One thing the real intellectuals I studied under in graduate school would have said was that "labels" used to describe ideas, may at times be a useful shorthand, but in the long run, ideas are complex and one word labels can never be effective at explaining ideas. That has never been more true than now.
This past week, the "liberal left" (sorry for that) started the latest campaign to discredit the "conservative right" and it was so upsetting to me that the trip to the Disney World escape from reality was actually a good way for me to cool down. The intellectual snobs of the New Yoprk Times, lead by Paul Krugman, began asserting that the American conservatives were "silently" the cause of the killings by a radical Muslim and a seriously ill racist, "jew hater" who killed at the Holocaust Museum. The reason, because these were "right wing" fanatics and that the political proponents "on the right" were in the same class and held the same, or similar views. I was so insulted, I simply needed time to cool off.
After "cooling off" for a few days, I remain no less offended, but now I am very concerned that this is what Saul Alinsky discusses in Rules For Radicals. This is the "marginalize the opposition" strategy. I hate to admit again the brilliance of that message, but it works. Instead of Krugman blaming the political hatred on the left for the vilification of George Bush being the tone that encourages the hatred by these radical, it is the conservatives who are the target. If the "left" can create the "straw man" right radical as the cause of all violence, then the right can be blamed for fascist ideas, rather than the left. Yes, I am convinced that the message about the fascist left is much more accurate than the fascist right, yet, look at the history books and you will not read that. Mussolini was a populist leftist, long before he became a "true fascist." Yet that term is clearly identified as a "right philosophy" not a left idea.
There is no doubt in my mind, that the left which can not get the "share of voice" on radio and TV that it thinks it "deserves," wants to silence the conservative voices. We should never forget that the fairness doctrine is nothing more than an effort to force the media to air the views of those whose views can not gain traction in the market of free ideas.
Ironically, there is one term that I actually think is a terribly misused term, and it is the term "Liberal." As most of you who read this Blog already know, the first "Liberals" were those who hold the clear view that individual liberty is the paramount value of their belief system and hence, they fought for Liberal ideas. Our founding fathers in the US where really liberals in their day. They fought for the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." They fought "against the oppression of big government in the form of the "King," and not for Big Government.
I truly wish that we "conservatives" could reclaim the "liberal label" because it better describes our beliefs than does conservatism. People who claim themselves as "Libertarians" have the right idea, they just simply have not been able to rally the voters. In my heart, I am a "Libertarian!"
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