Look For The Leftist Label
Jonah Goldberg takes on the subject of labels. He points out that the left is running away from the term 'liberal' and embracing 'progressive'. Both terms mean nothing of the sort, however.
Now, when the presumptive standard bearer of the Democratic Party and the political (and matrimonial) heir to the only Democratic president to be elected to two terms since Franklin Roosevelt says she's not a liberal, it's actually quite a big deal.
But first, do note how crafty Clinton is being. She makes it sound as though she's lamenting the unfair transformation of the word "liberal" from lover of individual freedom to champion of big government.
How, exactly, does Clinton think liberal came to mean "big government?" Could it have had something to do with her attempt to nationalize one-seventh of the U.S. economy under her health care plan, or maybe with her book, It Takes a Village, which suggests that the government intrude itself into every nook and cranny of our lives?
Clinton's answer taps into the common complaint on the left that the word "liberal" has fallen into disrepute not because of the policies of liberals, but thanks to the villainously cynical distortions of conservatives. "The greatest triumph that conservatives ever achieved," liberal columnist Clarence Page recently complained, "is to make liberals embarrassed to call themselves 'liberal.' "
Right. The failures of the Great Society, bussing, racial quotas, high taxes, the Vietnam War (both its beginning and end), Jimmy Carter's "malaise," the nuclear freeze movement, lax law enforcement, speech codes, abortion on demand, bilingual education and, of course, Michael Dukakis: We're expected to believe none of these things can be weighed against liberalism. Liberalism, after all, is never wrong. It must be those mustache-twirling henchmen Lee Atwater and Karl Rove who are to blame.
One might also ask, if Clinton laments how liberalism has become identified with big government, why it is she wants to revive the progressive label. After all, if liberal is a misnomer for statists, progressive represents a long-overdue return to truth in labeling. In Europe, after all, liberals are the free-market, small-government types. But in America, the same people came to be called conservatives in no small part because they were trying to conserve liberal ideas of limited government amid the riot of social engineering during the Progressive Era that Clinton is so nostalgic for.
As Goldberg points out, 'progressive' at one time came to mean 'Stalinist'. But it has been out of mainstream use for quite a while until the latest revival. But liberal or progressive, it is leftism.
Other Links to this Post
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Progressing To What? — Thursday, 9 August , 2007 @ 11:20 am
By FedUp, Tuesday, 7 August , 2007 @ 11:43 am
A rose by any other name…..
By terrence, Tuesday, 7 August , 2007 @ 1:01 pm
It all depends upon what the meaning of “is” is!
By Bleepless, Thursday, 9 August , 2007 @ 7:38 pm
There is, or was, a Progressive Caucus at the Democratic National Convention. Rather gilding the lily.