Armchair Pundits

The Arrogance of Liberalism

Having lost the Presidential election to George W. Bush, the liberals in this country are trying to figure out what went wrong. In doing so, however, they have once and for all removed their mask and are revealing their true identity to all who care to look.

Liberalism is arrogant. Liberalism stands for the premise that the average citizen is incapable of accomplishing the most simple tasks. It requires that, in order to be done correctly, these tasks be done either by the liberals or by the government. You and I, however, could not possibly do it correctly.

Conservatism, on the other hand, focuses on lifting up the individual citizen. In many instances this is done by providing the citizen with the right tools. It is this lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps that not only gets the citizen to where they need to go, it also makes the citizen stronger and enables them to advance farther. We all know the old saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish.

In the past, the arrogance of the left tended to be hidden, at least partially, by other aspects. Take tax policy for example. Liberals do not believe that the citizens of this country can handle their own money. They feel that the government can do a much better job. Therefore, they have no problem advocating higher taxes. The criticism of this policy was focused for a long time on the large government programs that created the need for higher taxes. President Bush pulled back the veil on this arrogance during the 2000 campaign when he advocated lower taxes and a tax rebate (known in some circles as a “risky tax scheme”) and constantly stumped on how he trusted the American taxpayer to do a better job of spending their money than the government. Social welfare provides another example. Liberals advocate more welfare programs to “assist” those in need. They oppose Republican programs designed to get people off welfare. But people argue against these liberal programs not the underlying premise that liberals arrogantly believe that a person cannot help themselves. In both cases, the arrogant premise is hidden by the criticism of the program.

How are the liberals responding to their recent loss? Is the problem their message or their candidate? No. The problem is with the people who voted for Bush. These people are unintelligent and uninformed. The problem was that the Democrats didn’t properly communicate their message to these voters. Because, after all, their message was so perfect that any voter with a shred of intelligence would have voted to support them. One liberal commentator actually said that Democrats may have used too many multi-syllabic words in communicating their message and that they needed to take a page Republicans and “dumb-down” their message.

Over the weekend I listened to another liberal commentator who was citing a statistical study that found many of the southern and Midwestern states (i.e., the red states) have lower income and education levels that the northeastern states (i.e., the blue states). Are they really saying that Republicans are poor and stupid? Could they really be that arrogant?

Juan Williams made a very good point the other night on CSPAN (its hard to believe, I know). He suggested that maybe the Republican voters understood the Democrat’s message and just didn’t agree with it. I think he hit the nail on the head. The Democrats did not do a poor job of presenting their message. They laid out their message very well. The voters, especially the Republican voters, understood their message perfectly. But, they did not agree with it, they did not accept it, and they voted against it.

The left, however, in their arrogance, cannot fathom this. They do not see that there is another solution to the question. I have liberal friends and I know that they will not agree with me on certain issues. That does not mean that they are unintelligent. But if you disagree with a liberal, then you’re an uneducated hick. In Washington, the left no longer views the right as “the honorable gentleman across the aisle.” Rather, politicians on the right are viewed as conservative Nazis. For a group that supposedly applauds free thinking, they are pretty closed-mined.

I have a friend who told me that when she is hiring she is suspicious of people who claim to understand the technical aspects of her industry. She instead is looking for people who admit that they don’t know everything. Because in the business world, that kind of arrogance can cost you money.

What is the cost of the left’s arrogance? I believe it will cost the Democrats dearly. As they continue to “evaluate” their loss, they will alienate more voters. And, the longer they do it, the worse it will get. America will also pay a high price for this arrogance. The more arrogant the left gets, the less likely it is to debate and negotiate and compromise. Important legislation will be halted and important nominations held up as arrogant legislators refuse to bend.

Liberals need to realize that it is better to admit you don’t know everything and exceed expectations, rather than claim you know everything and prove yourself wrong.

posted by Squirrel @ 4:10 PM