Camile Paglia is always worth a read, but today’s column especially so.
The great thing about Paglia is that she is willing to go after anyone as long as they aren’t living up to expectations. She is completely fearless in her commentary and utterly brazen in her attacks. It is refreshing.
First she goes after Democrats and liberals:
Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.
How has “liberty” become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals? (A prominent example is radio host Mark Levin’s book“Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” which was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three months without receiving major reviews, including in the Times.) I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party — but I must be living in the nostalgic past. Remember Bob Dylan’s 1964 song “Chimes of Freedom,”made famous by the Byrds? And here’s Richie Havens electrifying the audience at Woodstock with “Freedom! Freedom!” Even Linda Ronstadt, in the 1967 song “A Different Drum,” with the Stone Ponys, provided a soaring motto for that decade: “All I’m saying is I’m not ready/ For any person, place or thing/ To try and pull the reins in on me.”
The one criticism I have here is that liberty hasn’t been the provanence of the left since the late 60s. Johnson was in no way interested in freedom when ramping up his Great Society (and let us not forget that our first adventure into SE Asia was the product of Democrats). It was the Goldwater inspired and eventually Reagan led conservative revolution that truly brought liberty back on the table as a national concern. This is the sentiment that Levin taps into in his book “Liberty and Tyranny” and it is perhaps the most powerful motivator in American politics. There is a reason why, despite his offputting overly theatrical public demeanor, Mark Levin is such a powerful voice for the right – he speaks of THE core value of American society. No one on the Left, and very few on the Right, do this anymore.
That said, Paglia also points this out:
Having said all that about the failures of my own party, I am not about to let Republicans off the hook. What a backbiting mess the GOP is! It lacks even one credible voice of traditional moral values on the national stage and is addicted to sonorous pieties of pharisaical emptiness. Republican politicians sermonize about the sanctity of marriage while racking up divorces and sexual escapades by the truckload. They assail government overreach and yet support interference in women’s control of their own bodies. Advanced whack-a-mole is clearly needed for that yammering smarty-pants Newt Gingrich, who is always so very, very pleased with himself but has yet to produce a single enduring thought. The still inexplicably revered George W. Bush ballooned our national deficits like a drunken sailor and clumsily exacerbated the illegal immigration debate. And bizarrely, the hallucinatory Dick Cheney, a fake-testosterone addict who spooked Bush into a pointless war, continues to be lauded as presidential material.
It has been pointed out by me, and others here, that the Republican Party should start adhering to the philosophies it preaches. If it really wants to start winning, to recapture the revolution begun by Goldwater, made effective and powerful by Reagan and shattered by Bush and Cheney it needs to get back to basics. Levin has identified the core value the Right needs to pursue – whether you agree with his rhetorical style or not, all denizens of the right (I’m looking at you Conor) can agree that Liberty is paramount in American life. The Right would do well to listen to more pundits like Ms. Paglia or bloggers like Mr. Balko if they truly want to become a force in American politics again (now I’m looking at you Mr. Riehl.)
*EDIT* Thanks to Dan Riehl for the return link.
Posted by Jamie in Conservatism, Liberty and/or Security