Must've Been in the Footnotes
Steve Hayward writes:
I think Liberty and Tyranny is an excellent book, exactly the kind of book we need that explains in a serious way how liberalism has unraveled the Constitution thread-by-thread.
As I’ve noted before, Mark Levin’s book does explain conservatism in a serious way — at times I’d go so far as to say that it describes it elegantly. But the most conspicuous flaw in the book, contra Mr. Hayward, is that it doesn’t explain “how liberalism has unraveled the Constitution” — it asserts that “Statism” has unraveled the Constitution, it never attempts a step-by-step account of the mechanisms by which this happened, and it never grapples with liberalism as it is actually practiced in the United States, instead relying on a straw man belief system that pretends as though people on the American left are basically freedom hating. It is useful to compare the book to Road to Serfdom, a book that actually does articulate a step by step process whereby leftist public policy undermines freedom.
I am not surprised that Mr. Hayward would find content in the book to praise, but I am puzzled that he offers that particular compliment, as it is unjustified by the content of the tome.
Pettiness, thy name is Friedersdorf.
— Lasorda · Oct 2, 02:26 PM · #
There’s nothing petty about continuing to emphasize one of the greatest weaknesses of modern conservatism. Namely, it’s unwillingness to engage liberalism and its advocates as they actually exist.
— MBunge · Oct 2, 03:12 PM · #
Conor, my man.
In a democracy you guys read The Road to Serfdom; they, however, read the Cliff’s Notes and listen to talk radio and get all excited and effectual and shit. That’s how it works, and only divine intervention will change it.
Fundamentally, only one person in the tent needs to understand Hayek. It’s enough, for political purposes, that the rest merely believe him.
Frowny truth of political life in a democracy: you need the base in the field and on the ramparts, not in the back diagramming sentences.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Oct 2, 04:01 PM · #
It’s tough to engage liberals as you actually exist. You won’t admit who you are. When you’re cornered, you call yourselves progressives or “climate change” activists or something. Even Obama had to run as a tax cutter for the great benighted masses. It wasn’t until Joe the Plumber caught him saying something unmistakably leftist that the masses had a glimpse of the real Barack Obama.
— jd · Oct 2, 04:50 PM · #
Jd – Obama cut taxes.
It’s amazing how soon conservatives forgot. I guess knowing the “real Obama” doesn’t mean knowing about anything Obama really did.
— Chet · Oct 3, 11:47 PM · #
Conor, I accept your basic criticism of Liberty and Tyranny: that the “statist” is a straw man.
But, it’s at least a better (because fairer) polemical term than “socialist” or “socialisitic.”
And, it probably is the case that Levin KNOWS that its something of a construct, but that to present things crisply, it MUST BE SO, since no liberal or proggie understands themselves as a statist, but (as Levin wants to argue) predictably winds up fostering the growth of big gvmnt, and other related bad trends, no matter what their stated aim/genuine intention. Obama the do-er matters way more than Obama the speaker, for example.
Thus, the moment Levin has to enter the madhouse and very-complex-house that is contemporary liberalism, i.e. to figure out whether moderate theorists like Praeger (Getting the Left Right) or Galston (Liberal Purposes) are really liberals, or whether they (or the Rawlsian academics) matter at all to defacto liberalism that rules the Dem party, where the Daily Kos figures in, what about “multiculturalism,” Wilson’s legacy, etc., etc….i.e., the moment he has to sort all that out, he can kiss most of his popular readers goodbye.
Having said that, having admitted that the analytical usefulness of the “Statist” has grown on me, I will admit that Levin’s linking our liberals, i.e., our democratic statists, to Tyranny simply, is troubling/arrogant/uncivil.
— Carl Scott · Oct 5, 09:49 PM · #
Of course, Conor, I understand that it is WRONG to characterize your political opponenets by the use of polemical terms that interpret them not in the way they understand themselves, but in the way they ought to be understood by rigorous thought. I know that you would NEVER use a term, for example, like, “pro-torture conservatives,” and then insist to the end that it is quite demonstrably analytically correct to use such a term.
And yet, my analogy is really too charitable to you! Most of our learned liberals could live with being tagged “pro-statist” by their opponents more easily (emphasis on “more”—no-one likes being tagged) than most of our learned conservatives could accept the “pro-torture” tag. Thus, we really we have to go to Levin’s use of his T-word, “Tyranny,” before we can see just how equivalently troubling/arrogant/uncivil your use of your T-word really is.
— Carl Scott · Oct 5, 10:12 PM · #