Category: Liberalism

Liberalism is for the Birds . . .

George Noga
Liberalism is for the Birds . . . 
Except When It Doesn’t Suit Their Purpose 
By: George Noga – May 8, 2014
       Liberals (and their sycophant media) go ga-ga over birds whenever it suits their purpose. During the BP oil spill we were saturated with images of a pelican dripping with oil, only later to learn the photo had nothing to do with BP. One year after the BP spill, credible estimates of bird deaths varied from a low of 1,200 to a high of 6,000; the Audubon Society estimate was 2,300. Nevertheless, liberals used the birds to limit or to stop new offshore drilling. Similarly, a 2013 oil pipeline rupture in Arkansas was used by activists as a cause celebre to stop new pipelines even though the verified toll was only a handful of ducks. Birds are being used as a major argument for stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline. In fact, saving birds is an argument progressives use to oppose every fossil fuel project from drilling to pipelines to fracking.
       Today, green activists are invoking the Endangered Species Act to list the lesser prairie chicken and sage grouse as threatened species. These birds are found in 11 western states where the federal government owns most of the land – 48% of California, 62% of Idaho and 82% of Nevada. Hold your breath: activists are trying to list another 757 species between now and 2018. Never mind the 757 other species; the prairie chicken and sage grouse alone are enough to stop drilling on federal land. The restrictions are so severe, it would also effectively stop drilling on private land. To be clear about this, liberals could use the prairie chicken and sage grouse to stop all drilling in 11 western states.
The Mathematics of the US Bird Population
       This post uses many numbers about bird deaths; therefore, some perspective about bird population would be helpful. Every year in the USA there are 10 billion new birds hatched. Fewer than 1,000 birds are killed each year as a result of fossil fuel activities, whereas 500,000 are killed in wind turbines including bald eagles, and golden eagles. Thus, wind energy kills 50,000% more birds than fossil fuel. Collisions with windows kill about 500 million birds (midpoint estimate) – 100,000 in New York City alone. Cats kill another 500 million annually. Cars, power lines and habitat loss kill another 1.5 billion or so. Every day in the USA nearly 15 million birds meet their fate. The best way to protect birds would be to ban cats. In any event, these numbers provide perspective; fossil fuels kill .0000001% of birds versus cats’  5.0%.
 Liberal Hypocrisy About Birds
       Okay, so liberals pretend to be birds’ best friend when it suits their purpose; what about when it doesn’t fit their agenda? I already pointed out how wind turbines kill 50,000% more birds than fossil fuels. Let’s expose several other liberal hypocrisies about birds.
       The $2+ billion Ivanpah solar project recently opened in the California desert; its 350,000 mirrors span 5 square miles. It was financed by federal tax credits and cost 400% more than a gas fired plant; the electricity it produces costs twice as much. The Ivanpah project is scorching birds that fly overhead with its 1,000 degree heat. The massive death toll has included peregrine falcons and great hawks. So far, nary a peep from environmentalists.

  • The wind industry enjoys de facto permission to violate the Migratory Bird Treaty (protecting 1,000 species) and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The Interior Department has brought one token enforcement action against wind energy but it aggressively pursued criminal cases against the oil and gas industry in North Dakota for killing a single bird – a Say’s Phoebe. At California’s Altamonte wind project 70 golden eagles are killed annually.
  • The Interior Department granted wind farms 30-year take permits to kill eagles. The government expects to receive 15-20 applications for the new eagle kill permits. Wind and solar farms and hydroelectric facilities often destroy the ecosystem but they get a pass – essentially because they are politically correct. Get this: the liberal argument is that climate change ultimately will kill even more eagles; therefore, we have to kill eagles now in order to save them.
  • Since Obama took office 17 major solar projects have been approved on public land and received expedited approval. Not one liberal or environmental group protested this rush to build, even though these groups moved heaven and earth to protect snail darters, delta smelts and spotted owls. However, these same groups are willing to sacrifice bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and other critters on the altar of the green energy gods.
      Wind energy soaks up an obscene amount of tax dollars. It raises the cost of energy – 40% since 2003, rips apart rural communities, despoils views, kills eagles and falcons and creates noise for miles. It pollutes pristine lakes in Mongolia (where neodymium is mined and refined) with toxic radioactive tailings. The average wind turbine requires a ton of neodymium. Despite all this, wind energy accounts for less than one half percent of all energy.
“We have to kill the eagles in order to save them.”
       Above all, this documents the utter bankruptcy and depravity of liberalism. Liberals shed crocodile tears for birds on cue but are ready to throw hundreds of eagles each year into the wind turbines and scorch them to death while flying over solar farms all because they deem it politically correct. Liberals lie about birds because liberalism is all based on lies.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

