by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Note that Barack Obama is running not on his liberal record, but as a challenger against incumbent Mitt Romney who has done all sorts of terrible things like causing the 2008 meltdown and outsourcing jobs to China. In Obama\u2019s view, given the supposedly tranquil world abroad, we must try nation building at home, and thus concentrate on bold new initiatives like stimulus, infrastructure, green jobs, and federalized healthcare \u2014 none of which have been envisioned before, much less funded. And to the extent Obama has a concrete example, he points to efforts of the private oil sector to find more gas and oil despite, rather than because of, his own efforts. Conclusion? Obama himself apparently has given up on liberal ideas in lieu of Big Bird, binders, bull****ter, movie stars, and hip-hopsters, which prompts the question: does anyone believe in liberal ideology anymore \u2014 and if so, why?<\/p>\n Did California\u2019s redistributive elite really believe that they could all but shut down new gas and oil production, strangle the timber industry, idle irrigated farmland, divert water to the delta smelt, have 37 million people use a highway system designed for 15 million, allow millions of illegal aliens to enter the state without audit, extend free medical programs to 8 million of the most recent 11 million added to the population, up taxes to among the highest in the nation, and host one-third of the nation\u2019s welfare recipients \u2014 and not have the present chaos?<\/p>\n The California schools \u2014 flooded with students whose first language is not English, staffed by unionized teachers not subject to the consequences of subpar teaching, and plagued with politicized curricula that do not emphasize math, science, and reading and writing comprehension \u2014 scarcely rate above those in Mississippi and Alabama. Did liberals, who wanted unions, a new curriculum, and open borders, believe it was good for the state to have a future generation \u2014 that will build our power plants, fly our airliners, teach our children, and take out our tumors \u2014 that is at the near-bottom in national test scores?<\/p>\n Do Bay Area greens really believe that they that will have sufficient water if they\u00a0blow up the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir?<\/a>\u00a0[1] Did Barack Obama think that the Keystone pipeline or new gas and oil leases in the Gulf were superfluous, or that we do not need oil to make gasoline, wheat to make flour, or to cut timber to produce wood?<\/p>\n Did liberals (and their hand-in-glove employer supporters who wished for cheap labor) think that letting in millions from Central Mexico, most without legality, English, or a high school education (and in some sense at the expense of thousands waiting in line for legal admission with capital, advanced degrees, and technological expertise), was not problematic and that soaring costs in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, the schools, and the healthcare industries were irrelevant?<\/p>\n What, then, are the motivations that drive so many to such absurdities? Note here that I am talking of the architects of liberalism, not of those who receive generous entitlements and whose desire for bigger government is thus existential and elemental.<\/p>\n Equality of Result<\/strong><\/p>\n Keen minds from Aristotle to Montesquieu and Tocqueville have lamented that the proverbial people sometimes prefer equality under authoritarianism to inequality accompanied by personal freedom. As long as there was grinding poverty, the liberal agenda of \u201cleveling the playing field\u201d made sense enough \u2014 Social Security, disability insurance, the 40-hour work week, and Medicare. But once modern mass production and consumption arose, energized by globalization and the entry of billions of new foreign workers into the equation, and high technology extended the appurtenances of the aristocracy to the poor (today\u2019s ubiquitous smart phone is 100 times more versatile than yesterday\u2019s $3,000 primitive suitcase cell phone), how could you keep promoting government-sponsored equality for the less well-off? Ensure no one has to drive a Kia? Petition on behalf of those who do not yet have an iPad?<\/p>\n Weighing over 250 pounds, not rickets, is a national plague. Riots target sneaker stores, not food bins. Sandra Fluke naturally became the epitome of frustrated liberal-mandated equality. We are to believe that an upscale white law student, who by choice enrolls at a Catholic university, is deprived because her university will not pay for her condoms or abortion pills. Her cell phone no doubt costs more\u00a0than a year\u2019s supply of prophylactics<\/a>[2]. The result is psychodrama, not class struggle, as liberals strain to find ways in which America is\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em>\u00a0rather than the Kardashians, plagued by this obsession to step in and make everyone (except themselves) the same.<\/p>\n Voters<\/strong><\/p>\n Romney almost forfeited the election when a video was leaked about his honest, though inexact, admission that 47% of Americans would, by needs, be unsympathetic to any agenda that cut spending and taxes, given their dependence on government \u201cstuff.