{"id":8415,"date":"2013-10-23T13:31:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T13:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/23\/who-are-the-extremists-contemporary-liberals\/"},"modified":"2013-10-23T13:31:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T13:31:45","slug":"who-are-the-extremists-contemporary-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/23\/who-are-the-extremists-contemporary-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the Extremists? Contemporary ‘Liberals’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven F. Hayward<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But the sound and fury against the Tea Party is a sideshow.  The second aspect of the current partisan divide reveals the real extremism in politics today, and it isn\u2019t to be found among Tea Partiers.  The complaint against the supposed \u201cextremism\u201d of the Tea Party is nowadays followed by a much more risible lament: that the very design of our government is to blame for \u201cgridlock\u201d and the increasing conflict between the two parties in Washington.  Supposedly serious people have written in the last couple weeks that Tea Partiers should be arrested and charged with treason or sedition<\/a> for causing the government shutdown.  More frequent are the calls for abolishing the Senate because of its equal representation of small states and out of frustration with the filibuster.  A couple of liberal pundits, like the usually more sober-minded Jacob Heilbrunn at the National Interest<\/em>, have suggested abolishing Congress<\/a> altogether.  And New York Times <\/em>columnist Thomas \u201cChina-Is-Awesome\u201d Friedman periodically recycles his fantasy that we could be \u201cChina for a day<\/a>\u201d so that his favorite authoritarian wish list could be imposed without our democratic consent.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not a brand new phenomenon.  Starting with Woodrow Wilson, \u201cprogressives\u201d (to use a name more accurate than \u201cliberal\u201d) have complained that our various mechanisms of \u201cchecks and balances\u201d prevent government from being more \u201ceffective.\u201d  This is just code for the liberal desire that its opposition should simply shut up, surrender, and submit to their rule unquestioned.  It is a liberalism that has grown too lazy to argue with\u2014or even tolerate\u2014opposition, which is what happens when you come to believe that you embody \u201cthe side of history.\u201d  This display of contempt for the institutions of democratic deliberation reveals today\u2019s progressives to be highly undemocratic\u2014and illiberal, too.  With their will to power checked as intended by our founders, the Left is letting out a primal scream.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Extremists<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>I Too Was Once a Democrat!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven F. Hayward: But the sound and fury against the Tea Party is a sideshow.  The second aspect of the current partisan divide reveals the real extremism in politics today, and it isn\u2019t to be found among Tea Partiers.  The complaint against the supposed \u201cextremism\u201d of the Tea Party is nowadays followed by a much … Continue reading “Who are the Extremists? Contemporary ‘Liberals’”<\/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":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8415","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=8415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}