The essence of contemporary liberalism is the illiberal conviction that Americans, in their comprehensive incompetence, need minute supervision by government, which liberals believe exists to spare citizens the torture of thinking and choosing.
And I agree with his assessment of the Democrats’ persistence on health care:
In their joyless, tawdry slog toward passage of their increasingly ludicrous bill, Democrats now cling grimly to Robert Frost’s axiom that “the best way out is always through.” Their sole remaining reason for completing the damn thing is that they started it.
Just read the whole thing.
Ah, but their reason for completing it is that, as Obama keeps reminding us, they have been trying to
seize“reform” health care for almost a century.What he never mentions is that the American people have been rejecting their attempts just as long.
I too agree with that last paragraph of Will’s essay. It is almost as if the health care issue must be completed, even though it has strayed far from its original intent in force by the very liberals who cobbled it together with no other reason than to be able to claim that it has been done and that they have finished what they had started, for better or worse. There is a psychological term for this kind of behavior – Obsession.
Term: obsession n.
Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.
Will writes:
Which is Dianne Feinstein’s attitude in thinking that the People oppose her government takeover of health care because the bill is “beyond their comprehension”. Again, Boxer is worse BUT their difference is only one of degree or intensity – not one of principles.
Notice Kerry’s inappropriate and relentless health care push in the below link’s video, as he desperately beats a near dead horse:
Here’s a typical and nauseating MSM article-spin on Brown at AOL. Notice how the subtext of the writing holds Brown guilty for:
1. A Stunning Campaign Victory
2. Not Being Camera and Press-polished to perfection his first elected Day in D.C.
3. Adopting a suitable down to business demeanor shift from his celebratory demeanor on Tuesday
4. Possibly being linked to a candidate expressing legitimate concerns about President Obama’s constitutional eligibility for the oval office
5. Leaving his truck at home in Massachusetts (okay…that’s actually a somewhat funny dig, I’ll give them that much)
Also notice how it completely overlooks how decent he was with his highness John Kerry’s contemptible and presumptuous pressuring him with leading questions about Health Care. Or how cryptic, ungracious and distant Reid is with his confusing remark about how Brown’s victory “will make my job easier?”
Star-struck? It looks more like he’s doing his best not to gag, as any reasonable person would be in the presence of Kerry and Reid.
“Oh how dare he succeed, behave sanely and decently, and continue to do so! Just who the hell does this new guy think he is…a decent human being and Senator?”
http://www.sphere.com/politics/article/scott-brown-travels-to-capitol-tastes-expectations-that-await/19326448
oh, and an item I forgot from my “hold Brown guilty for” list in my comment #3 above:
6. Breathing
Really, what’s the point of if you’re going to let George Will define contemporary liberalism as opposed to, say, a contemporary liberal? The point isn’t to supervise peoples’ lives, no one makes that argument and no one is putting forward any proposals that would do any such thing. Contemporary liberalism is more about protecting the country’s government and citizens from a wealthy and exploitative elite that are breaking the rules and exploiting people. Real liberals are the most diminished and shut out constituency in this country because the exploiters (Democrats and Republicans) need them to be so they can continue to burn through all of our resources and wealth.
Nothing Obama and the Democrats have done this year is an example of liberalism – including their joke of a health care bill. They’ve been protecting and catering to the same people and corporations that the Republicans just spent eight years protecting and catering to. You’ll have to read something written by someone a little less inside than George Will to have an idea of what liberalism is – taking his word for it just makes you look like you don’t spend very much time looking for information. Which means you end up having the nicely packaged little propaganda pieces informing your worldview. Wake up dummies – this administration is about as far left as the Bush administration was.
Patrick (#4 & #5) – HILARIOUS! 🙂
Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! We have BINGO!!!
The government will track down and neuter the wealthy and exploitive elite and stop them from breaking the “rules” and stop the exploitation.
The dictatorship of the proletariat will unite the workers and create a fair and just society. Social justice for one and for all, but no one may exist outside of social justice. The government will break those who do not succeed at reeducation.
#8: Well, when you put it that way, heliotrope, it sounds ENCHANTING!
Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! We have BINGO!!!
The government will track down and neuter the wealthy and exploitive elite and stop them from breaking the “rules” and stop the exploitation.
People that blow trillion dollar holes in the international economy need to be tracked down and neutered – or are all you still pretending that the Bush recession was caused by poor minorities defaulting on their mortgages?
The dictatorship of the proletariat will unite the workers and create a fair and just society. Social justice for one and for all, but no one may exist outside of social justice. The government will break those who do not succeed at reeducation.
If you want to get all hyperbolic and girlishly dramatic, you go right ahead. I’ll be right here if anyone wants to try to talk seriously about liberalism without devolving into this kind of ridiculous, dystopian prose.
I think when you use pure ideology to rule a country, you are bound to fail no matter what. There at times when the Government does have to step in and take greater control, like when mobilizing for war or in times of great crisis. And there are most times when people can fend for themselves and the Government just has to be there to ensure the laws are enforced.