George Noga
The Best of More Liberty – Less Government . . .
By: George Noga – Updated March 20, 2014

       Rudyard Kipling wrote The Gods of the Copybook Headings, excerpted herein, in 1919; It remains as apropos today as when men lived in trees because it is elemental, going to the fountainhead of our knowledge and beliefs. Kipling’s poem reveals eternal wisdom and common sense in a twenty-first century world that has badly lost its way.

         Copybooks disappeared from schools in the 1940s. Each page contained a large heading in perfect cursive – which common core now abolishes. The headings consisted of proverbs, hortatory or aphorisms which students copied to hone handwriting skills. Kipling’s poem traces man’s knowledge and superstitions through the epochs. Yet still the Gods of the Copybook Headings outlast all ersatz and transient feel-good bromides; we ignore them at our grave peril!
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
 
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
 
        Kipling’s “Gods of the Market Place” refer to transient and ephemeral trends and fads. Today such Gods would include manmade global warming, endless debt and deficits, organic food, common core and ObamaCare. Back to Kipling and Pigs with Wings.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
 
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
 And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
 
        The Gods of the Market Place tell us what we wish to hear. Today they tell us we can spend and borrow without limit; Iran is not really building a bomb; and we can slash defense spending, appease tyrants and manifest weakness to our enemies without consequence. They tell us we can provide medical care to millions more people while simultaneously slashing the costs. However, reality, with all its discomforts and irritation, is manifest in the Gods of the Copybook Headings which tell us this isn’t so. People and nations succeed when they act in conformity with the copybook headings, i.e. the collected wisdom and experience of mankind on our planet. When copybook headings are ignored, we are bound and delivered to our foes. As Jefferson put it: “He who beats his sword into plowshares shall plow for those who didn’t.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
 
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
 
         Man has achieved his present state by gradually accumulating nuggets of truth, morality and wisdom over the millennia. Nonetheless, every so often we lose touch with the veracity of the copybook headings. We then take destructive actions that set us aback, invariably with much collateral grief, suffering and death. We may be technological geniuses but we are economic, moral and political cretins. Following is the apt conclusion of Kiplinger’s epic.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling to the Fire;
 
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
 
     As Kipling describes, moral and economic truths a/k/a copybook headings are timeless and immutable; disregarding them leads inevitably to terror and slaughter. The market place is nothing but pigs with wings, i.e. fad, fable, fashion and foolishness. There are no shortages today of smooth-talking wizards promising a brave new world of perpetual peace, abundance for all, men paid merely for existing and no wages of sin. All the while such wizards mock the copybook headings. Indeed, all today’s woes can be traced to defiance of the copybook rules, what Henry Ford called “the essence of human wisdom, or as Thomas Jefferson put it: “Those who turn their swords into plowshares, will plow for those who didn’t“.
         We can worship the Gods of the Market Place for a fleeting time. But lemonade doesn’t flow in rivers and basic, immutable and unchanging human nature invariably returns to every person and nation that permits itself to become self-indulgent or to believe in myths. Science still trumps superstition; chemistry still beats alchemy; real doctors still are superior to witch doctors; and reality always outstrips illusion, ideology and dogma. Substance eternally thumps hope and change and water still wets us and fire still burns. The only uncertainty is how much terror and slaughter must there be before the Gods of the Copybook Headings return?

