Modern liberal thinking belongs in history's dustbin

redrumloa

redrumloa

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"Show me a young conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."

So said the late, great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who ranks among history's most astute and eloquent observers of human nature.

One would think the events of the last hundred years would have consigned modern liberalism to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, they have not.

Utopian dreams of pure socialism turned into the nightmare of Marxist tyranny. Great Britain nearly collapsed under the dead weight of its welfare state and union featherbedding, until rescued by Margaret Thatcher. Jimmy Carter's brand of liberalism sapped the American spirit. Ronald Reagan reignited that spirit, and Bill Clinton helped keep it alive. That's because Clinton had enough sense to veer away from the orthodoxy of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Among other things, Clinton signed into law welfare reform, which ended a big-hearted but brainless liberal welfare system that destroyed families and consigned millions of people to continuing poverty. Beware of the unintended consequences of having a big heart untempered by common sense.

Today, European nations are being forced to confront the economic realities of their welfare states, which they can't afford anymore. Growing debt threatens to undermine the euro and drive Europe into recession. Meanwhile, because of runaway spending, the United States faces an economic crisis of its own. Entitlement reform is a must. Everybody knows it, but the political will isn't there to do anything about it.

The AARP, which has turned into a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, has even run television advertisements picturing senior citizens as a bunch of thugs out to knee-cap any politician who dares touch entitlements. If the AARP keeps up its tirades, it will help drive the United States into an economic black hole from which there is no escape.

Runaway borrowing and spending during the George W. Bush years were bad enough, but the Obama administration has doubled down with the expectation that somehow growing deficits will revive the nation's economic fortunes. Liberals still cling to the discredited Keynesian notion that a dollar in deficit spending miraculously results in a dollar-and-a-half of economic activity. That approach isn't big-hearted. It's delusional, and guaranteed to drive up inflation.

It's too much to ask that today's liberals try to understand conservatism. They're too certain of their own virtue to even entertain other points of view. There are a lot of self-anointed "conservatives" who don't understand conservatism, either, at least not the type put forth a half-century ago by Barry Goldwater.

But Margaret Thatcher understood it. Said the Iron Lady: "We want a society in which we are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. That is what we mean by a moral society -- not a society in which the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State."
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Thatcher rescued Britain? Deary me.
 
Today, European nations are being forced to confront the economic realities of their welfare states, which they can't afford anymore.
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Try telling that to Germany.
They have a bigger welfare state than the UK, far less debt and are doing very nicely thank you.

The UK had one of the smallest welfare states in Europe but has the highest debt.

Thatcher's policies are the ones that deregulated everything and this lead to today's economic problems. It worked in the short term, but long term her policies were disastrous.

BTW "Liberal" has a somewhat different meaning in the UK.
 
minator said:
BTW "Liberal" has a somewhat different meaning in the UK.
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You can say that again.
For some posters on here "liberal" seems to be interchangable for "corporate controlled," when stuck before "media".
 
... or even "subjects." :D
 
Robert said:
Thatcher rescued Britain? Deary me.
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You beat me to it. I suppose it was OK if you lived in more affluent parts of the south and were reasonably well off to start with. If you grew up where I grew up, "Thatcher" is practically a swear-word.
 
uhm... excuse me people... churchill was sociopathic piece of crud. if by astute observer of human nature you mean manipulative war criminal then you might be close but i somehow think thats not the authors point... and thatcher? really....

all i can say to you is "get your filthy hands off my desert"....

 
theonestonecutter said:
uhm... excuse me people... churchill was sociopathic piece of crud. if by astute observer of human nature you mean manipulative war criminal then you might be close but i somehow think thats not the authors point... and thatcher? really....

all i can say to you is "get your filthy hands off my desert"....
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We do tend to overlook his "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes" comments from the Kurdish uprising in the 1920 Iraqi revolt against the British. Whether they were used or not remains a point of contention. That he was all in favour of it, however, is not.
 
But worst of all, Churchill was ...a Liberal!

He switched sides more than once, but he was a serving member of the Liberal party for may years.
 
minator said:
But worst of all, Churchill was ...a Liberal!

He switched sides more than once, but he was a serving member of the Liberal party for may years.
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and of course someone has to bring up the moot point of party affiliation. as if a sociopath swears allegience to anything other than his/her own grandiose ideal of the perfect world where they matter most....
 
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