Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[Marchog]

For example, I probably hold some positions on things that are considerably to the left (or is that "progressive" ?) of many folks here. On the other hand, I believe in capital punishment, work for welfare, a capable and well-funded military, and selective immigration: all traditionally "conservative" positions. I don't believe in "political correctness", but I do believe that there can be reasonable limits to free speech in a civil society. But, I do not want to be stuck in with either the Left or the Right or unthinkingly subscribe to any dogma. Where does that leave  me?

Depending on what exactly you mean by "progressive" (a term that seems to lean on a fallacious "appeal to novelty") , that could potentially leave you here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Tory or even some aspects of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism.

The conventional left-right spectrum doesn't work for me either. I'm not so much in favour of libertarian social darwinist economic policies (though probably would be considered "centre/centre right" economically) and have a bit of a protectionist streak, but on the other hand am generally culturally and socially conservative and in favour of monarchy. For this reason I feel at odds with every mainstream political party in Canada.

 

[pbi]

Having read the links you posted, I'd have to say that I really don't identify with almost anything under the "Paleoconservative" banner. From what I can see, their belief system would, if pursued to its ultimate conclusion, roll back most of the major advancements in society that I am in support of. It might be well-intentioned, but then so is communism.
Red Toryism is perhaps closer to where I stand. I probably identify much more with the  "old Tory" party of Diefenbaker and Stanfield,  than with later variations of conservatism that sometimes seem to be informed largely by Fox  Network.

What I do definitely agree with in these philosophies are both "localism" and a strong sense of community as a civil society in which people partake fully, particularly through voluntarism. I believe in buying local and buying Canadian as much as possible, since these strengthen communities.

 

[Marchog]

I think you and me would get along quite well then politically, at least in some fundemental ways.

:nod:

I think the old PC party died a few decades too early. Modern Canadian conservatism (such as espoused by the OP and quite a few posters in this thread) is too close to the pseudo-libertarian American brand than I am really comfortable with. I voted for them in the last few elections but honestly, it's more because I dislike the other parties even more.

 

[a_majoor]

As a small "l" libertarian, I am not particularly pleased with the choices on offer either.

One of the issues is that language has been heavily corrupted: the core principles espoused by the modern "Conservative" party are based on 18th century Liberalism, the "New" Democrats  wish to create a regulatory state where citizens are wards of an unelected bureaucracy, while the Liberal Party is a transactive party with no philosophical core at all. Even "Progressiveism" has transformed, they want to maintain a death grip on social and Political institutions and continue with programs that had their genesis in the late 1800's, essentially date to the 1930's for their large scale introduction and are closely related to Fascism (although no Progressive will EVER admit to that).

Try having a coherent political discussion in this environment, and as you have discovered, traditional political labels are very vague and imprecise.

My hope for the future is two fold:

1. New smal scale technologies that create wealth and communications techniques that bypass traditional "gatekeepers" empower individuals, not bureaucrats or the State, and are moving into more and more people's hands. Even our friend ArmyRick is an example of this, he has a farm and is (in theory) relatively self sufficient (his farming methods deliberately minimize external "inputs"), while he can share his experience and knowledge with the entire world through the Internet. He can also sell his produce through the Internet to a market that would have been inaccessable even a few years ago.

2. The structures and institutions created by the Progressive Project are rapidly running out of both resources and relevance. Financial bankruptcy is causing many of the projects and institutions to be scaled back or dismantled, and people also see the moral and often legal bankruptcy of Progressive ideas, based as they are on calculated inequality, such as racial quotas for applications for jobs or school placement or the forced redistribution of wealth from the productive to the idle.

Understanding point 2 is important, Progressives get tied up in knots when confronted with the contradictions and hypocrisy of their positions (which is also why they are champions of restricting free speech through various means like "Political Correctness", Human Rights Tribunals and SLAPP lawsuits, to silence people wh might speak against them). A continuing program of confrontation and education will eventually allow more people to see not only what they have done, but also how to escape them.

 

[Marchog]

Try having a coherent political discussion in this environment, and as you have discovered, traditional political labels are very vague and imprecise.

