{"id":26927,"date":"2011-04-18T10:58:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T16:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=26927"},"modified":"2015-08-28T08:06:41","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T14:06:41","slug":"classical-liberalism-makes-a-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=26927","title":{"rendered":""Classical liberalism" makes a comeback?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/em> 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”.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to this definition of classical liberalism<\/a> noted by dicentra (who caught wind of it through an Harsanyi Tweet):<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing 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\u2019t have yet, a reactionary when you need to regain liberties you\u2019ve lost, and a revolutionary when you can\u2019t be free any other way. And always progressive, because without liberty, there can be no progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Carlo Cardasco, European director of Students for Liberty (via Oliver Cooper)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Leave it to those on the outside looking in to long for what we risk surrendering out of laziness and a failure of vigilance.<\/p>\n

Discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\n

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