Liberals Today are Nothing but Illiberal
What is an ideology that does not follow its core values or guiding principles, if not a hollow word.
Liberalism in today’s world is far from the definition of what liberalism actually is, in many senses liberalism is dead. The change from Calvin Coolidge who is deemed as the last classical liberal president to FDR is enormous. In fact those on both the left and right still have issues with defining what the New Deal and Roosevelt’s policies really exemplified. Christopher Hitchens made a remark on an episode of firing line with William F. Buckley in 1984 pertaining to this issue. He said, “during that time businessmen would’ve called the New Deal socialism if not communism and those on the left would’ve called it fascist” what is clear though during that time is that FDR was anything but “Liberal” but the Democratic Party didn’t seem to know that and neither did the public. Before I get into why liberals aren’t who they say they are, we must first discuss what liberalism is and what it’s principles are.
“All mankind being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”- John Locke
John Locke is generally considered the founding father of liberalism and also is a man who greatly influenced the founding fathers of the United States. Locke followed what he called Natural Law, in which we are all born free and are naturally free. The core principles of liberalism are…
Free Markets
Individual Rights
Limited Government
And Equal Rights among all people
Locke also concluded that unborn children should also be given the same rights as those who are outside of the womb. From everything I’ve said so far you must be thinking “Gee this doesn’t sound like Barack Obama or Joe Biden at all!” You’d be right. Let’s dig deeper than that though, let’s go further into the black heart that is liberalism today. In order to do that we must see how liberalism has turned against every core value it was founded on and how it is truly dead.
On Economics
Liberalism has been one of the biggest advocates for freedom in the marketplace. Influenced by Adam Smith, the founders believed in an economy in which man is free to spend and invest as he saw fit. Liberalism was to be an ideology of liberty and individualism, it was to allow man to act in his own self interest and to seek his own happiness. Things have changed though, today’s liberals believe in capitalism yet have little to no faith in it. They hate the idea of people making money off their own mind and their own ideas, they dislike that wealthy people are able to have expendable capital in which they can invest in their companies, they hate how many want to keep what they earned. Liberals have lost all love and respect for the free market.
At every turn they seek to influence the economy, whether by regulation or taxation, they want nothing more than to have power over the private business and power over economic freedom. Liberals of the past wouldn’t dare make such rules and regulations over the individual, in fact many would’ve cheered on those who became successful, because when the entrepreneur, the scientist, the architect, the doctor, when these people succeed in following in their self interest then we all succeed in the fact that a new business, a new drug will be of benefit to all.
As Adam Smith once said…
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
In this case, liberals today are not liberals.
On Limited Government
When it comes to the power of government it doesn’t take much to explain why today’s liberals aren’t pro limiting government's power. Nevertheless I’ll continue on.
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”- John Locke
Government today has grown under both those calling themselves conservatives and those calling themselves liberals. Liberals though have been the biggest source of government growth, whether it came from FDR, LBJ, or Barack Obama, liberals have increasingly expanded the government's role in our daily lives. Whether it be the programs constructed under the New Deal, Great Society, or Obamacare, all liberals of today’s stripe hate the idea of government being restrained in any way or shape. Locke and many other real liberals saw the growth of government as being an endangerment to man's freedom and his ability to live life in the way he saw fit.
This again shows that liberals today are not liberals.
On Individualism and Equality
Under Locke’s philosophy, individuals are king. We aren’t thrown together in groups, we aren’t judged by our skin color nor our socioeconomic background, instead we are judged by our merits and hard work. Liberals of today though would have you believe that instead we need to judge one by their victim hood. Those who they deem to be the victims of whatever they see are their oppressors are needed to be placed on a pedestal in order for us to achieve some form of social harmony. Equality of opportunity is increasingly looked down on as a wrong goal, instead we must aim for an equal outcome. Just think about that, imagine a society in which you can do nothing productive for your entire life and then at the end of life you can reap the rewards and benefits of those who worked everyday or saved every penny possible, such a society would be doomed to end in collapse. As Milton Friedman once said…
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
In this case if you aren’t free to fail then you are not free at all.
Liberalism is not the ideology of hardworking men and women that it used to be. It isn’t the philosophy of those who seek after their own interests in order to have a happy life, instead liberalism and today’s liberals is an ideology of spoiled ungrateful brats. Indeed P.J O’Rourke pointed out in a brilliant quote
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
If I might add, liberalism is the mindset of those people on the left who have grown up in an age of participation prizes, medals for everyone, a society in which merit plays no role in your career, and where feelings and personal platitudes over take that of work ethic and ability.
Therefore today’s liberals and liberalism are indeed illiberal.