I've known that for a while. I am example of the elusive, majestic classical conservative frolicking in its not-so-natural habitat.

My main problem with political language is the term  "progressive" which carries connotations of positive change (which it not necessarily the case) and the modern confusion of the terms "change" and "progress" (not synonyms) as well as "justice" and "equality" (also not synonyms). There is also a confusion between "impulse/desire" and "fundemental right", which I think drives a good amount of the entitlement generation that I am a part of, both fiscally and socially.

(You know, now that I think of it, I should really do more work on my application process for the CF rather than uselessly discussing politics on Army.ca. The internet is a horrible thing for distractions.)

 

[a_majoor]

(You know, now that I think of it, I should really do more work on my application process for the CF rather than uselessly discussing politics on Army.ca. The internet is a horrible thing for distractions.)

TV Tropes on the Internet is a horrible source of distraction. 

While yes, you should get to work on your application, you should also continue to cultivate a broad and diverse set of interests. It makes you a better and more capable person, and one who is less liekly to become or want to become a ward of the State.

 

[pbi]

As a small "l" libertarian, I am not particularly pleased with the choices on offer either.



My hope for the future is two fold:

1. New smal scale technologies that create wealth and communications techniques that bypass traditional "gatekeepers" empower individuals, not bureaucrats or the State, and are moving into more and more people's hands.

I agree generally, but to "bureaucrats or the State" I would also add "big corporations with no stake in the community". I look forward to a time when we see the return of local farms, dairies, bakeries, and even manufacturing as bases for strong communities. I know that I am sailing into the prevailing wind of globalisation and macroeconomics, but one can still be hopeful.
A problem with my thinking (yes..these do exist...) is that what seems to work well in a community of 10 or 20 thousand may work less well in a city of 500,000 and not at all in a  metropolis of 4 million.

2. The structures and institutions created by the Progressive Project are rapidly running out of both resources and relevance.

I tend to agree. While I don't indulge in a blanket condemnation of social programs, I am sure that they have abuses: these are easy to see all around us. As much as I may have my differences with this current version of Toryism in government, I do applaud their realism when it comes to reforming pensions and in reminding Canadians that things have a price, and that an entitlement mentality is not good for our future.  When  I am gone, I want my two children to inherit a functioning country, not a bankrupt train wreck.

Understanding point 2 is important, Progressives get tied up in knots when confronted with the contradictions and hypocrisy of their positions (which is also why they are champions of restricting free speech through various means like "Political Correctness", Human Rights Tribunals and SLAPP lawsuits, to silence people wh might speak against them). A continuing program of confrontation and education will eventually allow more people to see not only what they have done, but also how to escape them.

Well...you and I will probably never agree on what a "progressive" really is, but I am not a fan of political correctness any more than I am of stupid and inflammatory hate speech. Perhaps the best guardian of free speech is more free speech: let ideas be challenged by other ideas, not pre-emptively shut down in the hopes of not offending some oversensitive soul. That is probably too naive a concept, but I think that in many ways better than some of the travesties that PC engenders.

Like the person who complained in the paper about the village of Tweed, ON's "Adopt a Hydrant" program a few years back. Their politically correct missive in the paper said that the initiative marginalized and demeaned adopted children. That sort of rubbish is what I mean.

 

[ModlrMike]

I think one of the unrecognized failures of progressivism is the usurpation of the volunteer, particularly the faith based volunteer. In the past faith and community based groups provided a significant number of services to people both from within and without their core of parishioners / neighbors. Along comes government that says "you can't do that, but we can" only to find that today government can't and the volunteer organizations have lost the capacity to step into the void.

The result has been a loosening of community bonds to the point of fracture, and the corresponding loss of community self sufficiency and cohesion.

 

[Marchog]

I think one of the unrecognized failures of progressivism is the usurpation of the volunteer, particularly the faith based volunteer. In the past faith and community based groups provided a significant number of services to people both from within and without their core of parishioners / neighbors. Along comes government that says "you can't do that, but we can" only to find that today government can't and the volunteer organizations have lost the capacity to step into the void.

The result has been a loosening of community bonds to the point of fracture, and the corresponding loss of community self sufficiency and cohesion.

Amen to this (pun intended).

I find that one of the ironies of left-liberalism (and sometimes even right-liberalism) is that it removes traditional institutions and then complains about problems caused by the vacuum that they leave. Not to say that some of those problems didn't exist previously, but the weakening of particularly social institutional bodies (IE the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches) left a gap that so far only the strong arm of the state has replaced.

 

[Edward Campbell]

At the risk of repeating myself ...

We, humans, who live in communities ~ and that's about 99.99% of us ~ have, over the millennia, and continue, today, to make an explicit agreement with one another: we will sacrifice some fundamental liberties for the good of the community. Stopping at red lights, sending our kids to school and getting flu shots are good examples. Not all of us do all those things and, probably, there is a tiny group who live in communities and do none of them, but ...

The issue is: how many liberties do we agree to surrender?

The state, which is almost the biggest of all collectives, is in the business of taking as many liberties as it can; we ought to be in the business of denying the state's appropriations of our rights, but too few of us notice or care very much.

I fancy myself an old fashioned liberal: I don't think there are many fundamental rights; I agree to life, liberty and property, all as defined by John Locke circa 1689, and privacy, as defined, mainly, by Warren and Brandies in the USA in 1890. I believe one of the few fundamental duties of the state is to protect the individual from the machinations and depredations of all collectives, including groups, churches and the state, itself.

I understand, however, that there are conservatives, mainly Confucians, who value families, and families which extend into communities, over individuals and who are willing to sacrifice some rights I consider quite fundamental ~ privacy, mainly ~ and many privileges (which many consider rights) such as freedom of assembly and expression in order to conserve the peace and stability of the community.

I agree with those great voices of the enlightenment that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The revolutionaries in the 13 American colonies recognized that, "Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

"But," Jefferson, et al noted, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

It is important to remember that it is not the transient policies of Barack Obama or Stephen Harper, objectionable as some may find them, that merit revolution; it is not even the policies of a Maurice Duplessis, Huey Long or George Wallace that qualify as despotism; we have a functioning democracy, imperfect as it may be and as all others are, and we must try to make it work to guard our "future security."

For me the fundamental issue is: how little must government do? What are its "just powers?" And, of course, how do we strip it of powers that its doesn't need, shouldn't have or which are unjust?

 

[a_majoor]

More on University "Brown Shirts". Using violence or implied violence to supress free speech is the hallmark of all authoratarians, but what is much more interesting is the historical example of the correct way to deal with opposing ideas.

Looking at how Canadian Universities treat conservative speakers or people like Israel's Prime Minister, we see pretty much the same reaction here, and this attitude also explains the actions of free speech opponents like the HRC's and people who wage SLAPP lawfare against people who express ideas that the censors can't or won't find counterarguments for.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/brown-prof-recalls-when-a-real-fascist-came-to-campus-calls-ray-kelly-shout-down-a-shameful-day/

Brown Prof recalls when a real fascist came to campus, calls Ray Kelly shout down “a shameful day”
Posted by William A. Jacobson  
Friday, November 1, 2013 at 8:35pm
Brown U. Prof. to Kelly protesters: “Yours was an act of cowardice and fear, unworthy of any of the causes you claim to hold dear”

There was some real angry ugliness at Brown University Tuesday night, as NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was shouted down and his lecture shut down.

There has been celebration in some circles at Brown, but not from Biology Professor Ken Miller, a Brown grad himself.

Miller wrote a wonderful letter to the Brown Daily Herald about his experience hearing George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, speak at Brown in the late 1960s, and how it compared to the shout down of Kelly.

Read the whole thing, this excerpt will not do it justice:

I went to scores of seminars and talks during my four years as an undergraduate at Brown, but the one I will never forget took place on the evening of Nov. 30, 1966.The speaker, a Brown alum, had been invited by the Faunce House Board of Governors to take part in its fall lecture series. But once his name was announced, a storm of objections forced the board to withdraw its invitation. Counterprotests ensued citing academic freedom and arguing that our campus should be open to all views, even — and perhaps especially — to those a majority of its members found repugnant.