Conversations with a Liberal about GMOs

George Noga
By: George Noga – December 1, 2013
       Recently I spent a week on the Hawaiian isle of Kauai. My visit coincided with a major political brouhaha about genetically modified organisms or “GMOs”. The residents were up in arms against agricultural interests that produce GMO seeds (mostly corn) there. In response, the local government passed a sweeping new law placing  restrictions on GMOs. Opposition is not restricted to Kauai as there are anti-GMO laws pending in several US states and Europeans’ loathing of GMOs borders on hysteria.
“GMOs are mentioned in the Bible – Genesis 30:25-43.”
       Genetic engineering is timeless. Selective breeding was practiced on corn at the dawn of human agriculture 10,000 years ago.  It is mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 30:25-43).  If you own a dog, it is safe to say it has gone through extensive genetic modifications. Circa 1973 man acquired the technology to modify DNA directly rather than via breeding. Since that time there have been many thousands of GMOs and in the subsequent 40 years not one person anywhere on the planet has experienced an ill effect – even a bellyache – from GMOs.
       While in Kauai I had the opportunity to talk with a liberal opponent of GMOs. The conversation went something like the following:
MLLG (Me): I don’t understand why you are so opposed to GMOs. They produce much more food more safely on significantly less land thus benefiting both humanity and the environment.
LIBERAL: I am against big corporations profiting from GMOs. If GMOs are that good, why are there still so many people in the world starving?
MLLG: The short answer is that  hunger today is primarily due to logistics and government interference. Surely GMOs have vastly alleviated hunger; India has become an exporter of rice.
MLLG: Even with the prices companies charge for GMO seeds, farmers in third world nations come out way ahead in the long run. They willingly spend their own money in a free market because their calculus is they will benefit at the prices they are paying. Fifteen million small farmers owning only  a few acres each in developing nations buy and plant GMO seeds.
LIBERAL: It is not right that big companies profit; in particular granting corporations patents on life forms is objectionable as it forces people to pay year after year for the same seeds. Moreover, large corporations take legal action against small farmers who copy the seeds.
MLLG: If businesses did not protect their patents they would go out of business and there  never again would be new life-saving GMO products created and everyone would be worse off.
LIBERAL: It is simply obscene and unacceptable for giant multinational corporations to go after small third world farmers struggling to get by.
MLLG: Isn’t copying the seeds without a patent the same as stealing?
LIBERAL: No, because the corporations acquired the patents unjustly; patents on plants, animals or genes must not be granted; these should be owned in common by all of humanity.
MLLG: You seem to hate bigness; are you aware GM crops are subject to hyper regulation? Because of the cost and complexity imposed by governments, only large multinational companies can afford to comply. Furthermore, small companies grow into  big companies only if they benefit a great many people by providing products they value and voluntarily purchase. Incidentally, do you also hate bigness in government? Never mind that – it was just rhetorical.
LIBERAL: It is not right for anyone to profit from something so basic as DNA or life forms; the technology should be posted on the internet or otherwise be placed in the public domain.
MLLG: It costs an enormous amount to research, test and produce successful GM crops. There are huge costs to comply with government rules and the Cartagena  Protocol on Biosafety. Without the profit motive, patents and patent enforcement, how could GMO technology exist?
LIBERAL: Governments or universities (with government grants) could do the job.
MLLG: Name anything government does well or a product produced by a university?
LIBERAL: Governments build good roads and bridges.
MLLG: Actually, governments contract with private for-profit companies to build these things.
MLLG: One final question: I know you also believe climate change poses an existential threat to humanity and you contemptuously dismiss those who disagree as being opposed to science. Given that situation, your opposition to biotechnology seems irreconcilable with your stance on climate. Your opposition to GMOs doesn’t appear to be based on science but on ideology and politics because  of your animus and antipathy toward free markets and private enterprise.
LIBERAL: I fail to see the connection.

