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Attention Conservative Governors (and Their Constituents)
We on the conservative/libertarian/constitutional/sane human being – side of American politics (i.e. not the Left) often carp about or even wail about the wretched ideological contagion that has infected American education at every level, Kindergarten through graduate school. Well, as in many issues of this sort, Florida Governor DeSantis is again showing the way to treating this potentially societally lethal disease of the mind.
So, If you have a Republican Governor in your state, and the Rs also control the state legislature, do your children and grandchildren the enormous service of contacting them and demanding that they follow DeSantis´ lead on education in every situation in which they can exercise power over educational institutions. Cut funding for DEI offices at state schools, fire state-appointed education officials who are not conservative and replace them with conservative education activists. Gun to a knife fight, howitzer to a pistol duel, and all that. That is all.
Published in Education
Libertarians are on the Left.
YES! I am so damn proud of DeSantis (and Youngkin)!
Interesting!
I used to think you, like most attorneys, were of the same personality type with respect to the rules of dialectics as I am. Let’s call it the “Same Rules of Dialectics as Camper” personality.
But now I am not sure. Maybe you are of the other one–call it the Unspecified Rules of Dialectics one. (There are only the two types, in my long and hard-won experience.)
No problem. If you take the survey below, I will know.
If you answer True, then you are of the “Same Rules of Dialectics as Camper” personality. If you answer False (or go on a lengthy emotional tirade without ever answering True or False) I will know that you are of the Unspecified Rules of Dialectics type.
Survey:
Thanks in advance for satisfying my curiosity.
By whose definition? The left in my experience loathes them as carnophallologocentric capitalists.
Hey, is that COC compliant?
It normally wouldn’t be, but I heard Rob Long use it once to describe some celebrity’s fetish, so I think Hartmann should be good.
Well, of course it depends on the definitions.
What would make one think that a Libertarian is on the right? I’ll elaborate below.
Conservatism, as indicated by the root of the word itself — “conserve” — is about preserving traditional ways. This includes recognizing a wide variety of values — some liberty, yes, but also the importance of family, and community obligations, and national loyalty.
Libertarianism is the extreme version of the ideology of the 60s “me generation.” It places liberty as the preeminent, and it seems only, value. It rejects all tradition.
Those calling themselves “liberal” or “progressive” in the American parlance of the past 60-odd years take this rejection of tradition, and promotion of an ideology of doing whatever you want, about halfway. Liberals/progressives apply the rejection of tradition to family and social issues. They tend to do so less, however, for economic issues. So, they are something like half Leftist.
Libertarians, though, are Leftist through and through. They reject every single tradition. Or, at least, if they accept certain traditions as a personal matter, they reject the idea of enforcement.
Many libertarians — perhaps all — are not thinking clearly, too, as they appear to believe that they’ve reached their position based on “reason.” They have not. Reasoning to moral values is impossible, obviously, because any rational argument must start with certain premises and, if there is more than one value posited, must include some decision rule (or rules) for addressing situations in which such values conflict.
Thus, I find that libertarianism is Leftist.
Why do many people think otherwise? Well, I agree that it’s a matter of definition, and I think that a lot of the blame can be placed on William F. Buckley and his “fusionism,” which sought to combine the oil and water of traditional religious conservatism with the radicalism of the libertarians. (I know, there was a foreign policy element, too, which was essentially a form of utopian imperialism.)
Jerry,
If you are being funny:
If not:
It would be like saying,
As a lawyer, you surely would say that that is False if you thought about it. I hope that the idea that you answered a question without thinking about it is false. I have great faith in lawyers.
Your analogy is flawed, Mark.
Whether libertarians are on the Left depends on the definitions of libertarians and Left that we use. I doubt that we disagree about the definition of libertarian.
We probably disagree about the definition of the Left. I think that the Left is best defined, as the term has been used in politics since the French Revolution, as opposition to tradition and focus on individuals doing whatever they want.
If you define Left differently, you get a different conclusion. If the Left means tending towards communism, then Libertarians are not Leftists, and conservatives are somewhat Leftist. I think that this is the incorrect definition which led, for example, to the Nazis being considered far Right while the Communists were considered far Left, though the two systems are both very similar (and both anti-Christian).
A better analogy would be this. Can you use a bow to shoot an arrow into a target? It depends on the definition of bow. If you mean the bow on a birthday present, no. If you mean the bow that you do when applauded after a play, then no. If you mean the kind of bow that Robin Hood used, then yes.
We disagree about two propositions that are implicit in that sentence:
There is a difference between
If you agree with a sentence, then you believe
If you believe that a statement is meaningless, for example because of a false premise, then you believe that it is neither true nor false.
[EDIT after a Like was already posted]: added text “that there exists a correct or incorrect definition of ‘libertarian’.”
I used to have relatively positive views about libertarianism. As I assessed effects that had on political processes and the weirdness associated, I dropped any consideration of the label and adopted the small-government constitutionalist label for myself. The constitutionalist part refers specifically to the American Constitution.
Why bother with state officials no matter what the party? Turn schools over to teachers and parents but make them compete with each other for students. Money goes to parents, i.e. they stop paying taxes and we subsidize parents tuition below a certain income. Teachers run schools independently of unions, parents choose where they send their kids. It’s basically a free market system with poor folks subsidized. Why should we think that schools should be centralized and state run when everything that works, improves and occasionally makes radical breakthroughs that others eventually follow occurs in competitive free markets.
Mark, I don’t know what you mean by this. Do you think that there is just one definition of “libertarian”? Do you think that there does not exist a correct or incorrect definition of “libertarian”?
I find your comment about this to be unintelligible, so maybe you could help explain.
I don’t think that either of the propositions that you state were implicit in my sentence. Rather, my position is this. I think that there is definitely more than one definition of “Left,” even limiting the use of the word to politics.
However, I’m not sure whether there is more than one definition of “libertarian.” My suspicion, though, is that even if there is more than one definition of “libertarian,” you and I mean just about the same thing when we use the word. We could try to define it in terms of other words, or we could use examples — something like “the political views characteristic of people like Ron Paul, Richard Epstein, and Ayn Rand.”
So, for purposes of the present discussion, it doesn’t matter whether there is one definition of “libertarian,” or more than one. The important thing, for practical purposes, is that we’re using the word “libertarian” to mean the same thing (or at least close enough to the same thing).