Necessarily undergirding the policy aspirations of modern liberalism is a disbelief in the competency of people as individuals and in the aggregate to determine, promote and defend their own interests. Attendant to this is the conviction that government must step in and fill the void, accomplishing for people what they cannot accomplish for themselves. Without such benevolent intervention the individual and society are left helplessly at the mercy of larger impersonal forces like corporations, capitalism, poverty, racism, sexism, ignorance and all other manner of evil. Government and government alone must not only stand between these overwhelming forces and the people but gently (yet firmly) guide the people towards their best interests and full potential by adopting policies that will manipulate behavior and actions in a desired direction.
Liberalism and its disciples need not say as much – the sum of their causes and policies declares it for them.
To wit, liberals have long favored "fair lending" standards whereby lending entities would be essentially compelled to provide loans to people of lower incomes that would not otherwise qualify.
They have long been the champion of tighter federal regulation over American business, especially in times of economic anxiety like the present, lest American capitalism run amok and devour the many to the sole advantage of the few.
They have sought to save the environment and, by extension, civilization itself through the comprehensive governmental restriction of carbon emissions and through measures like federal fuel standards and expansive subsidies of "green energies." Breathlessly liberals will tell anyone who will listen (a declining number) that we are on the most extreme precipice of climatic disaster, dire warnings that have often been attended by computer-generated images of American cities halfway underwater.
To the extent the Left favors tax cuts to stimulate the economy it is in the form of tax "credits" that are provided if, and only if, a specific entity performs a governmentally-favored action; i.e. credits to businesses for hiring new employees and to individuals for trading in their old cars in for newer ones or for buying a home. Scarcely if ever does it cross their mind to give tax reductions to individuals and to businesses to do with that money as they see fit.
In the recently enacted health-care "reform," the federal government even goes so far as to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance for themselves.
Of course there is the litany of smaller measures liberals in all levels of government have enacted that further reinforce the image of the state as parent: seat-belt laws, anti-smoking laws, "sin taxes" and the like.
None of these projects in isolation, let alone taken as a whole, conveys a faith in the people to promote their own best interests. Instead the liberalism and liberals that favor and increasingly enact them place the preponderance of their faith – in deed, if not in word – in the dual capacity of the state as protector of the people and as the primary vehicle in manipulating behavior in desired directions. The determination and acquisition of the public good is possible only through a centralized state comprised of enlightened officials, an infinite number of czars and a bloated civil-service corps of over-compensated bureaucrats. The right decisions are not made in America's living rooms or at its kitchen tables but inside Washington's government office buildings.
This condescension has been coupled with an almost sneering contempt often expressed when liberalism's faithful attempt to implement the measures their fundamental views require, especially since the Obama-Reid-Pelosi axis assumed power in January of last year. In the three major initiatives since that time – the economic recovery package, cap-and-trade, and health-care "reform" – the powers that be have sought to enact into law measures nearly- to indisputably-opposed by the American people.
Health-care would be Exhibit A (and B, C, and D). From the very beginning of the debate a distinct and vociferous majority of Americans opposed Congress' and the President's proposals and gave voice to that opposition in town hall meetings, opinion polls, letters to the editor, and Tea Party rallies throughout the country.
Yet instead of being given pause by the boisterous vox populii, Washington's leading liberals doubled-down and forced through legislation on strictly party-line votes made possible by a series of corrupt bargains, most notably the "Louisiana Purchase" and the "Cornhusker Kickback." Previous promises of "the most ethical Congress in history" and a new age of transparency and post-partisanship became faint echoes when the leaders of Congress and the White House decided they would suffer nothing – not even the vocal non-consent of the governed – to slow down an agenda they had yearned for decades to enact.
Such arrogant disregard for popular opinion was compounded by assurances from the White House that Americans would grow less opposed to the reform once it passed. The attitude underlying such a belief was plain: whiny Americans would be given their medicine and, once down, would eventually tire of their tantrum and start to feel better once they realized the government was simply doing what was best for them. The nanny state knows best, in other words. It's the same type of reassurance children have heard from their parents for generations.
That Americans have not desisted in their tantrum post facto as had been assured has only caused the Left to persist in its contempt, with luminaries like Eugene Robinson complaining that Americans are "acting like a bunch of spoiled brats."
As obnoxious as this sneering haughtiness is, it can only be deemed to go hand in hand with the underlying worldview of modern liberalism. Examined logically, why would a political class as we have now bat an eyelash at popular objection to their policies when those policies reflect the conviction that the people are bereft of the ability to thrive without the advanced involvement of government – without, that is, those policies? If the people ultimately knew what was good for them and could attain it the liberal initiatives they object to would not be needed. A view that reduces people to de facto wards of the state has no more problem taking actions that confound the wishes of the people than a parent does making a complaining seven year old eat his broccoli. The dynamic between the two is identical.
Such is the state of modern liberalism that it is inherently an exercise in condescension and contempt. Those who determine the course of government believe exclusively in the government's (i.e. in their own) ability to determine and attain the public good. It is in this sense that we can fully and finally understand Barack Obama's declaration that, "We are the ones we've been waiting for."
No comments:
Post a Comment