A Half Century of Liberal Governance 

George Noga
By: George Noga – September 17, 2013
       Suppose, just suppose, there was a place in America where we could test and showcase liberal ideas for over a half century of continuous governance according to strict progressive shibboleths. Surely such a place, if it existed, would prove beyond doubt that liberalism works. Surely its economy would thrive and  hordes of people would move there. Surely it would bring about a veritable Xanadu and demonstrate once and for all the bankruptcy and depravity of capitalism, free markets and conservatism.
       Suppose such a place had no right to work law, strict gun control and a living wage far above the federal minimum wage. Suppose its schools spent far above the national average per pupil and both its government and private sector workers were heavily unionized with truly exceptional pay, benefits and job security. Suppose its tax system aggressively redistributed income from business and the wealthy to the poor. Suppose continuously since 1962 it had been governed at all levels by liberal Democrats. Such a place actually does exist; it is called Detroit.
       What has happened to this liberal paragon under a half century of progressive stewardship? Its population dropped 62%; over 1.1 million people have fled this leftist Xanadu, preferring instead putative free market hell holes. It has massive corruption, 16% unemployment and only 7% of students are proficient in reading. It has 80,000 abandoned  buildings, resembling Tokyo after the fire bombing. It has $20 billion in official debt and billions more in unfunded liabilities. It had the highest per capita income of any large American city in 1950; today it is the second poorest. It has the second highest murder rate of any American city. It repels people possessing skill, ambition, talent and entrepreneurial instinct. And it is bankrupt.
       Of course, liberals don’t accept any responsibility; the best they can do is blame corporations; how utterly lame is that? Does this mean businesses therefore are responsbile for successful cities? And it isn’t just Detroit; the 10 poorest large cities in the USA according to the Census Bureau all have been under liberal Democratic rule for decades, many for over a half century – the same is largely true of states and, for that matter, countries.
      Liberalism is shown to be a complete and abject failure wherever it is tried; Detroit is merely the latest poster city. Liberals won’t accept blame because to do so would expose progressivism for what it truly is – an engine for corruption, unemployment, economic disaster, crime, blight, failed schools and untold human misery. Over 1.1 million people have voted with their feet to get the heck out. Most fundamentally, liberalism failed because liberalism is a lie!

Fix Detroit Overnight: Declare it a Free City

      When I write about a problem, I usually include a solution. What Detroit needs is the dead opposite of what has made it a veritable hell-on-earth. Serendipitously, this would serve as a further, albeit unnecessary, test of capitalist, free market principles such as those that have transformed Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and  all places they have been implemented. The solution is elegantly simple: first thing tomorrow morning declare Detroit a free city.
“Declare Detroit a free city tomorrow; it will become a beacon for
the rest of America  – showing the path to liberty and prosperity.”
      The free city declaration would include total economic freedom, secure property rights impartial courts and basic criminal justice. All federal and state taxes and regulations – along with federal and state aid – would be abolished. All existing public contracts, pensions and employment would be terminated. There would be no OSHA, EEOC, IRS, HHS, EPA, ObamaCare, immigration controls, minimum wage, zoning, inspections, licensing, gun control;  you get the picture. All government services would be privatized. Public education would be 100% voucherized and non union. To cap it off, everything would be guaranteed for 50 years!
      Success would not come overnight, but come it would and in much less than the 50 years it took to create the disaster that is today’s Detroit. Expect to be flabbergasted by the hard working, ambitious and talented entrepreneurs who flood into the new free city of Detroit. You will be equally amazed by the outpouring of energy and enthusiasm of ordinary people sensing  opportunity. It will become a showcase for the best America has to offer. The new free city of Detroit will become a beacon for the rest of America showing the way to liberty and prosperity.

Liberals Live In a Plastic Bubble

George Noga

Defining Liberalism – Part 3

By: George Noga – March 20, 2013
       Liberalism has much in common with the 1976 movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. The movie’s hero, Tod Lubitch, was born with an improperly functioning immune system; contact with unfiltered air could kill him. Hence, he lives inside a protective bubble insulated from the outside world. Similarly, liberals have a malfunctioning belief system that can’t handle contact with the truth; they live in intellectually isolated, segregated enclaves, i.e. inside a plastic bubble. Most live their entire lives without ever conversing with an evangelical Christian, conservative or tea party supporter. Note: Lyrics are from Eiffel 65: Living in a Bubble.
 
Living in a bubble baby
A bubble’s no reality
You’ve gotta have a look outside
Nothing in the bubble is the way it is supposed to be
And when it blows, you’ll hit the ground
 
