Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power. The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak. (A superb 1990 documentary, "Berkeley in the Sixties," chronicles the arguments and misjudgments about tactics that alienated the national electorate and led to the election of Richard Nixon.) For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I'm not kidding -- there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. It's a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play. http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/04/08/bow/index1.html
Liberals tend to be the upper middle class... many of them make their bucks selling stuff to the public sector, that has been such a safe bet in the era of government growth of the last few decades...
Now you are quoting "feminazis..." LMAO... You really have no core principles beyond political expediency, do you? http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/camille_paglia.htm
Liberal or conservative has no meaning anymore. There are those who support the massive expansion of power among government with zero skepticism and those who oppose it. There are those who trust government with the affection of motherly love with the belief that it can heal all things and then there are those who trust government about as much as trusting a bum on a street. Stem cell research, gay marriage or abortion will not send this country to ruin. Christianity, traditional marriage or nation building will not send this country to ruin. The only way the most powerful country in the world can come to ruin is by internal conflict. The number one cause of internal conflict among powerful countries is the expansion of power among government and then the abuse of it's own power on it's own people. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -C.S. Lewis
Upper class Liberals are almost always Jewish or Atheist. Upper class non Jews and those that are religous tend to be conservative. John
did we have any doubt the resident socialist would use the left's trick of attacking the messenger instead of the message. zzz commie is so predictable.
You really miss the subtle stuff don't you jem... AAA is a worshiper, dittoheaded follower and an incessantly constant apologist for Rush Limfat, who uses the term feminazi all the time... When it comes to attacking the messenger, have you ever actually listened to 3 hours of Limfat, 3 hours of Hannity, watched Ann Coulter and the other right wing hate mongers? What planet are you living on?
From my experience on this board, I'd say neither side has any monopoly on idiocy. As I recall, not one of you rightist fools had the slightest idea that Adam Smith actually wrote in favor of progressive taxation. You're all ignorant asses. Over on the left, or what passes for it around here, I've seen truly amazing displays of naked anti-Semitism. Sooo... Ad hominem attacks (which is what that Paglia screed is) are a bit out of place. I don't see much in the way of distinguished behavior by anyone.
So what, and progressive taxation on what, income from ownership of land or just income derived from regular work/labor?
Expressed as a general principal after discussing a particular tax. And no, I'm not looking it up again. There's two places where it's mentioned, towards the back of the book. It's 800 pages. I have a suspicion some folks only read the front part.