In the liberal telling of America's story, there are ony two perpetrators of official misdeeds: conservatives and "America" writ large. (P)rogressives, or modern liberals, are never bigots or tyrants, but conservatives often are. For example, one will virtually never hear that the Palmer Raids, Prohibition, or American eugenics were thoroughly progressive phenomena. These are sins America itself must atone for. Meanwhile, real or alleged "conservative" misdeeds - say, McCarthyism - are always the exclusive fault of conservatives and a sign of the policies they would repeat if given power. The only culpable mistake that liberals make is failing to fight "hard enough" for their principles. Liberals are never responsible for historic misdeeds, because they feel no compulsion to defend the inherent goodness of America. Conservatives, meanwhile, not only take the blame for events not of their own making, but find themselves defending liberal misdeeds in order to defend America itself.The only culpable mistake that liberals make is failing to fight "hard enough" for their principles.
Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, p. 118
"The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only HARDER!"
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.