The speaker was George Lincoln Rockwell ’40, leader of the American Nazi Party.

A new campus group called “Open Mind” was formed. Once recognized by the University, it re-invited Rockwell to campus. Rockwell spoke to a packed house in Alumnae Hall….

For the first time in my life, I understood the allure of fascism, the reason that “good people” could have supported the likes of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. I also understood why the notion that “it couldn’t happen here” is hopelessly naive. It could happen here, and it most certainly would happen if we forgot the lessons of history, lessons that Rockwell brought to life with a sinister smile that evening in Alumnae Hall. I’m glad I was there. I’m glad the talk was allowed to go on. And I’m glad Brown was an open campus where those lessons could be learned in the most personal way possible.

Tuesday’s shout-down of another speaker makes me wonder about that. Ray Kelly, whatever his misdeeds, is no George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell’s idea of racial profiling wasn’t “stop-and-frisk.” It was “round up and deport.” Kelly has been accused of fascism, but Rockwell actually was a fascist — and a racist — and was proud of it on both counts. Yet the Brown community of the 1960s opened its doors to him, to avowed communists, and, at the height of the Vietnam war, to anti-war activists as well as the generals in charge of that war — like Earl Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was a lively and vibrant place.

The crowd who managed to silence a speaker yesterday accomplished something, to be sure. But it wasn’t a blow against racism, fascism or police oppression. It was a step towards a closed campus where mob rule determines who can speak and who will be shouted down. It was a shameful day. And it deprived every member of our community of the chance to hear Kelly and decide for themselves whether his policing methods are indeed the first steps of a Rockwell-like campaign against minorities and the poor in America’s greatest city.

To those individuals, let me put it plainly. Yours was an act of cowardice and fear, unworthy of any of the causes you claim to hold dear….


In a similar vein, fellow Hamilton College grad Lachlan Markay passes along this story of how Rockwell was permitted to speak at Hamilton back in the day, and the crowd of 700 people didn’t shout him down, they rose together in silence and left the room:

The completely politicized hyperbole by those at Brown — including many faculty members — who supported shutting Kelly down says a lot about the difference between campuses then and now.

And how campuses have become that which they purport to oppose.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I find that one of the ironies of left-liberalism (and sometimes even right-liberalism) is that it removes traditional institutions and then complains about problems caused by the vacuum that they leave.

One of my chief complaints also.  They see something wrong; they decide the way things are must be changed so they break the practice/institution; they fail to provide an adequate, functioning replacement.  (Generally, what they do is just move on to their next pet project - the top of their Maslow ladder is "having a cause".)  This is the distinction between the "agitators" and the "leaders/doers".

It is always easy to start renovations by tearing down the old pieces.  But then you have to rebuild/replace.

 

[pbi]

More on University "Brown Shirts". Using violence or implied violence to supress free speech is the hallmark of all authoratarians, but what is much more interesting is the historical example of the correct way to deal with opposing ideas.

Looking at how Canadian Universities treat conservative speakers or people like Israel's Prime Minister, we see pretty much the same reaction here, and this attitude also explains the actions of free speech opponents like the HRC's and people who wage SLAPP lawfare against people who express ideas that the censors can't or won't find counterarguments for.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/brown-prof-recalls-when-a-real-fascist-came-to-campus-calls-ray-kelly-shout-down-a-shameful-day/

You might be surprised to find that I agree with you 100%. The way to deal with ideas we may or may not like, in an academic setting, is not to make them go away. And certainly not in the stupid and cowardly way that, say, Anne Coulter was treated. (I don't really hold much with Anne, but I respect her right to speak). This is not education, and is certainly not conducive to critical thinking.

I say "in an academic setting" advisedly, because I don't agree, for example, that anybody should be allowed to set up a soap box on the street corner for the "right" to engage in pedophilia, or to exploit the mentally retarded.

An educational institution IMHO is quite different. It is much more of a controlled environment. And (theoretically...) speakers are more likely to have their ideas (good, silly or evil) exposed to rational debate and critical thinking.

Theoretically....

