Liberal Illiberalism
March 18, 2012 - 11:30 am - by Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorite columnists because he brings the long view perspective of a trained historian to the table. None of what we are being dealt by run-amok liberalism is without precedence. It has all been done before, and only fools go where angels fear to tread. It is time to label deliberate folly as immoral............because it is.The Liberal Assault on Liberalism
Conservatives are put into awkward positions of critiquing liberal ideas on grounds that they are impractical, unworkable, or counterproductive. Yet rarely, at least outside the religious sphere, do they identify the progressive as often immoral. And the unfortunate result is that they have often ceded moral claims to supposedly dreamy, utopian, and well-meaning progressives, when in fact the latter increasingly have little moral ground to stand upon.
Take a few contemporary controversies.
Radical environmentalism....
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Multiculturalism....
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Illegal immigration.....
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Affirmative Action....
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To do all the above is retrograde and ultimately nihilistic. That something so unsustainable continues then is predicated on one unspoken truth: most in the West will not act like Bay Area greens, the grand mufti, La Raza, or Lovie Smith, because for all others to adopt their favored methodology and ideology would lead to something other than liberal life as we know it. Thus they act as they do because they know others will not act as they do — at least for now.
Tit-for-tat factionalism leads nowhere but to chaos and carnage. But the Western tradition is not made of adamantine metal; it is fragile and singular. Anytime we do not stand up and defend it, however unpopular, we cede to barbarism ourselves.
In other words, the only way to question these illiberal doctrines is without apology to identify them as immoral — and to welcome the hysterical reaction that ensues.
Filled with common sense... which ain't too common these days. Thanks for posting this.
