Liberalism Is Fundamentally Unsound

You know how I've often said that liberalism always eventually comes into conflict with itself? C. Edmund Wright has a terrific column at American Thinker about just this subject, so read the whole thing:

There's a law that liberals always shatter. (And no, I'm not talking about tax law.) It's the law of unintended consequences. Actually it's not so much liberals per se that break it so much as it seems liberal thinking by definition always runs afoul of this law. Leftist policy always hangs itself if given enough rope.

The liberals now have the entire stage with a very liberal President, extreme leftists in control of Congress, and the main stream media. Liberal failure has nowhere to hide and no one to hide behind. So as the Obama administration attempts to attack the country's economic woes, they find themselves stepping in one pile of liberal policy do-do after another. You might say that the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The world will have to watch as liberal policy for problem A destroys Obama goals for problem B and so on.

Consider: with Obama, Reid and Pelosi screaming for the country to accept a ridiculous stimulus package to create jobs, jobs, jobs -- liberals in Chicago are standing in the way of a Wal-Mart Super Center that would bring in construction and retail jobs to the messiah's hometown. By the way, liberals will also keep the lowest cost provider of food and clothes and home goods from being accessed by hurting Chicagoans.

The reason? The liberal principle of protecting union jobs at all costs. Remember, behind every economic disaster is a powerful union. And sometimes a community organizer.

Which leads to another example. Union jobs at the big three auto makers have been supported for years by the high priced and high profit SUVs and pick up trucks. Of course, liberal environmentalists have long made the SUV a target, while limiting domestic energy production. Greenies are doing everything they can to destroy the SUV, and with it, many union jobs, and almost succeeded during the last energy price spike.

Oh, and should we mention the fact that those oil rig jobs that pay a ton of money to mostly union members cannot be had here thanks to drilling restrictions in this country? The Russians and Venezuelans send their thanks to American liberals.

But it gets better. This contradiction, which has been predictable for anyone with some linear thinking ability, has escaped the minds of millions of Michigan voters educated by the liberal-controlled public school system. They have for decades voted for politicians illogically holding pro-green yet pro-UAW positions simultaneously. Voters of that very liberal state have no one to blame but themselves. They voted themselves out of an economy over a period of years. This is the state where Obama went to pick up a good share of his economic advisors. No wonder it is home to the Detroit Lions.

Meanwhile, back in Washington and New York, liberals in Congress and in the media are having a field day chastising corporations for buying jets, hiring contractors to renovate posh office suites, and giving big bonuses to executives.

Well guess what? Buying jets, hiring upper end contractors and giving bonuses stimulate the economy. It is job friendly. And that's what we need now, right? Oops. More liberal fertilizer. Liberalism simply cannot get out of its own way. Especially hurt is lefty New York, where the economy is reeling from a number of factors.

But of course, the liberal tenet of wealth envy is paramount to common sense. And apparently, to jobs. Speaking of which, if you break down the Starbucks corporate jet issue, it is especially delicious with unintended consequences.

The coffee purveyor, you remember, was mercilessly raked across the media's coals for taking delivery on a 45 million dollar jet while it was closing stores and laying off barristas. So they cancelled the jet order.

Think about that. Starbuck's deposit on the jet was lost, which is foolish under any circumstances. Further, that jet is now back "on the showroom floor" so to speak, reducing by one the need to manufacture such planes. So to keep some "hamburger flipper" type jobs that liberals make fun of, many high paying jet manufacturing jobs were lost. The only thing stimulating about that equation is the Starbucks caffeine.

And we could go on like this simply with stories from today's headlines. It's a fact of life. Liberal policies in action always cave in on themselves. They always have.

Take liberal Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement of Hitler in the 30's. We must have "peace in our time." How did that work out? It took a violent victory, not a phony peace, to bring lasting peace. The peace effort led to a stronger Hitler and ultimately millions more deaths than "war mongering" policies would have led to.

Look back at 9-11. Some thirty years of liberal policies regarding intelligence gathering, intelligence sharing and prosecuting terrorists led to an attack that killed three thousand Americans in, well, two of the nations' most liberal cities. You cannot say this in polite company, but statistically some 90% of the victims likely voted for the policies that led to the dreadful day. Shhhhh.

Think about abortion. The feminist movement has called this a women's issue. It is defined as the ultimate right for women. Fine. The result? The most likely fetus on the planet to be aborted is a female in China. That's women's rights we can believe in, right? Talk about the circle of life -- er -- death.

Consider school choice. This issue is demagogued by the teachers' unions above all else. These are unions who are obsessed with raising teacher pay. What would be the teacher pay result of a broad school choice program? It would be the equivalent of "free agency" for good teachers and administrators. Think about what free agency has done for pay for athletes. Another circular liberal firing squad in action.

Take California's government cash meltdown. The main culprit is retiree benefits for unionized government workers in the state. And of course, the result is that current unionized government workers are being laid off, furloughed and not hired. More liberal on liberal crime.

And let's not forget Europe and their coddling of Islamists for decades. Their payback is a near takeover of European society by gangs and street violence, not to mention ridiculous rules and regulations in airports and schools and other public places.

Liberalism's failure is universal because liberalism embraces a false view of human nature as perfectible, if only the right political arrangements exist . And it would be funny, except that the consequences are so devastating to so many people. And so often the victims are the very liberals the policy was supposed to protect.

The only good news is this: with liberal Democrats front and center on all stages governmental now, they will be opposed by a much more formidable foe than a Republican President and a Congress dying to just get along. They will be opposed by the obvious truth of their bankrupt philosophy.

Those last two paragraphs are key - it's a bankrupt philosophy that is based on political expediency. I would add that its foundation steadfastly avoids the concept of objective truth in any form. When you have no clearly defined set of values or sense of right and wrong, then everything simply becomes a matter of persuasion. Whoever can persuade the most people of their own wishes will win. It has nothing to do with facts and nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with what's convenient at the moment.

That's why liberalism always eventually comes back into conflict with itself, and that's why liberals cannot be allowed to dictate policy. The fact that they are now squarely in such a position is why the next 2-4 years are likely to put America into a massive and legitimate crisis.

There's my two cents.