 

[Kirkhill]

From today's Telegraph:

Britons happier than before financial crisis as contentment plummets in Europe – OECD
OECD says quality of life in the UK has been only “modestly affected” by the global financial crisis with happiness and even trust in government rising – in marked contrast with its neighbours in the Eurozone

It found that British people enjoy some of the strongest friendship networks and highest levels of income, job security, clean air and water, personal safety and democratic accountability in the OECD - All Goodstuff -

British people have emerged from global financial crisis happier than before in stark contrast with their counterparts in most other European countries, a major international study shows. Yay

Levels of general satisfaction with life have also edged upwards in the UK, bucking the trend in much of the rest of the developed world, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found. Awesome

Even trust in government, which has tumbled in many Eurozone countries in particular in the last five years, has risen in the UK over the same period.
Although the recession sent unemployment rising and put a squeeze on living standards in Britain as elsewhere, the drop in national morale seen in other countries is simply “not visible” in the UK, according to the OECD.  Cynic's response:  Brits didn't expect much from their Government and therefore are not disappointed.

Overall Britain was ranked with Switzerland, Australia, Scandanavia, Canada and New Zealand in the top tier of the OECD’s “How’s Life” study which assesses quality of life across 34 leading countries.  Nice company.  Other countries where the Government isn't expected to help much

It found that British people enjoy some of the strongest friendship networks and highest levels of income, job security, clean air and water, personal safety and democratic accountability in the OECD.

But it continues to lag behind its rivals in education and skills levels, the one key area in which it was below the OECD average and the gap between rich and poor has also widened faster than in other countries. "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.  All in all its just anuvver brick in the wall" 

The UK was ranked 21st for education overall well behind countries such as Russia, Slovenia and Hungary. See Previous.  Also:  Russian statistics?


There are also signs that Britons have become more selfish at a time when crisis appears to have strengthened social solidarity elsewhere.
While the number of people who say they have actively helped a stranger recently has risen across the OECD it fell by three per cent in the UK between 2007 and 2011. Charity begins at home .... and most folks have jobs (or benefits) and ain't begging in the streets or rioting in beerhalls

Overall the OECD the findings showed that the economic crisis had had a “profound impact” on life across the world’s leading economies eroding trust in governments and national morale, especially in countries which use the Euro. I hope they didn't charge too much for this study.

Angel Gurria, secretary general of the OECD, said: “This report is a wake-up call to us all.
“It is a reminder that the central purpose of economic policies is to improve people’s lives.

Error! Error! Error! - Danger, Will Robinson! -  Wrong lesson.  Right Lesson : Stop Helping! 

“We need to rethink how to place people’s needs at the heart of policy making.”

Now, that part is right.

More at link.

 

[pbi]

Here is a thought which the mods may find belongs elsewhere, but I wanted to share it here: please move as appropriate.

I just finished reading Niall Ferguson's The Great Degeneration, which the author describes as an explanation of "how institutions decay and economies die". Although his writing focuses on the US and UK, much of what he has to say resonates with discussions on this thread, as well as on some others.

Ferguson's basic argument (not really revolutionary on the face of it...) is that our way of life is based on four pillars. These are democracy; a free market system; the rule of law; and a civil society.

Ferguson explains the importance of each to  the success and continued existence of Western life as we currently recognize it, then exposes how each of these has been co-opted, corrupted and weakened over the last century. "Big society"; uncontrolled government spending; and writing IOUs on future generations have all attacked the democratic state and created a constituency of the dependent.  Bad corporate behaviour, aggravated by bad or excessive government regulation, and the "too big to fail" mentality, have seriously distorted the free market we depend on, poisoning true competitiveness.

The rule of law has, in his view, become the "rule of lawyers". He sees that civil liberties have been seriously eroded by the rise of the "national security state"; the infiltration and gradual suppression of English Common Law principles by those of European Civil Law; the extreme and growing complexity of statute law; and finally the outrageous cost of the law.

Finally, Ferguson identifies that the withering of civil society (ie: all those voluntary organizations, activities and relationships that lie between what the government controls and what business controls) as due not only to too much time on Facebook or Twitter instead of face to face relationships, but heavily to  what he called "...the excessive pretensions of the state".

