Lots of politicians are "liars, thieves and cheats", and that distinction isn't limited to the left side of the aisle. That's what I found so darkly funny about Joe Wilson's "You lie" outburst during the joint Congressional address. Obama *was* lying, to be sure, but making that admonition in the epicenter of the D.C. Liar's Guild transcended all forms of irony known to man. The political class in this country lies like they are taking in breath.
But I think the point the author was making wasn't so much about individual progressive politicians who lie, but about progressivism as a whole. The "Homo Cathodicus" creature he defines calls to mind Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
American Progressivism has its modern roots in the philosophies of (vile, in my own estimate) intellectuals like Woodrow Wilson. He sought to overthrow Madison's ideal of a multi-polar, individualistic republic with a decentralized distibution of power due to many competing interests and institutions. Wilson imagined a different sort of republic, much more in line with the same 20th century ideologies that fueled Naziism and Communism -- that is a highly centralized and concentrated pyramidal power structure. In this republic, the economic and social engines would be steered by various "experts" (unelected regulatory bodies, blue ribbon commissions, czars, etc) whose authority would in turn be preserved by several highly invested and mutually dependent voting blocs (namely labor unions and trade guilds, the chronically impoverished, and -- eventually -- aggrieved social and ethnic groups and large, unwieldy financial institutions and trusts). It's a demographic game based on cobbling together enough interest groups to maintain a majority, implementing a de-facto command economy via an ever-expanding tax-and-regulatory regime, then delegating the decisions of that economy to politically-aligned experts who will judge every political whim to be a paradigm of efficiency and morality (see Soviet Union). This is the essence of progressivism today. All of the cultural parasites of progressivism (you mentioned Al Sharpton as one, but there are of course many others) are helpful mainly in that their lies antagonize and demoralize people most likely to stand in the way of the progressive juggernaut, but they aren't the main rank-and-file charged with carrying out the plan.
None of participants in this plan actually need to be "liars" themselves, let alone believe that there's isn't anything wrong with being dishonest. I would say that the vast majority of progressives don't think they are being lied to by their leaders. I'd guess Many of them don't think very much at all about the economic fallacy at the heart of the command economy -- that governments know how to spend wealth better than the people who created it -- and few would be expected to, since so far the illusion of lots of persistent common wealth has held up. As bad a spot as we are in economically, and as deep a pit of debt we've dug, we have yet to feel the pains that past failed nation-states and empires have felt (the food and energy shortages, the the total breakdown of civil authority, the riots etc).
This is due to many tactics, such as quantitative easing, that will actually make the blow much harder when it finally arrives. I've laughed my ass off at the current sequestration nonsense being bandied about. The notion that $85 billion in cuts out of a bloated whale of a $4 trillion dollar budget will trigger Armageddon? Now THAT is a lie so outrageous there isn't a pant leg not on fire in Washington D.C. -- and that includes the Repubs who are playing into the political melodrama in order to jockey for position internally.
And of course, the REALLY BIG LIE goes even deeper than that, and that's the position held by almost all Democrats these days (plus many, many more Republican's than their party leadership would like to admit): whatever size the current government Leviathan is, that's the ideal size for it, and any cuts at all are therefore greedy and evil. Maybe scores of progressive voters foolishly believe that lie, but that's the nature of lying itself: you lie in order to deceive people.
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Date: 2013-02-26 09:04 pm (UTC)But I think the point the author was making wasn't so much about individual progressive politicians who lie, but about progressivism as a whole. The "Homo Cathodicus" creature he defines calls to mind Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
American Progressivism has its modern roots in the philosophies of (vile, in my own estimate) intellectuals like Woodrow Wilson. He sought to overthrow Madison's ideal of a multi-polar, individualistic republic with a decentralized distibution of power due to many competing interests and institutions. Wilson imagined a different sort of republic, much more in line with the same 20th century ideologies that fueled Naziism and Communism -- that is a highly centralized and concentrated pyramidal power structure. In this republic, the economic and social engines would be steered by various "experts" (unelected regulatory bodies, blue ribbon commissions, czars, etc) whose authority would in turn be preserved by several highly invested and mutually dependent voting blocs (namely labor unions and trade guilds, the chronically impoverished, and -- eventually -- aggrieved social and ethnic groups and large, unwieldy financial institutions and trusts). It's a demographic game based on cobbling together enough interest groups to maintain a majority, implementing a de-facto command economy via an ever-expanding tax-and-regulatory regime, then delegating the decisions of that economy to politically-aligned experts who will judge every political whim to be a paradigm of efficiency and morality (see Soviet Union). This is the essence of progressivism today. All of the cultural parasites of progressivism (you mentioned Al Sharpton as one, but there are of course many others) are helpful mainly in that their lies antagonize and demoralize people most likely to stand in the way of the progressive juggernaut, but they aren't the main rank-and-file charged with carrying out the plan.
None of participants in this plan actually need to be "liars" themselves, let alone believe that there's isn't anything wrong with being dishonest. I would say that the vast majority of progressives don't think they are being lied to by their leaders. I'd guess Many of them don't think very much at all about the economic fallacy at the heart of the command economy -- that governments know how to spend wealth better than the people who created it -- and few would be expected to, since so far the illusion of lots of persistent common wealth has held up. As bad a spot as we are in economically, and as deep a pit of debt we've dug, we have yet to feel the pains that past failed nation-states and empires have felt (the food and energy shortages, the the total breakdown of civil authority, the riots etc).
This is due to many tactics, such as quantitative easing, that will actually make the blow much harder when it finally arrives. I've laughed my ass off at the current sequestration nonsense being bandied about. The notion that $85 billion in cuts out of a bloated whale of a $4 trillion dollar budget will trigger Armageddon? Now THAT is a lie so outrageous there isn't a pant leg not on fire in Washington D.C. -- and that includes the Repubs who are playing into the political melodrama in order to jockey for position internally.
And of course, the REALLY BIG LIE goes even deeper than that, and that's the position held by almost all Democrats these days (plus many, many more Republican's than their party leadership would like to admit): whatever size the current government Leviathan is, that's the ideal size for it, and any cuts at all are therefore greedy and evil. Maybe scores of progressive voters foolishly believe that lie, but that's the nature of lying itself: you lie in order to deceive people.