      Liberals become more isolated than conservatives because of schools, government, media, the workplace, pop culture and even religion. They can’t relate to their fellow Americans in fly-over land. They believe to visit New Mexico you need a passport, visa, interpreter, inoculations, water purification pills and currency exchange. In contrast, conservatives, who also must endure all these liberal institutions, have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of liberalism. The following details how liberals construct their plastic bubble.
     Education: Most everyone attends K-12 public schools and colleges which are highly liberal government institutions. A liberal curriculum written by liberal professors is taught by liberal unionist teachers. Political correctness and liberal mythology permeate everything. They are taught that there are no universal values except that there are no values. It is like Lake Wobegone, without winners and losers and every child is above average.
     Media, Pop Culture and Religion: The ultra left wing media solidify liberal lies and myths. Businesses always are portrayed as despoiling villains while crusading journalists and government activists are saviors of the planet. Pop culture and the media are symbiotic. Even most (non evangelic) religions have mutated their beliefs to accommodate liberal statism.
The bubble doesn’t make you but it’s you that makes the bubble
And you better try to remember that it’s in your head
The bubble is a very tricky thing all full of hype and it is not easy
To try to see the way things are they’ll always be
 
       Government and Workplace: An ever bigger share of Americans work for government at all levels; it is now approaching 17% of all workers. Public sector workers now are heavily unionized and see their interests diametrically opposed to the private sector. Most everything government does promotes the liberal agenda. Political correctness, speech codes and sensitivity training now have hit the workplace resulting in a highly liberal work environment.
      The ubiquitous and powerful combination of schools, universities, media, pop culture, government, religion and the workplace, along with physical isolation, create the bubble. Once inside, escape is nigh impossible, nor do the denizens of the bubble even realize they are in a bubble. It is like they exist in a parallel universe. They do not know what they do not know. No one they meet and nothing they ever read or see forces them to confront their ignorance.
Living in a bubble baby
But it’s not the place to be
Cause it’s a place of lies and hype
Don’t believe the bubble cause it’s nothing  but a dream
And when it blows you’ll be alone
 
       On those rare occasions when liberals are confronted by truth, they don’t know how to react; they don’t realize how isolated they have become.  Just like Tod Lubitch, the boy in the plastic bubble, contact with unfiltered truth could kill their liberal beliefs. Consequently, their first instinct is to deny the truth; after all, nothing in their bubble has prepared them for it. Their next instinct is to call the speaker of truths racist, homophobic, sexist, ignorant and evil.
      Tod Lubitch finally left his bubble, but few liberals ever do. After all, life is more comfortable inside the  bubble than venturing out into the real world where things are not so simplistic and dogmatic and some thinking is required. Liberals don’t know what they don’t know. They prefer life inside the bubble even though that life is a lie because liberalism is a lie.

The Lies of Liberalism

George Noga

Defining Liberalism – Part 2

By: George Noga – March 8, 2013
 
        We previously defined liberalism as a lie based on obvious contradictions and disdain for facts; let’s get specific. Liberals can’t be honest about their beliefs and must cloak and misdirect them in various ways. They favor abortion including termination of babies born alive during a botched abortion, a/k/a infanticide. They are sanguine about 50 million legal US abortions since Roe v. Wade but oppose capital punishment of which there have been about 1,300 during the same time period. Instead of directly making the case for their beliefs, they adopt palliative terms such as pro choice and women’s health. Of course, they don’t really mean pro choice as they strenuously oppose a woman’s choice about where to send her kids to school, owning a gun, having medical insurance, joining a labor union and even what to eat and drink.
      They readily embrace absurd contradictions; it is okay for a very young girl to have an abortion without parental knowledge or consent but don’t protest if the same girl is arrested for selling lemonade in her own front yard. In the craziest contradiction of all, liberals advocate gender-selective abortion that results in culling girls from the population as is commonplace in China, India and now among certain ethnic groups in America. This is nothing more than asserting we must accept the systematic killing of young girls in order to protect their rights, i.e. we must destroy the village in order to save it. How’s that for modern feminist thinking?
“Liberals advocate gender-selective abortion, i.e. the systematic abortion of 
baby girls arguing they must abort the girls in order to protect their rights.”
      Liberals voluntarily do business with Apple, Disney, Wal-Mart and countless other companies; they love their quality, value and customer service. They also must interact with DMV, USPS and IRS. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart had trucks loaded with food and water ready to help victims. Within 24 hours of Sandy, Verizon had 95% of its cell phone service running. Government did nothing. Yet liberals demonize business and prefer government; they believe corporations create oppression and governments create prosperity. They are ignorant of public choice economics that proves politicians’ and bureaucrats’ actions are based on self interest to maximize their own power and are opposed to the public interest.
      Following are a demi-dozen other liberal lies and the list (for space limitations) omits mention of energy, guns, climate change, public unions, the debt crisis and a vast array of other issues where liberal thought consists of legerdemain, prestidigitation and bald-faced lies.