He doesn't advocate for a "fire and sword" approach to anything, although he feels that strong measures are needed if we are to salvage our way of life and preserve a meaningful place in the world.

I don't agree with everything Ferguson has to say: in particular I found the "Conclusion" chapter a bit hard to swallow in spots, but overall I think he raises some important warning flags in an intelligent way.

 

[a_majoor]

When magical thinking gets put into action. We have seen quite enough of this in Ontario, and reading the latest pronouncements of the NDP (or past pronouncements) simply shows this in its most extreme form (or at least as extreme as most prople will tolerate. Reading stuff from fringe parties is more entertaining than depressing....)

The real issue highlighted here is that many members of our political, academic, bureaucratic and judicial "elites" share similar conceits, and they are probably implanted in the similar schooling most of them receive (not just the education per se but also the way they are socialized, the networks that are developed); in short, their "culture".

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/11/20/obamas_slow_learning_curve_120723.html

Obama's Slow Learning Curve
By Peter Berkowitz - November 20, 2013

Controversy continues to rage about President Obama's announcement at a Nov. 14 press conference that his administration would not compel insurance companies to cancel policies they had changed since passage of the Affordable Care Act and which did not conform to its numerous, costly, and multi-layered requirements.

Much of the controversy concerns the propriety of the president’s declining to enforce a duly enacted law (bearing his signature) whose constitutionality he does not doubt, and whether insurance companies will be able to abruptly change course after three years of preparing to comply with their elaborate and interwoven legal obligations under Obamacare.

But perhaps the president’s most astonishing statement involved an insouciant confession of ignorance. Returning to a common but under-appreciated motif of his presidency, Obama remarked: “What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.”

What deficiency of Obama’s education and of the education of those who surround him accounts for administration officials not knowing what is perfectly well-known to most ordinary Americans?

This discovery that purchasing health insurance is complex is just the most recent of the rather stunning lessons that Obama professes to have learned on the job about how the world really works.

In January 2010, in a Time magazine interview in which he was asked about the setbacks to his ambitious attempt to reach a final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, he remarked, “I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that.”

The problem, the president acknowledged, was that he and his team had failed to understand the domestic challenges faced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: “I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.”

In June 2011, Obama again acknowledged that he had based a defining policy -- the $830 billion stimulus package that he sold to the nation in the first month of his presidency as designed to take advantage of “shovel-ready” jobs -- on false expectations. With unemployment at 9.1 percent and in the 27th consecutive month in which it had not fallen below 8.9 percent, he told his Jobs and Competitiveness Council meeting in Durham, N.C., that “shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

On Nov. 4 of this year -- five weeks after the calamitous online launch of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, almost five years into his presidency and less than two weeks before he would reveal that the loss of insurance coverage by millions of Americans taught him that buying coverage was complicated -- Obama said to the Affordable Care Act Coalition Partners and Supporters in Washington, D.C., “Now, let's face it, a lot of us didn't realize that passing the law was the easy part.”

Contrary to the president’s breezy attitude suggesting that these drastic miscalculations were not knowable in advance, we know that all were foreseeable because all were perspicaciously foreseen by critics from the beginning. (The only possible exception is the staggeringly inept rollout of the HealthCare.gov website, the magnitude of which caught even the president’s toughest critics off guard.)

It’s a cliché that democracy is messy and difficult; it’s a truism that politics demands the cutting of deals and the hammering out of trade-offs; it’s common knowledge that implementing public policy and conducting diplomacy involve unforeseen obstacles and intricate maneuvering that are hard to grasp from the outside.

Yet all this keeps catching Obama and his aides by surprise. Team Obama’s surprise, however, is really not all that surprising.

The president and the officials around him are the product of the same progressive version of higher education that simultaneously excises politics from the study of government and public policy while politicizing education. This higher education denigrates experience; exalts rational administration; reveres abstract moral reasoning; confidently counts on the mainstream press to play for the progressive political team; accords to words fabulous abilities to remake reality; and believes itself to speak for the people while haughtily despising their way of life.

