Are Liberals Giving Conservatives A Dose of Their Own Medicine?

[Daktoria]

...so I was remembering back when I was a liberal why I was a liberal.

It was because of being fed up with pragmatism in family, religion, and business. Conservatives always seemed like really stupid people who insisted on forcing you to conform to their authority and go along with the program. Their way of doing things was historically and empirically tried and tested, and they were deliberately closed minded to analyzing any alternative. The idea of engaging in abstract reason was beyond their consideration because it was treated as dysfunctional, impractical, and useless.

Today, and for probably at least 10-15 years now, I've seen the exact same pragmatic attitude among liberals whether it's in legalizing abortion, gay marriage, drug usage, illegal immigration, affirmative action, or redistributive justice. They say these things must exist because it's impractical otherwise and they're practical ways to deal with problems. They also have a propensity to refer to empirical and historical evidence, refusing to analyze the situation at hand. Usually this is complemented by moral emotivism and relativism where they say people are irrational and how common sense justifies majority rule.

Likewise, where conservatives might be dumb around calculation of scientific phenomenon and take refuge in religion, liberals might be dumb around calculating free market prices and quantities and take refuge in social democracy.

It's really strange, but I'm starting to see what the real problem is in politics: everyone's a stupid pragmatist. I see this especially among senior citizens today who want to preserve Medicare and Social Security with ballooning debt, yet don't want to be held responsible for neglecting their children. That is they were pragmatists before in terms of ruggedly individualistic family values, but now, they want big government to support their retirement. This is especially in light of their stubborn and cowardly refusal to confront feminism and multiculturalism before that leads to their children's social alienation while embracing labor-oriented workaholism. It also deals with how they endorse consumerism by simply throwing gifts at their descendants which supports the perpetuation of moral emotivism and relativism.

To conclude, I want to finish with a little quote by renowned conservative Russell Kirk:

The Russell Kirk Center: Enlivening the Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk

It was not altogether without reason, a century ago, that John Stuart Mill called conservatives “the stupid party.” Four decades ago, when in Britain the Attlee government abolished the university seats in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill declared that the Socialists were “against brains.” So the Socialists were and are. But a good many conservative folk in 1986, finding themselves only second-best in the pursuit of stupidity, try harder.

Some years ago I remarked in the course of a speech that conservative imagination is required in our time. A man of business in the audience retorted, “We don’t need any imagination: we’re practical.” That’s what I mean.

 

[Pogo]

I'd resist your conclusion that a political ideology (whichever one) must require a certain thought process to reach its conclusions, i.e. "pragmatism" as a driving force is not a given.

Beyond that you've assembled a hodgepodge of apples/oranges issues here:

Today, and for probably at least 10-15 years now, I've seen the exact same pragmatic attitude among liberals whether it's in legalizing abortion, gay marriage, drug usage, illegal immigration, affirmative action, or redistributive justice. They say these things must exist because it's impractical otherwise and they're practical ways to deal with problems.

Not sure what we mean by "redistributive justice" but of the other five you've got a mix of liberal and leftist policies. To keep the government out of abortion, gay marriage and drug usage (social issues) is to follow the Liberal path our Founders envisioned; it's the social-conservative types who oppose those. Immigration is arguably a question of national security so that's neutral. But affirmative action is a leftist idea. So you've got both the left and the right meddling with true Liberalism. Is that what you mean by "pragmatism"?

 

[Snookie]

My mother used to say, "Who the hel knows?"

It seems the only thing real now days is dirt.