Kieran Healy

Left vs Right; Godzilla vs Mothra, etc

Behind the curve but gathering momentum, Patrick Ruffini joins Michael Totten in some absurd hand-waving about left- vs right-leaning bloggers. Patrick believes that Glenn Reynolds, Steven Den Beste and the troglodytes over at Little Green Footballs “are all beautiful prose stylists.” I think Patrick needs to broaden his range of reading so that he has a more solid basis for stylistic comparisons.

He also presents us with a pure example the kind of empty “Oh why is the left not more like the right?” pettifoggery that’s been on the rise lately:

it’s probably true that, advocacy-wise, lefty bloggers make the most of their limited traffic by being very party line on Bush and most domestic issues. The “righties” aren’t. About the only things they’ve been consistent on is France and Saddam, and both issues are declining in importance. While the liberal bloggers tend to be good liberals, the conservative bloggers don’t tend to be good conservatives … Tacitus always seems somehow apologetic about linking to FR; the Left isn’t similarly concerned about linking to DU or quoting it authoritatively.

That last sentence is a marvel. I propose that from now on, this kind of thing be known as the Higgins Manoeuvre in honor of Henry Higgins’s song, “Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?” in My Fair Lady.

Actually, Kieran, let’s call it the Hitchens’ manuever, since it seems to be his little dance, and it is more current.

That is mostly because conservatives have core values and consider each topic thru that filter.

“Liberals” today are just following the DNC talking points. Many of them are incapable of thier own original thought. How else do you explain so many “liberals” not giving a shit about human rights violation is Iraq?

A REAL liberal would have been outraged by women and children being raped and tortured because a male in the family spoke against the goverment. Indeed when Clinton was in office liberals WERE outraged.

But when a republican is in office suddenly liberals ABANDON liberal beliefs and find every excuse to support a dictator.

It is an embarrasment to the liberals who went before them.

You will probably delete this post and I sorta hope you do. Having the left in a total state of denial about why they are losing power is critical to republicans gaining it.

Since Clinton’s first election, the Dems have lost more and more elected offices. Rather than try to figure out why the vast majority of the American people don’t like their message any more, they live in denial. And there they shall stay.

Recovering Liberal: What the hell are you talking about? Iraq was the most divisive issue in a long time. Liberals split over it, conservatives split over it. Many liberals paused at supporting it solely because it was the Bush administration in charge, and Lord are they incompetent (as we are seeing right in the aftermath of Iraq).

And you are delusional if you think toppling dictators will be an important political issue come 2004 or after. This is a fact that I regret a great deal, since I have a long list of dictators I’d like to see ousted, but in the long run the American people don’t have the appetite for it.

“How else do you explain so many “liberals” not giving a shit about human rights violation is Iraq?”

This claim is ridiculous. Liberals have been concerned about human rights violations, in Iraq and elsewhere, for years, and continue to be, but they are not so foolish to believe this war was really fought out of concern for Iraqis’ human rights. They know that conservatives seem only to develop a concern for human rights when they need to cloak a war—advanced under false pretenses—in respectability (Iraq), or when they are otherwise engaging in incipient warmongering (China). Really, you’re asking the wrong question. The question isn’t “what happened to liberal concerns with human rights?” but “why have conservatives suddenly discovered them?” It would be great if this discovery was attached to some “core principle” of conservatism, but this administration’s continued support for Saudi Arabia, scuttling of a UN statement against the abuse of women, advancement of MFN status to the repressive dictatorship in Singapore, and general unconcern with human rights abuses anywhere other than Iraq suggest that it’s nothing more than political opportunism by one of the most opportunistic administrations in recent history.

“Since Clinton’s first election, the Dems have lost more and more elected offices.”

Numerically, this simply isn’t true. While since Clinton’s first election, the Dems have lost elected offices, between 1994 and 2002 they have steadily reclaimed House and Senate seats and governorships, to return things to general parity. 2002 represented a setback, but never fear. Conservatives have a knack for screwing things up, and liberals will be back soon enough to clean up the mess.

i was basically going to post a long, long diatribe on this but i’ll instead link a matthew yglesias post where he basically endorses the Communist Party of the United States of America (or, as he aptly describes them, ” the guys who never broke with the Moscow line”) because they’re calling for a “broad coalition” for defeating bush in ‘04.

if this isn’t a black eye inasfar as it demonstrates left-of-center willingness to sacrifice principle in favor of utility, i don’t know what is.

