Why Liberals Hate You

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Rare is the day when I have cause to express gratitude to Matt Yglesias, but his expression of the statist view could not be clearer:

 

 

Could we write a 10,000-word essay on the crypto-totalitarian assumptions of this statement? Sure we could. But why bother, when Iowahawk does it in 140-characters or less?

 

 

The temptation to teach a political philosophy class here is strong, but must be resisted. Let us merely assume, therefore, that our readers are familiar with those conservative thinkers who scoff at the “state of nature” in which too many philosphers have based their deluded egalitarian theories. There was never any such “state of nature.”

Government began with the family, and its authority was developed in other such organic institutions which the state did nothing to create, but which the state is obligated to defend. The state should be the servant of its citizens and not the master, and there is no “democratic” right that permits the state to defraud citizens of their property for the benefit of any special interest or political constituency. But as I say, I’m resisting the temptation to teach a class. Let’s keep it to Tweets.

 

 

At this very moment, the state’s wife is trying to get the state’s children out of the state’s beds, but they’re not going to the state’s schools to get the state’s education. The state may tax us to provide such schools, but the state cannot compel our children to attend them — at least, not yet. Matt Yglesias would probably say that my wife and I are stealing these children from the state.

UPDATE: William J. Hoge wonders, “What are they teaching kids these days?” Ah, but Yglesias was magna cum laude at Harvard.

The absolute disconnect between the statist idolatry of Yglesias and any real sense of history is not, I think, accidental.

“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion— to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.”
—Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1979)

This is what the the statism of Yglesias neglects, “the sense of belonging” to something more permanent than a peer group, a social clique or a self-chosen political category. Yglesias is profoundly alienated from America, unable to relate to or empathize with the Founders or their vision, and thinks it “false consciousness” (or ignorant adherence to a “myth”) if others do.

Patriotism the decadent likes of Yglesias cannot comprehend, except insofar as they can redefine America to fit their philosophy, and then command your allegiance to their creation.

Nor is it an accident that such shallow self-regarding elitists contemptuously dismiss religion as another ignorant myth, because God and God’s laws must be overthrown if their own authority to dictate to others — performing the role of Platonic archons — is to be recognized without challenge. Their possession of elite credentials would otherwise be devalued, and they would be unjustly deprived of that which they most crave, an unquestioned status of superiority over others.

Their egalitarian theory is thus exposed as dishonest hypocrisy: While they are willing to redistribute the property of others, they cling with jealous ferocity to that which they most fanatically crave, namely their own prestige and privileges.

Our humility in thinking ourselves no better than our ancestors — my great-grandfather was entirely illiterate, as perhaps were your own forebears — is incomprehensible to intellectuals, who confuse their skill at articulation with wisdom and virtue. Hayek examined this confusion in “The Intellectuals and Socialism,” as did Thomas Sowell in The Vision of the Anointed. Once you understand that a man might be fluent and persuasive while yet being foolish and vicious, then you are less likely to be dazzled or deceived by the elite credentials and wordy pretensions of such impudent intellectual bullies as Matthew Yglesias.

They hate you most thoroughly, except you are so microscopically insignificant as to be beneath their notice, so that these would-be philosopher-kings regard you with complete contempt.

 





 

 


113 comments

  6. Because of my poor writing skilz, I didn’t get my simplistic point across. Free market is the only true form of democracy. I.E. people “vote for” by purchasing things they like or enjoy, OTOH people “vote out” items or services that they don’t purchase.

  11. Which is precisely why our Founding Fathers sought to place the police power as close to the citizen as possible. In order to limit authority and foster accountability.

    And why progressives of all stripes have been moving it further and further towards DC ever since.

    None of this is accidental.

  13. From what I’ve read, recent discoveries indicate the impulse to stay in one place predated agriculture. We learned how to grow our own food as a RESULT of having a concept of “our” territory vs. “others” territory.

  15. Gordon Gecko was a fictional character, invented by a leftist screen writer. He doesn’t exist. He never existed.

    Yet lefties insist on basing policy on not just his existence, but his ubiquity.

  22. No problem. I actually started with CALIPHATE, which is, if anything, even more grim than A DESERT CALLED PEACE and its sequels.

  31. Rush is commenting on the Luntz review of this right now. Luntz is saying while the spin that Romney does not “care” about the 47% has the potential the harm him, if he distinguishes that and explains what he meant it has the potential to help him.

  35. Why the hell are people disliking this comment?

    Maybe English is you all’s second language but I dissed MATT in this comment.

    The Stopped Clock sentence was aimed at matt.

    Not Stacy/Smitty.

    Unless of course a bunch of Matt Yglesias fanbois were on the blog earlier.

    I dunno. English is not that hard to understand folks. Unless of course you already have an opinion of what’s being said regardless of what IS said.

    I only mention it because I hardly ever get dislikes and not 5 at a time. (well unless I’ve been slumming at some progressive pit.)

  41. There were parts of it that verged on gore porn, and other parts that went all the way over that cliff. Otherwise, your plot summary is spot on.

  44. True, but I see where Kratman also looked unflinchingingly at the cost of being unwilling to make hard choices and at being willing to pay the price for hard choices made, and refused to back away from the fact that even the noblest war brutalizes. He’s a lot closer, in my opinion, to William Manchester than Rambo.

  45. Let’s put it this way: his protagonist has demons which he almost always manages to rein in damned near in time.

    And I’m sorry, the scene where the terrorists are trying to torture a masochist for information… Loose synopsis:

    “Well, she’s screaming, oh my commander…”
    “But is she giving you any information?”
    “More like… instructions…”

    And you’ll never get better advice as to when to grab the axe during an ecstatic axe dance…

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