Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal

[cynatnite]

(something I accidentally ran across. Interesting read)

http://www.mises.org/story/1842



TWENTY YEARS AGO I was an extreme right-wing Republican, a young and lone "Neanderthal" (as the liberals used to call us) who believed, as one friend pungently put it, that "Senator Taft had sold out to the socialists." Today, I am most likely to be called an extreme leftist, since I favor immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, denounce U.S. imperialism, advocate Black Power and have just joined the new Peace and Freedom Party. And yet my basic political views have not changed by a single iota in these two decades!

It is obvious that something is very wrong with the old labels, with the categories of "left" and "right," and with the ways in which we customarily apply these categories to American political life. My personal odyssey is unimportant; the important point is that if I can move from "extreme right" to "extreme left" merely by standing in one place, drastic though unrecognized changes must have taken place throughout the American political spectrum over the last generation.

[ballaratocker]

1. Very true...

A good example of this is the former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser. In his early days in the 50's and 60's, he was regarded to the right of Genghis Khan. However, if you look at his positions over the last 30 odd years, very few have changed. Now he is regarded�@as almost a lefty.

[TwentyFive]

2. Kick for later reading.

I think individuals for the most part are pretty harmless. Mega corporations, left to their own devices will take over everything like a cancer.

[jedr]

3. remember when;

left meant a Utopian society without money or laws and right meant a balanced budget?

[Goldmund]

4. Awesome article

This is something I didn't know:

Anti-communism was the central root of the decay of the old libertarian right, but it was not the only one. In 1953, a big splash was made by the publication of Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Before that, no one on the right regarded himself as a "conservative"; "conservative" was considered a left smear word. Now, suddenly, the right began to glory in the term "conservative,"

It kind of speaks to something I've been saying: that the only way to neutralize the negativity of the "liberal" label is to embrace it, full force, not to dodge the damn question every time Hannity asks a Democrat "are you a liberal?".

[cynatnite]

5. I read it again

I really like this article. How he showed the shift of left and right and the ways they meet is just fascinating. He explained well how the shift occured.

I plan on researching the Cold War after reading what he says about who started it.

The last two paragraphs are so true.

[toddaa]

6. Murray Rothbard, "Anarcho" capitalist

Rothbard is an old school libertarian, but he's of the capitalist wing that Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, and F.A. Hayek. A true classical liberal. The libertarians sold out ages ago to big business. It's sad, really, that American libertarianism replaced Benjamin Tucker with Ayn Rand.

[DerekG]

7. Indeed, anti-war libertarians are usually better allies than liberals

American liberalism has an astonishingly bloody history: administrations that were deemed "progressive" (T.R., Wilson) or "liberal" (F.D.R., Truman, Johnson) were the ones that had the greatest proclivity for sacrificing our children to the war machine. Perhaps this was so deftly managed due to the benevolent image each president had forged for himself (by way of the Square Deal/New Deal/Fair Deal/Great Society). Think "paternalism."

And let us not forget: it was a (tacit) liberal, the aforementioned Harry Truman, who created the national security state, and thus destroyed our republic. I myself would support Robert Taft over that empire-builder any day.

[DefenseLawyer]

9. Better allies for whom?

You obviously aren't a Democrat. You paint with a rather broad brush when you accuse FDR and Truman of "feeding the war machine". Maybe you are the kind of ultra-pacifist that thinks fighting Hitler was a bad idea, but that is a view not held by many people who recognize the realities of the time.

[DerekG]

10. Quite right, I'm an independent

And though I recognize World War II as one of the precious few wars we had to participate in does not mean I accept the Spielberg/Ambrose glorification; our entrance was not predicated on altruism but on securing existing and future spheres of influence. (Roosevelt and his War Department refused to bomb the railways that led to the concentration camps, when such actions were entirely feasible.) WWII was an imperialist war like all others; it just happened to set us against three fascistic powers that were even worse than us.

Regarding Mssr. Truman and his cold war cadre, I recommend the essays of Gore Vidal and Michael Parenti, to discover how a liberal administration, in its pursuit of empire, set us on a permanent wartime economy and installed the national security apparatus that still has this planet in a stranglehold. If you can walk away from this material and still believe that the Cold War, in its totality, was not an egregious lie sold to the American people, then I'd guess you probably buy into this fabled "War on Terror," too.

I'll let my secret out of the bag: I fear the militaristic liberal far more than the hawkish rightist, for the former is usually garbed with the cloak of nobility.

[DerekG]

8. Kick

I think this essay would be illuminating for many a DUer.

[SupplySideLiberal]

11. Interesting Article

Might anyone know if the Howard Buffet of Omaha he references is a relation of Warren Buffet?

[bpilgrim]

12. bring back the 'OLD' conservatives before the neoCONs destroy the world

well, the crazies are now at the helm and i for one don't see better days ahead and when you throw mini nukes into the equation it looks almost hopeless.

are the elite planning on going out in a blaze of glory?

not if us rational Americans wake enough up... and that article points to the kinds of conservatives we have lots of common ground with for sure.

we need to empower and give voice to the paleoCONs ;->

'timely' article, thanks for sharing :toast:

peace