Michael Knox Beran has an excellent article in the current issue of National Review entitled "Descent of Liberalism" (h/t Jim Crum). Beran traces the origins of today's socialist ideology to the social engineering concepts in Comte and Marx. He shows that liberalism, based on individualism and voluntarism, has been replaced on the left, with compulsory, social engineering. The commitment of "liberals" to social engineering had been tempered by the residue of 19th century liberalism, but commitment to the vision of experts bestowing privileges on various groups, whether because they are oppressed or simply economically powerful, gradually overwhelmed interest in freedom. Today's left is directly antagonistic to liberalism and to the ideals of the Whigs and of rights on which the nation is founded. As well, economic interest as among highly paid government employees motivates the left's obsessive fixation on state power and control over the individual. With respect to the specific issue of economic interests of government employees, Beran notes:
>Champions of public-sector workers commend their commitment to public service in the language of republican virtue. But in offering their political support to sympathetic candidates in exchange for lucrative compensation packages, a number of the public-sector organizations have engaged in a politics that savors of corruption. Their allegiance, like that of the Praetorian Guard in Gibbon’s Rome, can be purchased only by those contenders for power who are willing to bestow what Gibbon called a “liberal donative” out of the public purse.
>Liberal the donatives certainly are. The average salary of federal workers rose in 2009 to $71,206, a figure that does not include bonuses, overtime, fringe benefits, pension accruals, and the priceless gift of all-but-absolute job security. Some 19 percent of the civil service received salaries of more than $100,000. (The average private-sector wage in the same year was $40,331.) The federal government, Cato Institute scholar Chris Edwards observes, has become an “elite island of highly paid workers.” Liberalism is being devoured by the monster it created.
The article is wonderfully written and historically astute. Take a look.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Open Letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center
Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center
I am a former donor to the Southern Poverty Law Center. During the late 1980s and 1990s I donated for several consecutive years and received an autographed copy of your book as well as a phone call from your wife on one occasion. I am writing now to say that I profoundly disagree with your attacks on the Tea Party and urge you to consider that you have congratulated state violence while attacking those who would defend themselves from it. I now find myself agreeing with a judge years ago who claimed that there is no difference between your organization and the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. The judge, I recall, was removed from the case he was adjudicating, and now I would like to be removed from your mailing list if I have not been already.
Socialism is inherently violent, as is all government. Government is by definition organized violence. The claim that because government is the most powerful perpetrator of violence its violence is legitimate is nonsensical mysticism. It is not necessarily the case that respect for government minimizes violence. In the case of the Soviet Union, communist China and Cuba, public acceptance and cowardice in the face of state violence permitted the extent of violence to greatly exceed what would have occurred had there been a Lockean revolution that replaced the violent socialist state with a limited state.
The US government has reached the tipping point, and Barack Obama is pushing it there. You may disagree, but your disagreement does not make you non-violent. It simply means that you accept and welcome state violence. It means that you are advocates of violence.
There is more. Barack Obama has associated with violent felons such as William Ayers, who planted a bomb in Chicago. Thus, President Obama himself has associated with violence. This is in contrast to the non-violent Tea Parties. The factual data does not trouble you. You continue to support Barack Obama despite his association with violence, yet you continue to imply on your website that people in the Tea Party are violent. You engage in deception.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is thus a violent organization that serves state violence. It is not enough that the US government dominates the television and print media, to the point where many of us have simply stopped paying attention to its blatant, foolish lies. Your organization, having been effective in reducing the Klan's influence (a result I applaud) now chooses to back state violence.
Please remove my name from your records. Your organization is a disgrace.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
Federal Budget in 1 Minute, 38 Seconds
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