Observations on Modern Liberal Thought

Number 1. The Larch. The Larch.

I awoke this morning to the music of the long-lived Canadian rock band Rush. Years ago, they produced a song entitled The Trees, about the absurdity of the socialist ideal of equal outcomes. This song expresses the viewpoint of the socialist - the class inequity, and the desired goal of equal outcomes. Here are the illustrative lyrics:

Rush, The Trees
There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads.

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light!"
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Modern conservatives (classical liberals) have a problem with the equal outcome desires of socialist thought, correctly noting that equal outcomes only serve the socialists' interests while denying the interests of others. Modern conservatives view such socialist equality as duplicitous. Even under the guise of the kinder, gentler welfare state, modern liberalism demonizes any opposition to its aims, refusing to see any other solution to the problem. To the socialist, any means to a perceived equal end is perfectly all right.

On the other hand, classical liberalism acknowledges that the means to the end makes all the difference in the world. Modern liberalism sees equal opportunity as the road leading to the greatest freedoms. Any system that interferes with equal opportunity will only promote one class of people over another - oaks over maples or maples over oaks.

Of course, both sides argue against each other. Leftists try to demonize the right though tactics expressed by Saul Alinsky in his book Rules for Radicals.  Leftists spread the idea that modern conservatives are "hate mongers," "bigots," "fear mongers," "racists," and so forth. The duplicity stems from Alinsky's philosophy that never acknowledges that leftists can and do use such speech and thought.

This duplicity of modern liberal thought is evident in such statements as these which came from the last "debate" over the budget:

• Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY): Republicans came to Congress “to kill women.”
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): In the Republican budget proposal, “6 million seniors are deprived of meals.”
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL): Ryan’s 2012 budget plan “would literally be a death trap for seniors.”
• Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.): “This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians."
• USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah: The Republican budget “would lead to 70,000 kids dying."
• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas): “...people are being rolled out of nursing homes in wheelchairs, with crutches, some on beds.”
• Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): Republicans “want to make it harder... for a woman to get a cancer screening.”

All these invectives from the discussion of a proposed budget which had the audacity to try and shave off less than one percent of the total federal spending - about four day's worth - while trying to also defund public funding for the darling of modern feminism - Planned Parenthood.

Americans as a whole are waking up to the problems with the philosophy of equal outcome welfare. Americans see leftists demonizing entire segments of the population for merely holding differing viewpoints. Certainly there are die-hard modern liberals who see nothing good in returning to the foundational principles of the US, to a market economy, and to greater freedoms for individuals. But with each debate such as the one over the recent budget, more and more Americans can see the duplicity of the leftists who control the country.