  1. The US has the most progressive tax system in the world; the rich pay a higher share of taxes than in any other country and our corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world. Nevertheless, liberals argue vociferously that the well off don’t pay their fair share.

  2. Liberals are for diversity in every possible way except for thought where they oppose it.

  3. Organic food fails every independent taste test versus conventionally grown food; isn’t healthier; requires more land; is worse for the environment; and costs more. Yet, it is a darling of liberals who oppose genetically modified food that actually is better for people.

  4. Every one of the top 100 measures of human and environmental well being is the best it has been in the past 50-75 years and is getting better all the time. In the face of all this, liberals continue to argue counter factually that things are bad and getting even worse.

  5. Our schools are terrible and getting worse. This has nothing to do with funding; it is the fault of educrats who regard it as a jobs program for adults and teachers unions that stand in the schoolhouse door blocking poor children from leaving. School choice is the civil rights issue of our age and liberals are on the wrong side despite their falsetto empathy.

  6. Photo IDs are needed to buy tobacco, alcohol, drive, cash checks, fly, open bank accounts and attend the Democratic convention. Liberals believe it is racist to require one to vote.
     In what may be the biggest whopper of them all, most liberals refuse to call themselves liberal, opting instead for non descriptive and misleading terms such as progressive, non-aligned  and independent. Not only is liberalism a lie, liberals lie about being liberal.
Coming next week: The final part in the series defining liberalism: Life in a Plastic Bubble.

Liberalism is a Lie

George Noga

Defining Liberalism – Part 1

By: George Noga – March 1, 2013
 
       This posting is the first of three that examines and defines modern liberalism. We mustn’t however allow ourselves to become confused by political labels such as conservative, fascist, communist, liberal, progressive, centrist, populist, democrat, republican, libertarian, socialist and anarchist. Labels notwithstanding, mankind always has been divided into two camps.
      Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land) wrote: “The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” Grover Norquist stated it simply: people divide politically between the “leave us alone” and the “takings” coalitions. Thomas Jefferson nailed it 250 years ago: “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe . . . depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist. Call them  . . . by whatever name you please. they are the same parties and pursue the same object.”
       Modern liberalism wants people to be controlled, doesn’t want to leave them alone and wants to take from them. As Jefferson described, it fears and distrusts the people and desires to arrogate all power. Today’s liberals believe in the supremacy of the state and thereby reject the principles of America’s founding documents. They must control individuals in order to control society with the aim of bringing about their vision of Utopia – inevitably resulting in hell on earth as with all Utopias throughout human history. This leads to a soft tyranny (which we already have) and ultimately results in a hard tyranny, i.e. some form of totalitarianism.
     This is a good beginning point but there is much more to understanding and defining modern day liberalism. It is anti-empirical, inconsistent with objective reality and driven by emotion; it eschews logic, reason and persuasion in favor of compulsion. It is all about feeling and its credo is sentio ergo sum, i.e. I feel therefore I am. Thus, liberalism can be understood and defined as an emotional state characterized by obvious contradictions, disdain for facts, Utopian fantasies, obsessive desires to control and to take from others and antipathy for all who differ.
“Liberalism: An emotional state characterized by obvious contradictions, disdain for truth, Utopian fantasies, obsessive desires
to control and to take from others and antipathy for all who differ.”
      As accurate as the preceding definition is, it represents but a  way station in my grasp of liberalism. My thinking has since evolved to an even higher level and I have come to  understand the true nature, and hence the ultimate definition, of modern liberalism. Everything about it is based on lies. Liberalism has been mugged by reality, although none of its acolytes dares acknowledge it, preferring instead prevarication, deceit, ad hominem attacks and appeals to emotion. The true definition of liberalism thus requires only four words: Liberalism is a lie!
       In part two (next week) I describe in detail how and why liberalism is a lie. The third and final part (two weeks hence) describes how contemporary liberalism has become so insular that its adherents live lives that resemble that of the “Boy in the Plastic Bubble“. Stay tuned!