{"id":7891,"date":"2014-06-19T04:58:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T04:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/06\/19\/the-new-illiberalism\/"},"modified":"2014-06-19T04:58:22","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T04:58:22","slug":"the-new-illiberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/06\/19\/the-new-illiberalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Illiberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have often pointed out that there is nothing liberal about contemporary 'liberals.'  Kim R. Holmes' Intolerance as Illiberalism<\/a> is well worth your time. Excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Hard illiberalism, however, is not the only variant. There are \u201csoft\u201d versions too. They often appear \u201cliberal\u201d and even operate inside democratic systems otherwise committed to the rule of law. But their core idea is that liberal democracy and the constitutional rule of law are insufficient to bring about absolute equality.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is this form of illiberalism that is gaining traction in America today. It comes in many guises and varying degrees of intensity. It is a campus official countenancing \u201ctrigger warnings\u201d and speech codes that censor free speech and suppress debate. It is a radio host shouting that he hopes employees of the National Security Agency get cancer and die. It is politicians and government officials who bend the rules, launch investigations, overturn laws, criminalize so-called \u201chate\u201d speech, and stretch the meaning of the Constitution to impose their views on Americans. It is the mindset of \u201cus versus them\u201d that leads government officials such as New York\u2019s governor to say that there is \u201cno place in the state of New York\u201d for \u201cextreme conservatives\u201d\u2014 by which he meant not fringe or violent groups but anyone who opposes abortion or the redefinition of marriage. And it is the idea that constitutional limits, individual rights, and even due process can be ignored in the \u201cgreater\u201d cause of creating income equality.<\/span><\/p>\n

These people have become not merely intolerant but fundamentally illiberal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Illiberalism is not just about government denying people the right of free expression and equality before the law. It is also about controlling how people think and behave. It is a threat both to our democratic system of government and to the \u201cliberal\u201d political culture.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Can a Sane and Morally Decent Person be a Liberal?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have often pointed out that there is nothing liberal about contemporary 'liberals.'  Kim R. Holmes' Intolerance as Illiberalism is well worth your time. Excerpt: Hard illiberalism, however, is not the only variant. There are \u201csoft\u201d versions too. They often appear \u201cliberal\u201d and even operate inside democratic systems otherwise committed to the rule of law. … Continue reading “The New Illiberalism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,56,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-politics","category-toleration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}