In the common parlance, liberal is the antipode to conservative. If you’re not one, you’re the other. There are only two flavors on offer, and you have to pick one. In logic, we call this an “either/or dichotomy.” This is the fallacy where you’re presented with two choices, and it’s implied there is no third option. There are actually a number of options when it comes to one’s political orientation.
When I use the term “liberal,” I am using it in a particular way. Liberalism, as I have explained, is a centrist political philosophy. Most of the country—by a sizable margin—is liberal. About two-thirds of the electorate are liberal/progressive. At the voting booth, yes, things get tight and divided. Yet, a plurality of Americans like to self-apply the label “conservative.” I guess they like how it sounds. To be a liberal is to be a wimpy tree-hugger; to be conservative is to be no-nonsense, practical, and tough. [sigh]
These “conservative” voters then go to the voting booth and shoot themselves in both feet by voting Republican.
If you don’t like brown people, why sabotage your own material interests over it? Can’t you be a sensible bigot? Just because you’re a racist doesn’t mean you have to be imprudent. I’m just saying be pragmatic about your racism.
When I say liberal, as in “good liberals,” I am talking about a stripe of intellectual. I am talking about those intellectuals who wouldn’t dare go one inch to the left of the New York Times or NPR. Now what does that mean??
These news outlets are actually right of center—like the Democratic Party. Like most institutions and corporations for that matter, they skew liberal/progressive on most domestic issues—LGBTQ, environment, race, sexism, etc. But when the war crimes get under way, and the bodies pile up, they tend to march in lock-step with the State Department.
Many assume universities are hotbeds of leftist thought. They are not. They are New York Times liberal; just like the so-called liberal news outlets, companies, and most executives.
Many parents are concerned that their child is going to be indoctrinated by a pink-haired, Marxist lesbian. I tell my students that the closest thing to the pink-haired, Marxist lesbian they’re going to get is me. I’m her. And are you being indoctrinated? We talk about politics quite a bit, and my students don’t even know where I’m coming from politically. So much for indoctrination.
As noted linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky has been saying for decades, the liberals are worse. Sure, the conservatives and war hawks say “Exterminate the brutes.” “Send them back to the Stone Age.” But the liberals wring their hands, and problematize, and golly gee, and there is much talk of mistakes and miscalculations. (I’m talking about you, Ezra Klein.)
Liberal intellectuals lend a legitimacy to the murder and bloodshed. They soften the language. They sculpt people’s thinking. And because they are perceived as the reasonable ones, what they say must be in turn reasonable. One cannot be reasonable and truly reside at the center? No, the left edge of respectable “liberal” opinion is the New York Times. It’s the Democrats. It’s cutesy NPR, with their whacky hosts and gameshows. So cute. But when Baghdad runs out of space for dead bodies and begins storing them in refrigerated trucks? NPR has trouble finding something to say.
This is what I mean by “good liberals.” I’m talking about the spinelessness of the intellectual culture. It’s part of the reason that the population is so politically disoriented. It’s why elections are commonly 49 percent. It’s why Elizabeth Warren is not in the White House and we have the clown we have.
