Leftist Stupidity of the Day: 'Progressive Radicals' are Really 'Classical Liberals'

Hilarious update on the sacking of Santa Cruz by the violent May Day demonstrators over the weekend. It turns out that "Paddy" over at The Political Carnival needs to bone up on some political philosophy. See, "Tomorrow's RW meme today: "Liberal" May Day Riot!":

How they equate Anarchists with Liberals/Progressives I don't know... but they do. Aren't they always whining about how we love "Mommy Government"? Yep, totally makes sense that we'd join up with a "movement" that wants no government, no authority. I detest how these little idjits reflect on us by default. But we will be hearing about this tomorrow.

Paddy's getting warm on the "anarchists," although anarcho-communists and Marxian socialists differ not so much on the repudiation of private property, but on the role of the state. Anarchists hope to smash the state on the road to utopia; Marxist want to build the state as the conveyor belt to the eradication of capitalism.

But anarchist quibbles aside, the real kicker is Paddy's link to those "Liberals/Progressives," which takes us to Wikipedia's entry for "Liberalism." Big mistake. Today's left-wing ideological cohorts of the Democratic Party call themselves progressives, not liberals. And there's a reason. True liberals are the "classical liberals" of enlightenment political philosophy, folks like John Locke, and later, Adam Smith. A top 20th century classical liberal would be Friedrich von Hayek, an aggressive advocate of free-market capitalism who most leftist today would demonize as "reactionary."

No, Paddy's thinking about the left-liberalism as it's practiced in the U.S., and thus she wanted to link to this Wikipedia entry:

The term liberalism, without a qualifier, in the United States for the last 70 years usually refers to modern liberalism, a political philosophy exemplified by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s. It is a form of social liberalism, whose accomplishments include the WPA and the Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Community Reinvestment Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

And of course, since 1965 we've seen this version of American liberalism coalesce into a working alliance with the neo-Marxists of the post-Vietnam era, and this alliance of "no enemies on the left goes all the way to the Obama White House. As David Horowitz noted this morning, in his essay, "Obama-Style Socialism":

Jonah Goldberg has written an important article in Commentary on what he calls the “neo-socialism” of the Obama administration. I like this label. It is both accurate and more palatable than the term “neo-communism” which I have applied to the hard left. But given the twenty-year political partnership between a neo-Communist like Billy Ayers and Obama, and Obama’s coterie of Communist Party mentors and allies, it is at bottom a distinction without a difference.

Neo-socialists are fellow travelers of neo-Communists and vice-versa. The real division in the modern world is between totalitarians and libertarians, and pivot of this division is the inherent conflict between liberty and equality. Since people are born unequal (in talent, capability, brain power and physical beauty and prowess) and since they develop unequally through circumstance, the only way to make them equal is to take away everyone’s liberty. And of course this will not make them equal because those who get to decide who is made equal and at what pace constitute a new and oppressing ruling class.

And it's worth remembering that Obama-style neo-socialists have no qualms making tactical alliances with the anarchist "occupy everything" hordes, for example, earlier this year when the Democratic Party-allied California Teachers Association endorsed the anarchist March 4th 'Day of Action' to 'Occupy California!'"

And that explains why there's minimal MSM coverage of the violence and radicalism on the left over the weekend. As noted at Jawa Report:

Did you hear ANY OUTRAGE OR HAND-WRINGING FROM THE MOTHERF*CKING MAINSTREAM MEDIA OVER THIS LEFTWING VIOLENCE, VANDALISM AND HATE? Were there any MSNBC specials about the violence of the political left? Were there any "expert" panels on the history of leftwing political violence, or any discussion over how one-party dominated government could be fueling this kind of behavior, as the supporters of the Obama regime actually appear to think (with good reason, it would seem) that their beloved President condones or at the very least looks the other way when his supporters commit acts of violence and vandalism to further his party's agenda?

Nope. Because it's leftwing Democrat hate, violence and assault directed at the "correct" people for the "correct" reasons. And as we all know, that's just "political expression."

So, sorry Paddy. Looks like you're schooled on "liberalism." Love "The Pistols", in any case: