The ongoing liberal quandary

Are there any serious liberals left in America? I ask this question in all sincerity. Forced to embrace a libertarian label because modern liberalism has drifted into social democracy and a vague social justice fashion, I am, like many others who promote a limted government and free market,  a classical liberal at heart, a proponent of ideas that arose during the Enlightenment to end the rule of the few over the many, and to establish reason as man's greatest tool in a fight for liberty, equal opportunity and rule of law not rule of men. These grand Enlightenment ideas have been reduced to statist policy making and technocratic paternalism.

The Progressive turn at the beginning of the 20th century turned the tide of classical liberalism, and the Progressive direction has continued to this day, although periodic efforts have been made to change the direction and return America to limited government and a free market. The modern liberal embraced the Progressive ideology while denying ideology, which has created a spongy Center which has led liberalism steadily leftward away from economic freedom and individualism. This neo-liberalism has attempted to join market forces with progressive ideology on one hand and adopted a utilitarian alliance with neo-conservatives on the other. The modern liberal is lost, and the main reason is the denial of the basic principles that made liberalism a powerful force against State power to begin with. 

Now, the modern liberal supports wars that decades ago they would resist with principled vigor, and the liberal is tacitly, and sometimes overtly and eagerly, supporting anti-capitalist efforts which are designed to make a free market impossible. The liberal thought in 2008 that they'd found the perfect combination in Barack Obama, a sensible progressive who has the intelligence to avoid extremes, someone their kissing cousins, the neo-conservatives, could deal with so that the mideast wars are correctly managed and brought to a win/win end. In many ways Obama is less of a Progressive and more of a Super-Liberal who stops short of far-Left madness so as to have the cake and eat it too. It was inevitable that modern liberalism would produce a President such as Obama, someone who can present war as a tool in social justice, use Wall Street to establish a modern State capitalism not at odds with the IMF, World Bank and UN, and implement the regulations required for social justice at home. This advancement of private/public partnership in a strong welfare state has been a dream of modern liberals for a long time.

But the opposition to a powerful State, which still exists in the form of limited government conservatives, libertarians, true capitalists, free marketers and fiscally conservative Blue-Dog Democrats, have challenged the modern liberal to clarify their position -- has the liberal fully accepted the Progressive agenda, or is the modern liberal prepared to stand for the principles that first established the liberal movement centuries ago? The current statist consequences of high unemployment, mounting debt, military quagmires in the mideast, interdependence with European economies in crisis, economic stagnation from over-regulation and uncertainty regarding future tax hikes, the revealed flaws of Obamacare, Dodd-Frank's impact on finance, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and a breakdown in congress, and more, all make it impossible to hide in the Center uncommitted to a direction, playing pragmatist and saying we'll figure it out democratically as we go. It's not working, and forces on both sides are fighting for control of the direction. The modern liberal has to decide which direction they support. More of the same is no longer an option. 

Morning Joe 9/29/2011 - For the best coverage of Republican politics

On Morning Joe today, Donnie Deutsche, Sam Stein, Pat Buchanan, Willie Geist and Joe Scarborough in the early part of the show talked about Republican politics and the campaign for president. Now, Romney has edged out Perry, so, of course, Perry is finished. I have a feeling this race is going to go up and down for months. Mika read part of an article from David Frum in which he asks why the hell not Romney. The Republican Establishment, the Center, has become impatient with Bachmann, Paul, Cain and Perry, and all the talk about Christie, and they are ready to get on with it -- Romney is the man. Romney is the automaton candidate of choice for the Republican pundits who want the right image to challenge the image of Obama. Remember -- crazy can't win, and anyone who talks about changing the statist system in DC is crazy. Perry came on strong, but he was soon turned into an automaton, or he was an automaton to start with and simply had a moment of passion -- Perry said things that the Center thinks is crazy. Perry strongly criticized the Fed and the Ponzi scheme which is SS. I like this type of crazy, but the Center says it can't win a general election, so Perry said something in the debate that the Center should love -- Perry said it's heartless not to pay for the children of illegal immigrants who have no choice about being in the US, but this is what caused him to lose ground against Romney.

This is all fascinating, but it's not news -- it's political nonsense. The Republican candidates, most of them, are discussing issues that have no relevance to our most pressing problems, and the media reports on political games which have no relevance. This is a good way to avoid more serious issues like our out-of-control government which has destroyed our economy and has us involved in useless wars in the mideast, steadily transferring money from the private sector to government spending and wasting the lives of young men and women in political wars. Plus, there is Solyndra, a case for why government intervention in the economy is grinding economic expansion to a halt. We still have real unemployment of about 20%.

The political system and the media are broken. Media avoids the tough issues, and the presidential race is the least of our concerns right now. Unless there is talk about serious systemic changes in government, all the hoopla right now on shows like Morning Joe are simply diversions which block real change.

Morning Joe 9/23/2011 - Perry and the obstructionist Republicans

On Morning Joe today, the guests during the first segment were John Heilemann, David Gregory, Harold Ford, Eugene Robinson, the gov. of Maryland and a few others on the Left. The Governor of Maryland is a Democrat firecracker, full of talking points and eager to get them all expressed. Oh, and Scott Walker was on for "balance".

