by cyranorox » April 3rd, 2009, 4:24 pm
Greenberg's inquiry, presuming to 'find the lie', is front-loaded to find, or create, that which he desires. Whiny kids whine in any context; moreover, the idea that conservatives are on the defensive is one of their myths. They hold most of the wealth and position; in my recollection, the conservative kids' parents had more status and power, and the kids took a coloring from that.
I am a sanguine, merry person, and a liberal after the mode of Bellamy, Chesterton and Chrysostom. Neoconmen, money conservatives, and randroids are costive, crabbed, miserly sorts, in my experience, focussed on holding their own, pushing away others as intrusive, and defining freedom as absence of obligation - especially to pay - and stratification by desert. We define freedom principally as absence of want, liberty of expression, and an apophatic stance regarding the merits of others. Most people don't use the word, but it means that, since we cannot sort persons by relative merit or deserving, the differnce in material satisfaction of needs must be mitigated. There are forces that falsely rank people, such as birth, pay, and accident; no one in his right mind believes all men deserve what befalls them.
DWM- re: sun, moon and Stars: if the Haves really hold all these treasures, necessary to life and joy, then the citizens do right to demand that they be shared, even to levelling. Inasmuch as the great owners hold the arable land, the usable airwaves, the reserves of energy beneath the earth, and the waters upon it, mitigated only by our common claims, ie, government, they do, and we should.
Apocatastasis Now!