The education President Obama received at Columbia University and Harvard Law School -- and delivered to others as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School -- encourages the fantasy of a political world subject to almost limitless manipulation by clever and well-orchestrated images. This explains why the harsh exigencies and intractable forces of politics keep stunning the president, each new time as if it were the very first.

How might higher education be reformed to produce political leaders more familiar with how the world really works, more alive to the realities of social and political life and better able to discuss them honestly with the American people?

Our colleges and universities should offer, and requires students to take, more courses in political, diplomatic, and military history. They should shift the emphasis in moral education from abstract reasoning and arcane hypothetical dilemmas to the study of the virtues necessary to exercise rights and fulfill responsibilities. They should cease to teach that left-liberalism is the only political orientation a decent person could embrace. And they should give pride of place in the curriculum to study of the American constitutional tradition, which teaches, among other things, that government’s competence and purview are limited and that nothing in politics can succeed without adjustment, balancing, and calibration.

Old-fashioned liberal education cannot prevent the forming of delusions about a world beyond politics. But it is vastly to be preferred to the new-fangled version that encourages those delusions.

Peter Berkowitz is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.  His writings are posted at www.PeterBerkowitz.com.

 

[pbi]

Our colleges and universities should offer, and requires students to take, more courses in political, diplomatic, and military history. They should shift the emphasis in moral education from abstract reasoning and arcane hypothetical dilemmas to the study of the virtues necessary to exercise rights and fulfill responsibilities. They should cease to teach that left-liberalism is the only political orientation a decent person could embrace. And they should give pride of place in the curriculum to study of the American constitutional tradition, which teaches, among other things, that government’s competence and purview are limited and that nothing in politics can succeed without adjustment, balancing, and calibration.

Actually, I think all citizens should study these things, regardless of what field of education or endeavour they go into.

But, I think, this is an outcome that many politicians (of all stripes...) would dread: a politically literate electorate who could apply historical knowledge and critical thinking to their understanding of issues.

OK...that would never happen.....but what if it did?

 

[Nemo888]

Saw a few places renaming us Bananada.

 

[pbi]

Saw a few places renaming us Bananada.

What?

 

[a_majoor]

Trying to do a rational debate with Progressives is usually an exercise in futility, they have the are of misdirection and evasion down to a science. Here is the science broken down into an easy 8 point chart (substitute Steven Harper for George W Bush when attempting to debate Canadian Progressives):

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/105321-8-things-liberals-avoid-honest-debate-science/

8 Things Liberals Do to Avoid Having an Honest Debate – Broken Down to a Science
Kyle Becker
On January 1, 2014
http://kylenbecker.com

We’ve all been there: Stuck in a hopelessly circular argument with a liberal who won’t get to the point, acknowledge basic facts even exist, or get past juvenile name-calling in debates. It can be really frustrating.

One thing people can do to fight back is just to code all the non-responses to logical or rational arguments. Cryptically flipping back “Give me a break with that number 5 nonsense” or “Man, number 3, again?” can really humiliate people whose stupidity is broken down to a science.

So with no further adieu, here is your Rosetta Stone of Liberal Rhetoric (and it can be done with less-than-bright members of other political persuasions).

1. Ad Hominem (Name-Calling aka “You’re a Racist!” etc.)

2. Distracting (aka “Pivoting” aka “Changing the Subject”)

3. Somebody Else Did It Before (aka Two Wrongs Make a Right)

4. Obama Doesn’t Know What’s Going On (Or Did I Do That?)

5. It’s a Far-Right Conspiracy (Or The Koch Brothers Did It)

6. You Heard That on Faux News (Sun TV or the National Post in Canada)

7. Argumentum Ad Misericordium (Or “Do it for the Children”)

8. It’s Bush’s Fault

Four years into the weakest recovery in U.S. history, it will always be Bush’s fault in the minds of liberals – even if Obama doubles and triples down on Bush deficits, declares wars without Congressional authorization, signs the Patriot Act by auto-pen, you name it – those things that liberals said they were opposed to under Bush are no longer attached to President Obama.

Sometimes, arguing with radicals seems like an exercise in futility. But remember, you’re not always arguing to change their minds, but the minds of rational people who are observing the debate.