For years, I’ve been describing myself as a classical liberal, essentially, a Constitutional / legal conservative with many libertarian leanings — though without the reigning establishment small-l libertarians’ (read, the Reason crowd’s) open-borders / foreign policy stance, which in my opinion represents a rather strange marriage of unlimited immigration (an affront to the idea of national sovereignty) and military isolationism / “realism”.
Classical liberalism is the founding ideology for this country. Which is why the loss of “liberal” — a word the New Left once despised as bourgeois, but a word they nevertheless co-opted when they found that overt socialism wasn’t selling to those who actually worked and paid taxes — was such a tragic loss, forcing classical liberals into either “libertarian” or “conservative” identity groups, both of which have been defined as far-right and either extremist or unserious.
The Reagan revolution brought conservatism back into the mainstream, but it did so by attracting so-called Reagan Democrats — many of whom are now considered conservatives. The Tea Party, as I surmised back before it took shape (back when I was calling the movement OUTLAWism), can and should act as a reprise of the Reagan Revolution, taking disaffected Democrats who are just now discovering that their party has left them and moved dramatically left, and Constitutional conservatives (not to be confused with Big Spending Republicans), and joining them together in an alliance that promotes fiscal sanity, individual freedom, less government intrusion into our lives, and an end to the social experimentation that has given us politically correct speech codes, “diversity” debacles, a “tolerance” culture that is decidedly not, and courts that behave more like philosopher kings than protectors of law.
Is it really any wonder, then, why those in power — in both political parties — wish to see the Tea Party marginalized? The Tea Party is classical liberalism. It is the founding ideology of our country reasserting itself through the will of the people.
Which brings me to this definition of classical liberalism noted by dicentra (who caught wind of it through an Harsanyi Tweet):
“Being a classical liberal means being a conservative when you need to preserve liberties you already have, a radical when you have to gain liberties you don’t have yet, a reactionary when you need to regain liberties you’ve lost, and a revolutionary when you can’t be free any other way. And always progressive, because without liberty, there can be no progress.”
– Carlo Cardasco, European director of Students for Liberty (via Oliver Cooper)
Leave it to those on the outside looking in to long for what we risk surrendering out of laziness and a failure of vigilance.
Discuss.
Brilliant. Also really like his taking back “progress”, a word so thoroughly co-opted by the lying left as to perhaps never return to the fold of reason.
Damn but we are a foolish nation.
Or put another way, we are awash in seas of bullshit. Consider, for example, what may and what may not be spoken at the average dinner party. The conditioning of thought by The Keepers of Truth is at epic high levels.
I like it.
We live in a Barack Obama, Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher America, so yes, we are awash is a sea of reeking bullshit, out of sight of land…
Face it Jeff, what you are is a Whig.
And always, ALWAYS, refer to reactionary leftists as, well, reactionary leftists.
Drives ’em nuts, with the added bonus of being true.
Face it Jeff, what you are is a Whig.
If so, he is in good company.
Well, yes. The term “conservative” is always conditional on what you’re aiming to conserve. Unfortunately, our opponents confuse political labels with dictionary definitions, insisting that we’re all resistant to change of any kind, cf. the Hollywood stereotype of the bumpkin who charges into his backyard where the spaceship has crashed, guns a-blazin’, even though that would never happen because humans–like all higher animals–are naturally curious and won’t regard new oddities as dangerous until they prove themselves to be.
Same with “radical,” “reactionary,” and “revolutionary.”
Never lose this link to den Beste’s “Left and Right,” which is a great explanation of political continuums.
Great post, Jeff. I love the quote, too.
SW, I was going to link to that piece by Hayek, also. I started out as your typical democratic voter (parents both vigilant democrats, dad’s a democratic politician) aping the democratic class party rhetoric and then I went to college. At first I was reactionary in my politics. If a democrat (I refused to call them liberals then, as I do now)favored one thing, I espoused the other. But I still hadn’t found my ideology (or better yet, political philosophy) yet. It wasn’t until maybe 10 years ago that I came across the Ludwig Von Mises Institute that I began saying to myself, “Yeah, that’s it! That’s exactly it”. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, as well as his and Von Mises’ and Rothbard’s other works, kind of cemented it all for me.
I often come back to de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, particularly Book One, Chapter 12. It’s a brilliant look at the way “community organizing” used to work, back when we were a proud and free people. My work with local volunteer groups can be traced directly to my reading of that chapter.
I wish more people would read it, if only to understand just how far we’ve fallen, and what it is that some of us are striving to regain.
Are there any politicians currently on the scene who come the closest to espousing the ideals of classical liberalism?
“Are there any politicians currently on the scene who come the closest to espousing the ideals of classical liberalism?”
m. bachmann, h. cain, p. toomey, et al
Was Reagan a classical liberal?