I never, even when I was more liberal, thought that the government’s role was to force people to live a certain way. I think it can be used to help people or to marshal resources that would not be as well used by pure market forces. I think of terms of public goods, like water and air, because what you do will affect how my quality of life. I think there are times when Government should step in but they should limited for various reason. Overreach, Abuse of Power, Inefficiency, so on and so on.
Levi, you’re so deluded. Contemporary liberalism **IS** the “wealthy and exploitative elite that are breaking the rules and exploiting people”.
Goldman-Sachs backed Obama, remember? And Obama has been indulging their every whim, at the expense of us taxpayers, remember?
Like Germany 1933, right? Sorry DER, not having it.
(Government is a gun. To do things by government, is to coerce people in effect at gunpoint. The times when government rightly or properly has “to step in and take greater control” are few. They are: (1) when there’s a criminal offense, (2) when there’s a foreign attack or invasion, (3) when a freely-entered contract is being broken. That’s it.)
Good gosh, are Bush and Rove still manipulating the “wealthy and exploitive elite” who are plunging us further into joblessness and economic depression?
I would think that the smart liberals who understand what Bush did to get us here would be able to staunch the bleeding and get things on an upswing. They could start by taxing the rich, threatening the small businessman with health care costs/fines and uncertain tax policy and blaming the banks for making only the safest of loans. But they wouldn’t do that, because it is a job and economy killer.
So, maybe The Won should go on the road and convince factories which are in deep trouble to switch to making mega thousand dollar green friendly stuff that will save the user a few dollars a year.
Yessiree, there is no possible way that giving banks FED encouragement and government preferences and guarantees if they wrote Freddie mortgages had anything to do with the housing collapse. No way did having Freddie buy up junk mortgages and sell them in huge blocks to Wall Street at attractive discount rates lead to the whole derivatives mess. It was all just a nasty coincidence. Or maybe it was caused by man made global warming.
People that blow trillion dollar holes in the international economy need to be tracked down and neutered
Except, of course, when they’re Obama Party members doing it through their government agencies.
Short answer: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lied about the number of subprime and alt-A mortgages they were securitizing by simply refusing to call them subprime or alt-A. Thus, they were claiming that their securities that they were selling were based on good mortgages when in fact they were NOT.
And who was in charge while they were doing this? Obama cronies like Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and Barney Fag’s worthless executive boyfriend, all while Obama and Fag blocked any attempt to audit, regulate, or otherwise manage the two agencies AND demanded that they pump even more taxpayer-guaranteed money into making these bad securities.
Whoever said that only poor minorities were the people who, yes, caused the financial crisis by taking mortgages they couldn’t pay and shouldn’t have been offered?
I know I’ve never said that it was only poor minorities.
Levi, you’re so deluded. Contemporary liberalism **IS** the “wealthy and exploitative elite that are breaking the rules and exploiting people”.
Goldman-Sachs backed Obama, remember? And Obama has been indulging their every whim, at the expense of us taxpayers, remember?
What you’re failing to understand is that those who are in control at the moment are not liberals. Goldman Sachs is backing Obama specifically because he is not a liberal – a company like Goldman Sachs would be in opposition to liberals, not supporting them. And that company had its claws all over the Bush administration as well, remember Henry Paulson?
Are you really incapable of recognizing the glaring contradiction in what you’ve just said?
Good gosh, are Bush and Rove still manipulating the “wealthy and exploitive elite” who are plunging us further into joblessness and economic depression?
I would think that the smart liberals who understand what Bush did to get us here would be able to staunch the bleeding and get things on an upswing. They could start by taxing the rich, threatening the small businessman with health care costs/fines and uncertain tax policy and blaming the banks for making only the safest of loans. But they wouldn’t do that, because it is a job and economy killer.
Yes, the smart liberals would be able to fix things, unfortunately none of them are holding significant office.
So, maybe The Won should go on the road and convince factories which are in deep trouble to switch to making mega thousand dollar green friendly stuff that will save the user a few dollars a year.
Yessiree, there is no possible way that giving banks FED encouragement and government preferences and guarantees if they wrote Freddie mortgages had anything to do with the housing collapse. No way did having Freddie buy up junk mortgages and sell them in huge blocks to Wall Street at attractive discount rates lead to the whole derivatives mess. It was all just a nasty coincidence. Or maybe it was caused by man made global warming.
And all of this was occurring when whom, exactly, was in charge of our government?
Yes, Levi, it was caused by Democrats forcing banks to give sub-prime loans to people they knew were bad credit risks. Thats why it was called the “Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis” not the “Bush Deregulation Crisis”
That would be Bill Clinton who gave it the biggest goose.
But, LEVI, since you are so busy throwing Obambi under the bus for not being liberal ENOUGH, you sure as heck have no use for Bill Clinton. Compared to Obambi, Clinton rode beside Attila the Hun.
Who do you obsessed leftists want to be President? Mao?
I think you’re in the black helitrope. It’s the same thing with when you list all the failed communist/socialist states. The default is ‘they aren’t socialist enough.