem is terminal solipsism.
When you post ""I have never once heard any liberal suggest that the government stay out of any issue," and I prove you wrong, you stipulate that "any liberal" actually only means liberal politicians you've personally heard about.
When you question the efficiency of the VA hospital system, it is on the basis of what you've personally read. Maybe you need to read something other than wingnut blogs and comic books, sonny:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/15/8376846/
When I point out that you were wrong about the US military conquering Afghanistan and Iraq (hint: when you overthrow the government, desperse the military and install your own puppet government, that's conquest), you create your own definitions of "conquest" and "win."
Sorry, RSH, this type of childish thinking works over at LGF and with Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter, but here you are among adults. When you get a little older, you'll understand.
"So the "War on Drugs" ended under Clinton?"
The Clintons are tepid, triangulating centrists, not paradigmatic examples of liberalism-- even if they were not constrained by political reality.
"The four issues cited could also be legitimately called "libertarian views" despite the knee-jerk association of the word "libertarian" with Republicanism."
Yes, they are areas liberalism has in common with libertarianism. That does not in any way make these positions illiberal.
Comments closed December 12, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Stop it Mat. It's beneath you to shoot this fish.
Posted by gregor | November 28, 2007 4:57 PM