“Was Reagan a classical liberal?”
yea i think so. is he the perfection of the idea of classical liberal within the context of his time in office? yes ax fritz mondale.
Discuss.
NAZI!! CONTROLLER! I’ll show you, I’ma goin’ to sit here and shake my fist at the screen instead!
“(back when I was calling the movement OUTLAWism)”
Hey,
The OPORDER is still in effect Mr!
on this tax day be OUTLAW!!11!! send them paper.
Send them used paper.
How does one reconcile the definition of classical liberalism by Mr. Cardasco with the position on social issues of Ms. Bachmann, Mr. Cain and Mr. Toomey?
10th Amendment.
BT seems familiar.
The blank expression — I’d recognize it anywhere.
Thanks Jeff
Scotus needs to reinterpret the Commerce clause for the 10th to really mean anything.
JD I’m not a troll if that is what you mean. I seldom post here but have been known to donate to the cause. Jeff might know me as Bill S.
I did not say you were a troll. I simply made an observation that your style seemed familiar.
“Scotus needs to reinterpret the Commerce clause for the 10th to really mean anything. ”
let’s talk Wickard v. Filburn and the fdr allstars
Been around since the Yahoo Club days, maybe our paths have crossed, but you are correct most posters develop a unique style.
I’d bet Bachmann, Cain, Toomey, et al., think Scotus should do just that.
The point being, there’s nothing about their beliefs — or Palin’s — that cause me any pause. They believe in the rule of the law and fidelity to the proper roles of each branch of the government, from what I’ve seen.
That of course means they will all be vilified in the MBM. Such archaic notions as the rule of law. Please.
I can’t say that I’m satisfied with Mr. Cardasco’s definition. It seems to me that being “radical when you have to gain liberties you don’t have yet” is how the Democrat Party went off the rails under Roosevelt.
Or, at least I don’t see how you reconcile FDR’s Second Bill of Rights with Classical Liberalism/Constitutional-Legal Conservatism and economic libertarianism.
to the infidels:
“He taught me how (oh, He taught me how)
To wash (to wash, to wash)
Fight and pray (to fight and pray)
Fight and pray
And he taught me how to live rejoicing
yes, He did (and live rejoicing)
Oh yeah, every, every day (every, every day)
(oh yeah) Every day!
Oh happy day (oh happy day)
Oh happy day, yeah (oh happy day)
When Jesus washed (when Jesus washed)
When my Jesus washed (when Jesus washed)
When Jesus washed [hits high note] (when Jesus washed)
My sins away (oh happy day)
I’m talking about that happy day (oh happy day)”
link
fuckin’ jesus wants to fight. union thug. next /sarc off
Yeah. But how are you supposed to find the time to think, to dream, to contemplate the significance of the universe, to explore, to discover, to play with somebody else’s naughty bits –or whatever the hell it is that SanFran Nan thinks you ought to be doing– when you’re too busy doing all that fishing and washing and fighting and praying because you live in a downright mean country that won’t guarantee you a minimum income, or provide you with a defined benefit old-age pension, or supply you with all the health care you can consume?
What other liberties are out there just waiting for the radicals to discover them for us to gain?
…And always progressive, because without liberty, there can be no progress.”
No, this places the cart before the horse. The ultimate issue is not whether progress is being made, for without a pre-determined goal there can be no adequate measure of progress. Liberty may allow for progress in circumstances where it’s absence would make progress difficult if not impossible, but that is merely a feature, not the reason for it’s existence. Liberty is an end unto itself. It is the ultimate expression of the individual qua individual. If one chooses, if for no other reason than as a sole and singular expression of liberty, to remain in stasis then that is damn well good enough and no one should attempt to limit that free expression of self, for to do so would be decidedly illiberal.
Progress be damned.
Hear, hear!
I can only imagine the slackers listening to our campaign speeches:
“You should be free to sit on your ass and smoke weed all the live-long day, if that’s the path you choose for yourself.”
“Fucken A, dude!”
“But if each of us is free to enjoy the fruits of our labor, then none of us has a claim on his neighbor’s. So you’re not going to be paid to sit on your ass and smoke weed all the live-long day. You’ll have to sponge off your parents, or starve.”
“Dude. Harsh.”
“Do you want to struggle as a proud free man, or live as a timid, comfortable slave?”
“Dude, is that a trick question? Lemme get back to you.”
Some time ago I started going to pains to avoid calling the left “liberals”, for exctly the reasons stated. Instead, I call them leftists or – occasionally – progressives.
Somehow “leftists” seems to fit better, with the bonus effect of seeming to piss them off when they hear it. The truth hurts, which is why they stole the term “liberal” in the first place I think.
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