Rebuttal to two "progressives"

In my travels I run across a wide range of perspectives. Sometimes I find a "conservative with a heart"; sometimes a "progressive" with some clue about economics, or who sees how deeply wrong is the idea that just because someone has a "D" beside her/his name that that person is somehow holier than the next person ...

The other day I saw a couple of examples, both from the so-called "left" perspective. In both cases, the writers were slamming some aspect of modern political thought, allegedly "right-wing" issues in each case. Read the columns attached to the links, then come back and see what I had to add ...

(1) David Moberg of In These Times, who with "Imminent Domination" manages to defame both the word "libertarian" and the meaning of the Constitution in the American heritage. And the folks discussing the article below it were not much help, either. So I took a shot in responding, reprinted here:

I don’t which is more “disinformational” — calling the Republicans “libertarians” (the very meaning of which has been “anti-authoritarian” for at least a century and a half or so) ... or claiming that the government grants rights under the Constitution (when the exact opposite is true: the Constitution BEGINS with the premise (outlined in the Declaration) that our rights pre-exist, and that government is constrained by the list of things it CAN do, rather than permitted anything not listed (read the danged Ninth and Tenth Amendments for clarity!)).

Meanwhile, the consistent reference to the “libertarian right”—as being virtually synonymous with slightly more consistent conservative GOPers—is patently offensive, especially to those who remember the term’s origins (and its use by the LEFT throughout the early and middle 20th Century - ever hear of the Wobblies?) and who (even through a long run within and around the party that took the name) have always considered ourselves more “left” than anything else, except in our belief that choice and voluntarism are the primary values of a free society, while confiscation of wealth and property is the province of tyrants!

All in all, it makes me continue to wonder if anyone actually understands what “progressive” actually means ... and knows it is not a synonym for “Democrat” or even “non-Republican” ...

(2) David Corn in Tom Paine, heralding "The End of the Trust-Me Presidency?" Although he correctly details at least some of the ways in which Dubya has played a shell game with the American people, even with his own alleged constituents, he misses some larger questions, as follows:

A TomPaine.Com column by David Corn, "The End of the Trust-Me Presidency?" notes how often Bush has betrayed the small-government conservative movement of which he purported to be part, and concludes that Bush’s “trust-me” routine has “run out of gas.” The column does indeed, cite areas in which Bush recently performed badly, and how he has finally alienated his base with - Iraq, Katrina and beyond.

However, he does not take it far enough. A different perspective would be to note that the American electorate has now been subjected to the same shell game, regardless of party-label, continuously over the last fifty years or so. It hasn't mattered whether the figurehead has been named Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton or Bush – the result has been the same: skyrocketing budgets, initiation of force at home and abroad, decreasing scope of the Bill of Rights, and an increasing percentage of the citizenry who either draw a salary or receive a subsidy from the federal government. The fact that Mr. Corn focuses on the present GOP neocon bunch does little to gainsay any of this.

But he overlooks an even larger question. The idea of ending the era of the "trust-me presidency" should be welcomed with open arms by true libertarians (definition since long before there was a "party": "anti-authoritarians"):

* Anything that serves to debunk the "imperial" concept of an all-knowing, all-powerful Chief Executive, whose whims are to treated as inspired wisdom and leadership, would serve well those who seek a truly free society;

* Anything that might help invert that pyramid, placing the emphasis on local communities and voluntary action, instead of top-down hierarchical edicts, must be seen as a good thing for the cause of liberty;

* Anything that exposes the whole scenario – not just as "politics as usual," but as being inextricably woven into the fabric of imperial power – offers a pathway for showing those around us, who may be too busy eking out a living after taxes to stop and ponder the deeper questions involved, just what the task is that lies before us.

Meanwhile, if David Corn has done nothing else with his column, he has nicely chronicled the hypocrisies and lies of the current administration, and held them up to ridicule, so that even the most lockstepped conservative might see. It is up to us libertarians to point out that all Bush has done is played his own constituents for suckers – just like every President in modern times, for so many administrations and generations.

Steve out ...