War and Partisanship

Arthur Silber pulls a Higgins Manoever and asks why liberals believe in government intervention at home, but not abroad and why conservatives seem to believe the reverse. My take is that this simply isn’t true. There are a small number…

War and Partisanship

Arthur Silber pulls a Higgins Manoever and asks why liberals believe in government intervention at home, but not abroad and why conservatives seem to believe the reverse. My take is that this simply isn’t true. There are a small number…

“I propose that from now on, this kind of thing be known as the Higgins Manoeuvre in honor of Henry Higgins’s song”

I was hoping that the “Higgins Manoeuvre” was in honour of Alex “Hurricane” Higgins awesome off-several cushions snooker shots, when he was just drunk enough in the Benson & Hedge’s snooker finals.

“if this isn’t a black eye inasfar as it demonstrates left-of-center willingness to sacrifice principle in favor of utility, i don’t know what is.”

But of course libertarians endorsing the party of regulating your sex life in order to get some ineffective tax cuts is the height of “moral clarity”.

But of course libertarians endorsing the party of regulating your sex life in order to get some ineffective tax cuts is the height of “moral clarity”.

if you’re referring to the santorum affair, you can read my (rather harsh) criticism here, here & more recently, here. besides, i could be termed a very, very mild libertarian, quite different from the guys (& gals) @ the volokh conspiracy & samizdata, for example.

fundamentally, however, it’s a bit different to endorse republicans, flawed as they are, vs endorsing “the guys who never broke with the Moscow line.” i mean… jeeeeeesh! maybe i’m just a humorless crank, but the notion of nodding approvingly in the general direction of an outfit like the communist party because it decided it’s more anti-bush than anything else strikes me as… what? reprehensible, irresponsible, indefensible?

Kieran, not too many people in the US spell maneuver your way. I like the Higgins Manoeuvre though. I thought for one horrifying moment that Ruffini was that new 14-year-old and we were debating about a 14-year-old’s world view. If he is, his extract there, while wrong, is very adult.

harm d, Yglesias was quite obviously trying to make the point that Democrats are a fractious, self-criticizing bunch who can’t seem to get together behind anything, and so consistently lose out to the ruthlessly on-message Republican Wurlitzer. The ironic implication was, “look, even the commies see the need to unite… can’t the DNC get its act together?”

Of course he’s not endorsing communism, for chrissake. Can’t you do better than this kind of shallow “gotcha”?

Eh, why bother…

harm d, Yglesias was quite obviously trying to make the point that Democrats are a fractious, self-criticizing bunch who can’t seem to get together behind anything, and so consistently lose out to the ruthlessly on-message Republican Wurlitzer

look: you or anybody else can read whatever they damn well please into anything at all; i’m just looking at what he actually typed. i don’t see any mention of “democrats” in his entry—just “greens” and (of course) “communist party.”

i’m hard-pressed to see how it’s “quite obvious” that mr. yglesias is commenting on democratic fragmentation since he doesn’t even mention the democratic party, either by name or implicitly. i guess we could both agree that he’s deploring left-of-center fragmentation, in which case my points stands:

what’s more important: uniting to defeat bush et co (what mr. yglesias terms “political realism”) or distancing oneself from fringe groups like “the guys who never broke with the Moscow line”?

for better or for worse, mr. yglesias seems to come down on the side of the former.

for better or for worse, i come down on the side of the latter.

and they say liberals don’t have a sense of humor…

Big Media Matt was making a funny.

Matt’s post is clearly a joke at the Green Party’s expense. Still it’s nice to see that somebody, somewhere saying Communist Party without an immediate may they roast in hell is all it takes to get conservatives all hot n bothered.

The lumping together of bloggers by ideology and then characterizing their writing styles does strike me as rather silly. For one thing, Reynolds is hardly a conservative but rather libertarian. I’m not sure how I’d characterize LGF; it’s definitely well outside the American mainstream.

I tend to avoid bloggers who post mainly diatribes and ad hominem attacks, so it’s hard to get a good sample. Clearly, there are plenty of those on both the left and the right. Certainly more on the right than the left, but then there are more blogs, period, on the right than the left.

I’d hit my head on the wall, but then I might start getting terribly offended at ‘quite obvious’ satire.

why the vast majority of the American people don’t like their message any more, they live in denial. And there they shall stay.

You must be referring to that vast majority that elected G.W. Bush. Or perhaps you are referring to the overwhelming 51-49 Republican advantage in the Senate.

Since Clinton’s election, it is true that Democrats have lost ground in the South. Republicans have lost ground in California and the Northeast.

The electorate in the U.S. is now very evenly divided. Don’t let two Senate wins by margins of two percent in the last elections fool you into thinking Republicans are the favorite of the “vast majority” of Americans.

Your Rush Limbaugh talking points really don’t play well when you aren’t talking to fellow dittoheads.

