Demosophia

The awful thing about Churchill is that he actually says what a lot of the loony left think. This sort of nonsense was said all the time in San Francisco which is why I left.

The awful thing about Churchill is that he actually says what a lot of the loony left think. This sort of nonsense was said all the time in San Francisco which is why I left.

Oops, sorry for the double entry. Maybe you can get even by messing up my blog. State of Jefferson

Dear Sophia,
I have greatly enjoyed the discussions contained on this site, particularly with reference to the important work of Marty Lipset. I wish you an Independence Day free of any takings for private purposes.
Mark Maggio

Pat and Mark:

Great to hear from both of you guys! You're both old friends of mine who don't happen to know one another, so it's ironic you showed up in the same thread on the "other W. Churchill."

I don't know what to say about the Ward Churchill types, except that they're probably symptoms of the fact that liberalism still isn't "mature." Although it has had some success, it still hasn't dealth completely with poverty or even class division. Being the "least bad" solution has not been enough to even silence the totally foolish.

But the degree to which the left can manage to pretend to progressive values while remaining essentially reactionary suggests something more troubling than a mere deficiency. It suggests that there's a kind of death wish in Western societing.

And unfortunately that's something that Qutb predicted. It gives me the creeps to think he was probably right about that, but there it is.

Not that he won't ultimately be proved wrong, mind you. But there's no good reason to feel complacent.

I don't know what to say about the Ward Churchill types, except that they're probably symptoms of the fact that liberalism still isn't "mature."

WC, like most of modern "liberals/scoialists," is not really a product of calm, cool, logical Lockean liberalism but rather of muddle-headed romanticism (the French Revolution, Marxism.)

Pat:

WC, like most of modern "liberals/scoialists," is not really a product of calm, cool, logical Lockean liberalism but rather of muddle-headed romanticism (the French Revolution, Marxism.)

I agree of course, but what I wonder about is why liberalism expects human to eschew romanticism, and why it has never come up with an appropriate strategy that at least puts the appeal of romanticism into a more managable realm.

I mean, we're looking at a situation where nearly half of the US would simply pull out of Iraq without any real consideration of the consequences, which is roughly the same percentage that was willing to let the South have its way over slavery. The only reason the Copperheads didn't win was that Sherman delivered a timely victory in Atlanta that turned the tide of the election. Otherwise we'd have had that bumbling McClellan as President.

I wonder how many times we can expect to dodge that "bullet of bad judgment" and expect to survive as a culture? Isn't it about time we "got down" with a few of the details? Or if we can't do that, isn't it about time we stopped fooling ourselves that we can tolerate the sort of stuff that Churchill spews, based on some idealistic notion of openness while under attack?

....what I wonder about is why liberalism expects human to eschew romanticism, and why it has never come up with an appropriate strategy that at least puts the appeal of romanticism into a more managable realm.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your question but, to me, there is no place for romanticism in the world of politics and economics.

Liberal society and capitalism have provided a place for romanticism in the arts.