The Ineluctable Violence of New York Times Democrats

The Other McCain blog (h/t larwyn) features the above Boston Herald photograph of Democratic staffer Michael Meehan assaulting Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack. Also see the discussion on Greg Sargent's blog, Plum Line and the photo as it originally appeared in the Boston Herald.

Weekly Standard, a corporatist, neo-conservative publication, is one of a small handful of Republican news sources. There is mostly overlap between the Democrats' progressivism and Weekly Standard's version of Republicanism. But Democrats become violent at the slightest ideological divergence. Republicans are to be hated, even when they aren't that different. Why?

Socialism, to include social democracy, is inherently violent. One cannot re-distribute wealth without violence. If anyone disputes the Times's socialist ideas when turned into law by zealous Democrats, they must comply anyway or be thrown in jail for tax evasion. The essence of socialism is that those who disagree cannot be permitted to live on their own terms. They must comply, pay and obey, or be incarcerated. It is a small step from the violent, socialist ideology of the New York Times to Michael Meehan's violence pictured above.

American conservatism in its present, non-European form (in the 18th and 19th century the term conservatism referred to supporters of monarchy, state establishment of religion and the like) began in 1908, with the election of Progressive William Howard Taft. Democratic Party style social democracy began earlier, with the Populists and with William Jennings Bryan, who first ran for president in 1896. The conservative version of Progressivism claims that because of their superior intelligence, government bureaucrats and bankers (they seem to seriously believe this, although I've never been certain) must decide for everyone else.

In contrast, social democrats believe that democracy should rule, and that the meaning of democracy is that bureaucrats and bankers should make decisions for everyone else. The difference between "conservatives" and social democrats was always small. Both ideologies grew out of Progressivism and both are opposed to libertarianism, the view of Sam (but not John) Adams, Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland.

Main Street Republicans have scratched their heads for 100 years as to why people like Bush call themselves "conservatives" and then act like corporatist Democrats. The reason is that they were the original corporatist Democrats. The Democrats copied them and upped the rhetoric a bit by untying the hands of the Fed to give unlimited subsidies to the money center banks and Wall Street. The Democrats both out-corporatized and out-rhetorically-democratized the Republican Progressives. No wonder they hate each other. In rational language, the two are a twin headed hydra.

Michael Meehan is a good Democrat. He is violent. He is politically correct. He has a short time horizon. Let us hope that Scott Brown wins. But let us not deceive ourselves about for whom we vote. I know nothing about Scott Brown. But if we continue to allow Progressives to dominate the conservative movement, we will continue to see the same Rockefeller-Bush version of New York Times socialism.