The first part of the show was directed toward how poorly Perry performed in the debate last night and how good Romney performed. Everyone on Morning Joe believes that Romney is now the man, although Perry is winning in the polls. MSNBC is doing its part to promote Romney over Perry, and I say MSNBC because it's obvious Scarborough is a token voice from the "Right", although his voice is centrist and hardly distinguishable from a Blue Dog Democrat -- MSNBC is a propaganda tool for the Left. Scarborough might have some weight to push around in order to partially succeed in his idea of "balance", but that would be making sure Bloomberg and Christie and the No Labels crowd have a voice among the din of Leftist propaganda. Scarborough and his centrist pragmatism, however, do not represent the motivating ideas which have prevented Boehner and McConnell from doing the usual Republican compromise in the two party tango of creeping statism.

There's a foce on the Right which is focused on out of control government spending and government regulatory over-reach, and although this force is not properly analyzed or represented on Morning Joe, the Morning Joe crew all know it's a force to be reckoned with. The way Morning Joe, the Center and the Left reckon with this force on the Right is by framing Republican professional politicians as reluctant obstructionists captured by extreme right-wingers. Boehner and McConnell, according to the narrative, are afraid to face down their "extreme" base of Tea Partiers, therefore Obama is not able to pass the infrastructure projects needed to keep the recovery going. Scarborough and some of the centrists he has on the program will give lip service to the problem of spending, but their position is no different than the Democrat spin of tax the rich now, spend on stimulus now, then cut later.

I suppose Morning Joe's tacit endorsement of Romney is centered on the idea that Romney will strike less of a contrast with Obama, and even if Romney wins, nothing much will change in government, except that Romney might be better at economic management as technocrats plan the direction of our economy. Democrats are hoping that the difference between Obama and Romney is so slight that no one will feel the urgency to change Presidents at this point, especially if the illusion of recovery is ginned up right before the elections.

A clip of the Republican debate was shown in which Huntsman was debating with Santorum about the need to bring troops home from the mideast. This is an issue that all Republicans should push going into 2012, because Democrats are not making it an issue.

The Left and Center as represented on Morning Joe are openly admitting that Obama's cross-country speechifying and Jobs Bill are political moves, but they seem pleaseed that the political strategy is working, regardless of whether it further damages the economy -- this pretty much reveals the emptiness of the political realm right now. Politics over economics -- this is one of our biggest problems and it emanates from DC. Government is what obstructs economic growth, but the people making this point are becoming marginalized in media; however, they will vote in 2012, and this will tell a more interesting story than the one told now by lackey pundits.

Time for reflection not chauvinism

http://blog.heritage.org/9-11-project/

Heritage should put more effort into quiet reflection and inward-looking analysis rather than blustering chauvinism as 9/11/2011 approaches. We responded to the attack, and hopefully we've improved on national security, so now it's time to ask if we went too far in some ways, like the Patriot Act, and to assess our actions in Afghanistan in Iraq. It's disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 to use this date each year to rationalize the slog and continued interventions in the Mideast.

I believe it's time to end the operations and bring the troops home, build the world's greatest national security and then develope a doctrine of non-intervention, but one that makes it clear to the world we will answer any attack with great force and destruction, but we won't stay a decade for political reasons to nation build while our soldiers are put in harm's way. Leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone, and hopefully we'll both learn to trade in peace.

Meet the Press 8/21/2011 -- Stimulus, and more stimulus

Savannah Guthrie substituted for David Gregory this morning on Meet the Press, and she started out interviewing Robert Gibbs and Mitch Daniels. Guthrie did a fairly good job interviewing Gibbs, but the question is why have on a low-value guest like Gibbs, especially during a time when viewers are looking for objective, smart political analysis. Gibbs is a political hack and Obama flunky, and his opinions and spin are useless to the national political debate. Gibbs answered every criticism of Obama by denying what was brought up is a problem and saying that Obama outlines ideas every day of his presidency, Obama concentrates on jobs everyday of his presidency and Obama has offered a plan, it's just those damn obstructionist Republicans and headwinds that put a crink in the recovery Obama started from an economic point which was the worst in our history. I say Gibbs is a low-value guest because he offers nothing but regurgitated Obama-excuses and propaganda. The producers of Meet the Press have to know that Gibbs is going to cheerlead for Obama and that Guthrie is not going to respond in the only way appropriate -- Bullshit!

The Mitch Daniels interview was better in that Daniels is somewhat more objective than Gibbs, but we learned nothing new -- Daniels did analyze the current economic situation in smart fashion by alluding to the systemic changes needed in government -- tax and regulatory reform.

The roundtable was pretty predictable, also, with Peggy Noonan, Harold Ford, E.J. Dionne and Maria Bartiroma discussing the Republican field and Obama's performance so far. But to take a President-centric approach to our problems is poor analysis. Presidents can only do so much in this statist system which is set on automatic spending on an out of control welfare state, plus, no one talked about our mideast entanglements. Dionne, of course, wants the President to stimulate, stimulate and then stimulate some more -- he, like most liberals and progressives, believe that demand is our problem, and if you just give people enough money to spend, things will get better. As Bartiroma and Noonan, and even Harold Ford, pointed out, businesses are uncertain of the tax and regulatory future.

Businesses are not going to expand on short term tweaks to the economy, and new businesses will not arise on short-term stimulus and temporary demand. Someone considering a business start-up is not going to pull the trigger because Obama has stimulated demand through 2012 -- existing businesses are not going to expand and hire on temporary demand that fades when the stimulus stops.

Businesses will take a risk if they know their costs and are reasonably confident that government will not tax and regulate them out of business in a few years.

Of course, there was the obligatory denigration of current Republican candidates, but it's way too early for the 2012 elections to take up a full program when America faces a debt problem, a global economic crisis, entanglements in the mideast, high unemployment, a failing public education system and growing dissatisfaction with government in general, not just the present and temporary president.