That is mostly because conservatives have core values

This post brought to you courtesy of Bill Bennett, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston and Ken Lay.

harm d: Matt was joking.

I think the issue is that “true” liberals are generally intellectuals whereas “true” conservatives
are zealots. You can bring 10 intellectuals together in a forum and end up with 12 opinions.
Zealots band together and pick the one opinion that best serves their purposes or agenda.

The fact is most all the “liberal” agenda has been implemented. The US is fundamentally an egalitarian
society with a robust economy and among the least corrupt judicial systems in the world. We seem only
lacking in terms of environmental sustainability which unfortunately is deemed economically, politically, technologically and socially
unviable at the moment.

Beyond that? Homosexual and abortion rights, marriage penalty, taxation fairness, etc…….which really stand little or no chance of establishment
of a sustainable concensus or plurality. Even with victory, neither side really does anything about them anyway. Why?
Because then they wouldn’t be able to campaign on those issues anymore!

In fact the “liberals” now are the conservatives now. They are the one trying to maintain civil liberties and educational institutions while
the “conservatives” want to drive the public education system and civil liberties (for our safety) as well as the entire federal government itself
into the ground just to prove their points. The banal electoral stupidity of electing people who “hate Washington” to run it is about as sensible
as loaning a drunk your car keys while believing that he very well will crash it.

Our biggest folly is too many politicians and too few statesmen. It is the voters’ fault because they fall for
presentation over substance and rhetoric over action and apathy over activism.

Jane’s Law

Jane Galt offers up this new law of politics: Jane’s Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug

harm d: Matt was joking.

ha, ha.

i suppose that if i joked about how those damn libertarians can’t get rank & file behind bush like the aryan brotherhood is, it’d also be ok.

we are not amused.

p.s. if it’s “obvious” that mr. yglesias was joking, why have people who basically agree w/ him misinterpreted the post? viz. “oh libertarians are just as bad” by aleph, “he was just commenting on democratic fragmentation” via Realish & so on.

i suppose that if i joked about how those damn libertarians can’t get rank & file behind bush like the aryan brotherhood is, it’d also be ok.

Why yes, if you were joking.

p.s. if it’s “obvious” that mr. yglesias was joking, why have people who basically agree w/ him misinterpreted the post?

No political ideology has a monopoly on dimness.

You guys can whine all you want…

Dems had the Whitehouse and both houses of congress when Clinton came to power. Now you have lost all 3.

And today we hear that Kerry would lose to Bush in his own home state!

The intellectual dishonesty of the democrats will cut them in two. You can’t call yourself a good liberal and support a dictator who rapes and murders children.

waltpohl… Iraq did not split people like you say. Republicans supported it well over 80 (and I think 90) percent. More than half the dems supported the dictator. And you are apparently not smart enough to get my point about 2004. There are terrorist problems all over the globe and you guys (Clinton etc) are bashing Bush for doing too much to fight it. That is a fools bet.

And no “Recovering Conservative” you are wrong. MANY MANY MANY so called liberals did not give a shit about human rights violations in IRAQ. Why do you think so many REAL librals are now writing columns asking what happened to the left? All they cared about was chanting “No blood for oil” and other meaningless tripe. They could not even come up with a better slogan than one used and proven wrong in 1991. SIGH.

And JP you got the points made 180 degrees out of phase then argued against it. The original piece said Libs stuck together and conservatives parted ways. So all your elitest hot air about liberals being intellectuals and conservatives being zealots really backfired on you. It is the libs who are the zealots that follow the same talking points. But thanks for unintentionally joining my side.

The next time you glorify yourself as an intellectual learn to freaking read what was written. You just called your side zealots.

So whine all day gentlemen. The Dems have lost the power the enjoyed for 40 years and they are only sinking deeper every day. They prediced they would win the Senate and they LOST ground. The only way they even took control is by CHANGING THE OUTCOME OF AN ELECTION AND GOING AGAINST THE WILL OF THE VOTERS WITH A SHADY BACK ROOM DEAL.

And you whiners want to talk about Florida!

HA!

Rave on. A once proud party has been hijacked by radicals and is hell bent on self destruction.

Don’t bother argue the point, I’ll just ask you who the majority leader is.

Well what is your definitions of liberalism and conservatism?

The basis of the word “conservatism” is “conserve” thus maintain. The correct versus the popular usage are contrary.
“Liberalism” is deemed the polar opposite of conservatism thus intuitively implies actively seeking change, although that isn’t necessarily an accurate use either.

