April 10, 2006
The State of the Left
Jonah Goldberg at NRO thinks that the riots in France are telling for what they're rioting about: "These rabid rebels smashing their way through people and property alike, shouting revolutionary slogans and playing Robespierre in a FCUK hoodie are demanding . . . continued job security with paid vacations. Gone are the days of tearing down the system. Now is the time to burn a car for better dental benefits."
In typical Jonah fashion, he is funny with an underlying message. The Republicans may have atrophied as a governing power in the previous ten years (cf. ThreeSources blog), but the left always seems to be fighting to not tamper with Social Security (1935) or not change the Great Society (1965). Goldberg points out that it's now the left who have stolen his old boss's mantra and are "standing athwart history yelling stop!"
The smartest and most passionate thinkers of American liberalism are more actuary than revolutionary. Scan the pages of The New Republic or The American Prospect and you will learn that the sunny uplands of history can be reached not by sticking it to the man but by expanding the earned income tax credit and jiggling around some obscure provision of Medicare Part B. They're the rebels with a clause.
I suppose they have big ideas over at "The Nation." But the mainstream left and Democratic party and the left-of0center think tanks seem a little thin on the ideas side.
The rest of this article is worthy of discussion as well. He discusses a new book from Charles Murray called "In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State." He's going to replace welfare with a direct payment to every American. I'm gonna have to think about that one, but the point is that an idea is out there.
UPDATE: The statist left wins in France: WSJ:
PARIS – French President Jacques Chirac scrapped a controversial labor-contract law aimed at boosting youth employment, in a major about-face following weeks of strikes and mass protests by students and workers.