\u201d Borrowing money to pay for more entitlements for the liberal mind is good politics, killing two birds with the proverbial one stone. The less well-off are indebted to those who gave them subsidized food, healthcare, shelter, even cell phones and will vote accordingly to ensure the liberal political class remains in power. And as deficits grow, the calls for higher taxes on those who \u201cdidn\u2019t build that business\u201d and are \u201cfat cats\u201d and never knew when they should stop profiting only increase. Liberalism is about power and influence, impossible without millions of dependent constituents.<\/p>\n \u201cThem\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Liberals believe that there are lots of crass and greedy one-percenters who live to profit, and as refined Greeks expect grubby Romans to work while they think and plan. Like cockroaches, you cannot get rid of the one-percenters, given their elemental grasping. They will always get up at a 5 a.m. to chase the next superfluous buck in carbon-polluting oil exploration, Wall Street speculation, smoky trucking, or unsustainable farming. They are sheep with inexhaustible fleece. So liberals do not really believe that anyone will stop working due to Obamacare or a 40% income tax rate. Jerry Brown might say of overtaxed Californians, should his 13% income tax rate pass, \u201cWhere else could they go?\u201d For those who cling to their profits, you could tax them at 90% and they would still scheme to find a way to have more than others \u2014 so what does it matter if they pay more?<\/p>\n Exemption<\/strong><\/p>\n Liberals believe that abstract caring allows them seclusion and cocooning in the real, material world. Private schools, tony upscale suburbs, nice Volvos and Lexus SUVs, jet travel to Tuscany, a fine Napa $100 wine, Harvard or Stanford for junior \u2014 all that reeks of privilege and exclusivity, and can prompt remorse. In some sense, Costa del Sol and Martha\u2019s Vineyard, like John Kerry\u2019s yacht or John Edwards\u2019 home, are antithetical to the entire liberal value system. But if one is loudly for \u201cpay-your-fair-share\u201d higher taxes, or for affirmative action, or for more deficit spending, then one feels absolved from guilt over his isolated privilege \u2014 and can enjoy it without lamentation. And if one makes enough money not to worry about a few more taxes or fees, then a mind at peace is a pretty good deal. Lots of those who now reside in Portola Valley and the Berkeley hills helped to promote policies whose deleterious results fell on distant others, out of mind, out of sight, far away in Porterville and Stockton. Liberalism is an elite person\u2019s psychological investment in enjoying a guilt-free affluence.<\/p>\n Naivet\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n Large percentages of the population\u00a0now work for government<\/a>\u00a0[3] \u2014 federal, state, or local. Millions more are divorced from the tragic world of mining or drilling where nature is unforgiving. That distance has allowed Americans in droves to disengage from both the private sector, where one either makes a profit or goes broke, and the grimy processes by which we live one more day. A San Francisco professor, a Monterey lawyer, and a Sacramento bureaucrat do not know how hard it is to raise beef, grow peaches, find and pump oil and gas, and haul logs out of the forest and into Home Depot as smooth lumber, or what it takes to build a small Ace Hardware business. The skills needed to keep a 7-Eleven viable in a rough neighborhood, I confess, dwarf those of the classics professor.<\/p>\n In the elite liberal mind, there is instead a sort of progressive Big Rock Candy Mountain. Gasoline comes right out of the ground through the nozzle into the car. Redwood 2x4s sprout from the ground like trees. Apples fall like hail from the sky; stainless steel refrigerator doors are mined inches from the surface. Tap water comes from some enormous cistern that traps rain water. Finished granite counter tops materialize on the show room floor. Why, then, would we need Neanderthal things like federal gas and oil leases, icky dams and canals, yucky power plants, and gross chain saws \u2014 and especially those who would dare make and use them?<\/p>\n Anger, Envy, and the Primordial Emotions<\/strong><\/p>\n For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a sort of irrational furor at \u201cthe system\u201d governs their political make-up. Why don\u2019t degrees and vocabulary always translate into big money? Why does sophisticated pontification at Starbucks earn less than mindlessly doing accounting behind a desk? We saw this tension with Michelle Obama who, prior to 2009, did not quite have enough capital to get to Aspen or Costa del Sol, and thereby, despite the huge power-couple salaries, Chicago mansion, and career titles, felt that others had far too much more than the Obamas. \u201cNever been proud,\u201d \u201cdownright mean country,\u201d \u201craise the bar,\u201d etc., followed, as expressions of yuppie angst. The more one gets, the more one believes he should get even more, and the angrier he gets that another \u2014 less charismatic, less well-read, less well-spoken \u2014 always seems to get more.<\/p>\n So do not discount the envy of the sophisticated elite. The unread coal plant manager, the crass car dealer, or the clueless mind who farms 1000 acres of almonds should not make more than the sociology professor, the kindergarten teacher, the writer, the artist, or the foundation officer. What sort of system would allow the dense and easily fooled to become better compensated (and all for what \u2014 for superfluous jet skis and snowmobiles?) than the anguished musician or tortured-soul artist, who gives so much to us and receives so much less in return? What a sick country \u2014 when someone who brings chain saws into the Sierra would make more than a UC Berkeley professor who would stop them.<\/p>\n Nihilism<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, we come to a small subset that simply does not like America\u2019s wealth and capitalism, supremacy overseas, and ubiquitous global culture \u2014 or at least believes that anything not his own must be far better (an\u00a0oikophobia<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[4] or hatred of one\u2019s own household). He bores us with lectures on the wonderful EU, the superior\u00a0La Familia<\/em>romance of Latin America, the \u201cit takes a village\u201d values of Africa, or the Cairo speech mythologies of the Middle East. Because America is so affluent, it allows so many the luxury to dream of how our wealth is so ill-gotten \u2014 as long as quiet others in the shadows ensure that life remains pretty good in San Francisco and Madison. Contrarianism is an innate characteristic, but one indulged without risk, only when the larger tribe is safe and secure.<\/p>\n In short, twenty-first century elite liberalism has become a psychological condition, not a serious blueprint on how to solve real problems. The president knows that \u2014 and so without ideas has been reduced to name-calling and sermons on Big Bird.<\/p>\n URLs in this post:<\/p>\n [1] blow up the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir?:http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/305063\/defining-insanity-down-victor-davis-hanson<\/a> \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Note that Barack Obama is running not on his liberal record, but as a challenger against incumbent Mitt Romney who has done all sorts of terrible things like causing the 2008 meltdown and outsourcing jobs to China. In Obama\u2019s view, given the supposedly tranquil world abroad, we must try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,187],"tags":[12,1014,32,40,1054],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-61","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberal-chickens\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":0},"title":"Liberal Chickens","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It could not last \u2014 the attendee of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright\u2019s church sermonizing on tolerance; the practitioner of Chicago politics lecturing on civility; the most partisan voting record in the Senate as proof of a new promised bipartisanship; earlier books and speeches\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Left"","block_context":{"text":"The Left","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/liberalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-game-changes\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":1},"title":"The Game Changes","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama\u2019s exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. Starting with his Occidental days,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-the-hare-romney-the-tortoise\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":3},"title":"Obama the Hare, Romney the Tortoise","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The 2012 race has turned into one of Aesop's classic fables. After each new media blitz against the no-frills Mitt Romney, a far cooler President Obama races ahead three or four points in the polls \u2014 only to fall back to about even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-romney-doggy-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":4},"title":"The Obama-Romney Doggy Wars","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last week the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0ran a piece on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney\u2019s high-school years, in which he supposedly was cruel to a shy, perhaps gay fellow student. The piece,\u00a0mirabile dictu, appeared in the middle of the Biden-Obama reversal on gay marriage. Errors were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":312,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/learning-from-the-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":5},"title":"Learning from the Election","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media 1.\u00a0Populism The Republicans have only won the popular vote since Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency on two occasions: 1988 and 2004. In both instances, even the patrician Bushes were able to paint their liberal opponents as out-of-touch Massachusetts magnificoes. Lee Atwater turned Michael Dukakis, the helmeted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n[2] than a year\u2019s supply of prophylactics:\u00a0http:\/\/cnsnews.com\/news\/article\/sandra-fluke-says-she-didnt-know-target-sells-birth-control-pills-9<\/a>
\n[3] now work for government:\u00a0http:\/\/chicagoboyz.net\/archives\/6677.html<\/a>
\n[4]\u00a0oikophobia<\/em>:http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704147804575455523068802824.html<\/a><\/p>\n