Political philosophy derived from anti-left streams of consciousness and “owning the libs” creates a state of mind where being on the right is more important than being right.
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Recently, a noted silly person by the name of Gunnar Gundersen took to the paleoconservative blog The American Mind to complain about the constitutional idea of originalism.
What caused his dislike towards originalism? From his article:
“What Vermeule’s earnest conservative critics have failed to address is the elephant in the room: in the cases of greatest consequence, originalism means liberalism.”
Adrian Vermeule, for those who don’t know, is a Harvard law professor who has become a hero to “common good conservatives” for an article he wrote in The Atlantic back in March. Here’s a section of that article, notice a specific political term used:
“The theory of originalism, initially developed in the 1970s and ’80s, enjoyed its initial growth because it helped legal conservatives survive and even flourish in a hostile environment, all without fundamentally challenging the premises of the legal liberalism that dominated both the courts and the academy.”
First off, his claim is utter nonsense. “Originalism,” as he means it, which is basically just small-government ideology, was developed in the United States by people like Henry David Thoreau before the start of the 20th century. Thinkers like Ludwig Von Mises and FA Hayek then expanded upon it before the start of, and during, World War Two.
But let’s talk about what they’re saying here: the idea that “liberalism” (whatever that even means anymore) is the biggest enemy worth fighting against. One can’t help but find it kind of odd the average writer for The American Mind thinks the term “liberal” should be more of a takedown than “socialist,” “authoritarian,” or “fascist.”
This is the end result of what happens when you have an entire generation of political “thinkers” who were taught civics through Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. You get thinkers who only produce streams of consciousness against what they consider “the left.” (Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Louder With Crowder knows what I’m talking about.) You get people who, to paraphrase the catchphrase of One America News host Graham Ledger, consider being on the right more important than being right.
As entertainment, this is fine. I have enjoyed my fair share of “Ben Shapiro OWNS” videos, where some college socialist with weird pronouns tries to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin and gets a smackdown. Even Al Franken once admitted that Bill O’Reilly taking down a particularly stupid person is good sport. However, we have to remember that’s what it is: entertainment.
Getting your political philosophy from combinations of “liberals getting owned” is no different than, and I use this metaphor because it might be the only one “common good conservatives” can understand, getting your views on relationships through hardcore pornography.
Let me ask you all this question: what is a liberal? According to most, being on the Left is the same as being a member of the Democratic Party. Yet, I look at leftists like Noam Chomsky, or even Social Democrats like Kyle Kulinski, host of Secular Talk, or most of The Young Turks. And, they hate the Democratic Party. Hence why they encourage us to support organizations like the Green Party or, in the case of Kyle and Cenk Uygur, form a group dedicated to primarying long-standing members of the Democratic Party and putting progressives into Congress.
As someone who has been in many circles where the left is present, and I’m talking full-on communists, it seems like the left and the Democratic Party don’t get along all that well.
You see the issue here, right? Just saying you’re against “the left” is not a useful political philosophy by itself. What parts of the left? Who on the left do you dislike? I doubt you’ve met every single leftist on the planet or disagree with every single left-wing idea in existence, regardless of who you are.
The pundit class used to understand this. But as partisanship and “owns” started replacing thoughtful political commentary, the entire point of caring went away. It doesn’t matter if someone like Rachel Maddow has very different views than someone like Jimmy Dore, both are considered “the left” and both must be owned.
Only recently have those like Sohrab Ahmari started proposing this idea among the intellectual class, who once considered themselves above such petty nonsense. According to these people, liberalism is some big scary monster living under your bed that’s going to get you unless we let the government put cameras in your bedroom.
Consider the mockery Pat Robertson got when he was quoted as saying the following in 1992:
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
Today, it looks like a headline for an article at First Things.
Are liberals my enemy? Of course not. Authoritarians are my enemy, first and foremost. While authoritarianism can find a home in liberalism (as it can in any ideology), that means I should be fighting the authoritarian wing of liberalism, not just burning an entire ideology down because some people in it are easy to mock.
I am not scared of being called a liberal, just as the vast majority of these people are not scared of being called a fascist. I feel like that ideology does not fit me; as such, I feel like it’s wrong to label me as a liberal. However, I won’t let others bully me into accepting ideas that run against my principles (censorship, for example) just because some lesser enemies might gain a short term victory.
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