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Until recently the nineteenth-century liberalism of the Economist, the Financial Times and Miss Anne Applebaum looked pretty similar to conservatism. Now they seem a million miles apart. I bought the Economist a couple of times recently from a newsagent but shall not again. It seems not just annoying but to get most things wrong.
Not everything though. I largely agreed with an article about poor Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's first supporter in Congress and first Attorney-General, to whom, as it says, Donald Trump behaved vindictively, ruthlessly and with astonishing ingratitude.
But what interested me was this that the article said about Mr Sessions.
Leave aside the slimy last six words, which are intended falsely to suggest that Mr Sessions is a racist and are obviously inaccurate, because Mr Sessions attacked liberal elites long before Mr Obama became president. Look at the rest of the sentence.
What the Economist dislikes, clearly, is that he does not believe in America as an idea (Whig and nineteenth century liberal ideas) but instead believes in communities and traditions.
Communities and traditions are what I believe in and what I think are worth fighting for. The liberals want young working class men to die not for communities or traditions but for ideas. This is why liberalism is malign.
Not everything though. I largely agreed with an article about poor Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's first supporter in Congress and first Attorney-General, to whom, as it says, Donald Trump behaved vindictively, ruthlessly and with astonishing ingratitude.
But what interested me was this that the article said about Mr Sessions.
"He saw America not as an idea, as most Republicans professed to, but as a place of communities and traditions besieged by immigrants, criminals and a liberal elite unleashed by the first black president."
Leave aside the slimy last six words, which are intended falsely to suggest that Mr Sessions is a racist and are obviously inaccurate, because Mr Sessions attacked liberal elites long before Mr Obama became president. Look at the rest of the sentence.
What the Economist dislikes, clearly, is that he does not believe in America as an idea (Whig and nineteenth century liberal ideas) but instead believes in communities and traditions.
Communities and traditions are what I believe in and what I think are worth fighting for. The liberals want young working class men to die not for communities or traditions but for ideas. This is why liberalism is malign.
Except it was a proud, elites-reviling conservative who last sent working-class men into a US war to die. George Bush was a proud pro-life, pro-business, pro-tradition conservative in the American sense of the word.
ReplyDeleteYou have been reading my blog for years and must know how much I detest that man - who was not in my opinion much of a conservative at all. In fact as I have often said the American Tories were ethnically cleansed in 1783 and there are no American conservatives except the red men, but G W Bush was certainly not a conservative. Had he campaigned against illegal immigration in 2000 he would have won without hanging chads. The real conservatives in the Republican were replaced by Eisenhower. Pat Buchanan and the paleo-conservatives are their last gasp.
DeleteSo Bush was really a liberal, so a useless war can be blamed on liberals. How convenient.
DeleteExcept liberals tried to stop the Iraq war, hated Bush, and struggled to get him out of office and halt his appointments.
But if everyone’s a liberal these distinctions don’t really exist, right?
No I didn't mean that. I used liberal in the true sense and not in the sense of left-winger that obtains in America. Wilson was a protectionist and racist but Gladstonian in foreign affairs. Of course GWB was centre right and very good for liberals if they opposed the war - Hillary and Biden and most of the Democrats did not, and precious few Tories or Labour MPs. Ken Clarke was one who did.
DeleteCommunities and traditions are what I believe in and what I think are worth fighting for. The liberals want young working class men to die not for communities or traditions but for ideas. This is why liberalism is malign.
ReplyDeleteBroadly speaking I agree. My concern is that, for many countries, the option of having a nation based on communities and traditions is simply no longer a practical proposition. It's not just immigration that has caused the problem (although it has been a huge contributing factor). The old communities and traditions have decayed.
My view is that the economic, social and cultural changes that really gathered steam in the 19th century (capitalism, urbanisation, mass education, the decline of Christianity, mass media) have largely destroyed those communities and traditions. I'm not sure it would be possible to rebuild them.
I agree with you in disliking the "nation as an idea" concept - to my way of thinking it's something that eventually inevitably leads to some form of totalitarianism. If you're lucky you end up with Brave New World, if you're unlucky you end up with 1984. It now seems very likely that we're going to get Brave New World. Better than 1984, but still not a pleasant prospect.
In fact I suspect we're going to get a much crasser and less benevolent version of Brave New World.
I have attacked the Economist magazine for many years - precisely because it is NOT the 19th Liberal publication it claims to be. There is no kinship between the Economist magazine and, for example, Prime Minister Gladstone. Not in economic policy - and not in cultural opinions either.
ReplyDeleteAs for Mr Sessions - as the President said many times, if he was going to "recuse" himself then he should not have accepted the role of Attorney General.
One of the primary functions of an Attorney General is to protect a President from his enemies (it would be impossible to do the job President without such basic protection - which is normally just ASSUMED) - that may not be said openly, but that is the truth.
If a man, for whatever reason, can not do that job - he should not accept it. He should suggest that the President pick someone else.
As for immigration - one welcomes friends, such as the people who fled from Castro to go to Florida after 1959. And one keeps out foes - such as those Mexicans, NOT all - but many, who believe that the wrong side won the wars of 1836 and 1848. Florida has most certainly been culturally changed by the influx of Cubans - but changed does NOT always mean "made worse".
It is not a matter of race - it is a matter of loyalty, whether the would-be immigrant is pro or anti American.
"Is this would-be immigrant loyal to the Constitution of the United States" is a perfectly legitimate question - as was established by Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler in the 1920s - when an immigrant swore allegiance and then boasted he had sworn falsely (that he did not believe in the Bill of Rights) - the man was deported, and rightly so.
The mass of people coming for government benefits and so on are loved by the Economist magazine - but real "19th Century Liberals" do not welcome such immigrants. "Would you did for the United States in a war with the country you have come from?" is also a perfectly legitimate question.
As for President Obama. His skin colour was actually a SHIELD.
ReplyDeleteAny questions about his background or beliefs were answered (especially by the Economist magazine) with "you hate him because he is black".
If the man had been white (say "Barry O'Bama" ethnically Irish) his Marxist background and long history of HATING the United States would have disqualified him from any position of trust - at least I hope so.
But because Mr Obama happened to have black skin, he was made into a little plaster saint - and everything he had said and done before 2008 was OFF LIMITS.
If that is "19th Century Liberalism" then I am a Polar Bear.