However neither really means much. A more important or relevant debate would be whether a candidate is a socialist or an anti-socialist.
The democrats generally lean towards a European style “nanny-state” whereas the GOP seem hell-bent to turn the US into a police state.

Patriot Act I and II were born by Republicans, as is the Total Information Awareness programs (still funded and active by the way). Only Fiengold (a Democrat)
had the guts to vote against the Patriot Act and Democratic opposition seems to be second-guessing the possibility of permanent ratification of the Patriot I provisions.

Choose your poison………..

How long have you been “recovering” from your liberalism? Since the Civil Rights Act, or thereabouts? I don’t understand this nonsense. If Senators Shelby and Campbell hadn’t switched parties and thus “nullified the will of the voter”, the Dems would have had a majority already. Why is their party switch okay, but Jeffords is some sort of horrifying back room deal?

And I assure you, if Jeffords had run for reelection as a Democrat, he would have won. At least have of his constituency were people who would never have voted for another Republican.

Also, can I just defend the Communist Party for a moment. Yes, they suck for apologizing for Stalin, and all that. And yes, Stalin (and Lenin and Mao) were horrible, horrible people. But does this mean that every Communist party everywhere is a totalitarian monstrosity? The post-war Italian and French Communist parties largely broke with Moscow, for instance, and were pretty staunchly supportive of democratic government and civil liberties. (They were wrong about all kinds of other things, but so are plenty of other political parties). The French commies have participated in coalition governments, and not made anything particularly horrible happen. The Italian communist party broke up, and many former communists have remade themselves as Social Democrats, including several recent prime ministers. I don’t know much about CPUSA, but this idea that anyone who calls themselves communist is as bad as the KKK is ridiculous.

As far as meanings of the terms Liberal and Conservative, they arose in 19th century Europe. Conservatives favored the traditional authority of the monarch, and frequently agrarian protection for big landlords. Liberals favored representative government and free trade. At that time, the whole nomenclature made a great deal of sense.

Of course, there are no actual conservatives anymore. That makes the whole thing rather silly, and we get nonsense about how conservatives want to keep things the same, and liberals want change. Conservatives wanted to keep things as they were in the mid-nineteenth century. I don’t see how this has much, if any, relevance to political debates today. The “neoconservatives” of today are pretty classic nineteenth century liberals. Most “Liberals,” in the United States at least, are actually Social Democrats, essentially. The whole nomenclature of American political life is ridiculously unhelpful. Outside the U.S., even, the meaning of Liberal is horribly confused. In Britain, the Liberal Democrats are essentially to the left of Labour, the “Social Democratic” party, at this point. In Canada, the Liberals are the main party on the left. In Australia, they are the main party on the right. In Austria, the “liberal” party is Haider’s far right Freedom Party. In Germany, the Free Democratic Party has embraced Thatcherite economic policies…(I’d say in general, that continental Liberal parties are rather like libertarians in the US - left on social issues, right on economic ones. This contrasts with Christian Democratic parties, which are right on social issues, and left on economic ones.)

Good point, much more authoritative and academic than my analysis.

The difficulty is the that there are many facets to the argument of politics

Federalism ranges from :confederacy to federal autocracy
Personal freedom: anarchy to totalitarianism
Economics: laize faire (sp) to communism
Politics: single party to multi-party
Religion: theocratic to secular
Socialism: social darwinism to nanny-state
Political selection: direct popular elections to feudal succession

To name just a few categories and just naming the extremes (many flavors in between)

Recovering liberal should consider the long term ramifications of a one-party nation before
he gloats over the Democrat’s demise.

John wrote, “The Italian communist party broke up, and many former communists have remade themselves as Social Democrats, including several recent prime ministers. I don’t know much about CPUSA, but this idea that anyone who calls themselves communist is as bad as the KKK is ridiculous.”

Former US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and present US Senator Robert Byrd are former members of the KKK.

The KKK was a vile organization, preaching hate and counseling murder and robbery against those it disapproved of. So was the Communist Party USA.

Gorejack

Commenters in this post have spoken, and I have decided that from now on, when an individual (usually a Democrat)

Gorejack

Commenters in this post have spoken and one in particulalr threw out a name I think fits, so from now

What I mean to say is that one must judge one’s political choices carefully.

Democrat/Republican/liberal/conservative all mean very little. Unfortunately the media is a total
failure in terms of the public’s education in political matters. If one is truly interested in the
betterment of politics, active interest is required. Perseverence is even more important, as
the idiots and ignorants take to the polls.

It seems to me that the apathetic electorate and uninformative press undermines the viability
of universal suffrage. Natural law dictates ‘use it or lose it’. The perpetuation of this
lack of interest will inevitably lead to univeral suffrage’s end.