The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness
Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.
Man, we are one sorry, f——d-up collection of wooly-headed freaks, aren’t we? I had NO idea I was part of a group so thoroughly and collectively out of touch with the values of real, right-thinking Americans. You’d think by now there’d be some sort of medication that Conservatives could put us on which would get us to see things as they ought to be.
Having lost the midterm elections, Conservatives like “Dr.” Rossiter are now focusing their energy and hatred on Liberals like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ll admit to having had my fun with the hypocrisy and foibles displayed by so many Conservatives, but it’s never been personal. I have friends who are Conservative Republicans. We disagree on many things, but that’s as far as it goes. Rossiter’s diatribe is about as ignorant, mean-spirited, and off-base as anything I’ve read in quite some time.
Rossiter’s theorizing is nothing new. Smug, cocksure Conservatives (et tu, Rush Limbaugh? Ann Coulter?) having been positing these hatred-fueled “theories” since practically the beginning of political time. If you can’t beat ‘em, trash ‘em. Insult their manhood, question their sanity, impugn their patriotism, malign their beliefs as the stuff of ignorance and mental defect. Yeah, now there’s a way to start an informed, intelligent dialogue, eh??
What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice.
The “liberal mind”? Man, the next thing you know, someone will try and have “liberalism” defined as a mental disorder in the DSM-IV. Then again, if I wanted to play this game, and I frankly don’t, I could easily come up with an extensive list of “flaws” attributable to Conservatism. Don’t get me started….
Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”
The reality is that this is not a fair and just world- economically, socially, or politically. That’s just the way a capitalistic system works, and in a system in which some have more than others, someone needs to look out for the “little guy”. Liberals aren’t about penalizing success- far from it. What we do want is to ensure that this success doesn’t become translated into license to exploit those who, whether through birth, poor decision-making, or circumstance, haven’t enjoyed the same material success.
In a capitalistic, neo-oligarchic system such as ours, we live by the Golden Rule- He who has the gold makes the rules. This too often means that the wealthy and powerful will skew the legal, political, and economic climate to their distinct advantage. This is neither fair nor just. If a DUMB@$$ like Rossiter has a problem with Liberals standing up for those on the lower end of the economic food chain, that’s just too damn bad. This is American, and in America we stand up for our fellow Americans. It’s the right thing to do.
All Americans- indeed, all people- deserve a level playing field. What Liberals are about is ensuring that money and power don’t continue to tilt the legal, political, and economic climate to benefit the oligarchy at the expense of those whose labor enriches them.
There will always be those who, through poor decisions or accidents of birth, will remain doomed to the lower end of the economic spectrum. By the same token, there are those whose only claim to wealth and power is the family the were born into. They deserve their material success no more than the poor and downtrodden deserve their lack of it.
Liberalism isn’t about advocating the socialstic redistribution of wealth. We recognize that Utopia is not an attainable goal, not in a world in which we all have different dreams, goals, ambitions, and demons. What we do want is a world in which the playing field is level, in which the rich and powerful don’t continue to exploit the poor and less-advantaged in order to maintain their parasitic lifestyles.
We want fairness. We want justice. We want an America that stands for the dreams of the Founding Fathers- and we’re not about to apologize for that. What Rossiter refuses to recognize is that “workers,” “minorities,” and “the little guy” are the reason the rich and powerful have attained their wealth and power. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but left unchecked it’s a recipe for exploitation. In this man’s America, that’s just plain wrong.
Lyle Rossiter represents everything that is wrong with American Conservatism today, and in that respect he’s a true and deserving DUMB@$$.
