Positive Thoughts

Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom has an optimistic post about the politics most of us (all of us) would like, and he agrees with me in terminology.

No, I think classical liberalism will make it’s comeback—and the “libertarian” streak we see in the blogosphere is an early indicator of where I think the politics of many Americans, should they stop and try to clearly pigeonhole them, would come to rest. The greatest victory for the Democrats has been to win the mantle of “liberal”—which continues to imply, years after it surrendered its soul to collectivism and soft socialism - that it carries with it the kind of force for individual liberty.

It does not, at least not as it is currently used by the Democrats. Which is why I prefer to refer to them as “progressives.” Today’s classical liberalism leans back right; and as more and more people recognize this, the civil rights narrative can and will change.

To set the ground for this narrative shift, however, it will be necessary for “conservatives” to be equally critical of those who cleave to the “conservative” mantle but whose actions and policy initiatives are no more, oftentimes, than blue-nosed progressivism and rightwing collectivism.

A return to the primacy of the individual—to classical liberal and the legal conservatism that ensure it—are the remedy for the failures of bad (if initially well-intentioned) social policies that for the last 40 or so years have weakened America’s central strength: it’s suggesting that individual liberty, with the attendant equality of opportunity, is the centerpiece for a successful and healthy democratic republic.

George Bush continues to deliver this message to the rest of the world in an effort to defeat global tyranny. It’s time we make that argument more forcefully here, at home, where the drift from such truisms, once adopted and celebrated, is becoming most pronounced.

The context of this is an excellent post about the King funeral and the Democrats' co-opting the civil rights struggle they opposed.

The piece above on John Bolton's moustache is excellent as well

Politics Posted by jk at February 9, 2006 7:22 AM