Friday, February 12, 2016

"Progressives are the car salesmen of the State, and there’s always more undercoating to sell."

Jonah Goldberg at National Review watched last night's debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and Jonah is
really sick of this idea that if we all come together, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. If we are unified around the idea that Mars should have a breathable atmosphere, will that suddenly happen? If we all agree that Lena Dunham should be a sex symbol, will we get any closer to that being true? If 100 percent of us agree that bears must use indoor bathrooms, will they magically leave their wooded toilets behind them?

Indeed, this whole idea that if we just rally the people to some grand cause we can get it done is simply gross. It’s Five Year Plan talk. It’s how dictators justify monuments and totalitarians bully dissidents. If only someone wrote a book about this. Oh, and it doesn’t work. North Korea’s economy isn’t suffering from a lack of unity or participation.

...Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and countless other Democrats insisted they opposed same-sex marriage. Conservatives said they were lying. Democrats protested, often with great and haughty indignation. They said it was outrageous to question their commitment to traditional family values, religious principle, etc. And then, when the issue was ripe, they “evolved.” Now, I always believed that Obama and Clinton were liars when it came to gay marriage (and not just gay marriage). But even if that weren’t the case, it doesn’t change the fact that liberals can’t be relied upon to stick to any principle if that principle becomes remotely inconvenient.

Except one: More government.

Progressives are the car salesmen of the State, and there’s always more undercoating to sell.

More government is the one indispensible conviction of modern progressivism. Everything else is up for negotiation.

...We all know how many times the titular head of the Democratic party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has been asked to distinguish between socialism and whatever dog’s breakfast the Democratic party stands for. Clinton gets asked that question often as well, and usually responds with her patented “I Don’t Like Your Question So I Will Laugh To Distract You” Cackle®.

For generations, if a conservative said there was no difference between Democrats and socialists (however defined!), liberal eyes would roll right out of their heads. Such statements were like gassy flares from the fever swamps of the cranky, crazy American Right. Even at the dawn of the Obama administration, this was still the case. Indeed, I wrote a perfectly reasonable and reasoned piece for Commentary asking, “What Kind of Socialist Is Barack Obama?” (My answer: a neo-socialist). Liberals tittered and scoffed.

And now, because a septuagenarian (self-described) socialist is popular with the kids today, it is now verboten to suggest there is a difference between Democrats and socialists.

Whatever socialism is -- or isn’t -- it hasn’t changed in the last ten months. What’s changed is the rigidity of liberal spines. They’ve gone from flexible to flaccid to liquefaction. And that’s why you can never trust them, even when you agree with them. They’ll always want more, because more is the only thing they really believe in.
Read more here.

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