"But now this blind Victorian giant, 'Progress,' has led us into a tunnel with a black end, and those thoughtfully concerned about liberties have the hard task of turning around and finding the way back for a new start in the light. That is the simple and sorrowful truth. And meanwhile to the above average talker it still seems 'liberal,' as well as 'progressive,' to plunge on into darkness."
--Max Eastman, Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, 1955

Is the only reason you posted this to tie together the slur "Liberal" with the term leftish types prefer nowdays "progressive"?

I see the title agrees with your politcs, but the quote itself seems to be arguing a Luddite philosophy.

BTW in the Victorian era (and still today in Britian) the word "Liberal" translates best in America as "small-government libertarian".

I don't think this applies to what you would call "liberal".

Why would an English word need to be translated for use in the United States? Don't we speak English here?

Do you know what the word Luddite even means? I'm confused why you're using it in a thread about the failure of Socialism.

Also, you may want to use a spell checker before posting a reply. The replies you have posted so far are full of grammatical and spelling errors. It makes it hard to understand what you are trying to say.

Dude if the only thing you can critique is my spelling, save your keystrokes.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,

it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

And yes Ancient Mariner, words can have differnet meanings in differnet cultures, in differnet countries, or in different times.

The word Liberal has evolved differently on the two sides of the Atlantic.

And do you know what Luddite means?

My point is that the quote isn't about the failure of Socialism!

It's a stupid ploy to get readers to associate the words "liberal" and "progressive" with socialism even though those words have entirely differnet meanings in the context of the quote than in the context of modern American politics.

You can tell its a ploy because the quote does nothing to argue the failure of socialism, but Dan did manage to find a quote with both the words "liberal" and "progressive".

Socialism is clearly a failure. But "liberals" and "progressives" on the modern American left have only the faintest connections to socialism.

And taking an out of context quote from a book that was wtitten 50 years ago to combat the true threat of Soviet infiltration just so you can falsely associate tonday's left with socialism is dishonest and dumb.

Then tell me, what is a Luddite?

HeHe/HaHa: Maybe you're not as broad-minded and enlightened as you think you are. Ever consider reading the passage a little less literally (= a little more "liberally," in another sense of the term)?

Maybe the quotation in "worth repeating" for other, more contemporary reasons...

Does the reference to "progress" here make you think of current references to supposed "progress" in Iraq? How about a "tunnel with a black end" and "to plunge on into darkness"--make any word associations with the Iraq situation? How about "those concerned with liberties"--sound anything like the U.S. mission to "liberate the Iraqis"?

HaHa/HeHe or whatever your name is,

I'm confused: I'd like to email you, but am not sure which email I should use -- suckit@yahoo.com, suckmybigfatcockballs@yahoo.com, peaceloveandrepublicans@yahoo.com, or suckmybigfatliberalcock@yahoo.com -- all email addresses you have provided since you came on the scene here.

I'll make a deal with you: we'll start taking you seriously when you finally grow up, you pathetic ingrate. Deal?

Sincerely,
--Eric

hehe.

Well Eric none of those are my email addresses.

For some reason I kept getting a message from Blogger saying there was vulgarity in my message when there was none. So I thought to change my email address. Sucki@yahoo.com seems to go through just fine.

A Luddite put simply is someone who does not believe in technological progress.

Stop feeding the trolls.

Please adsf, I'm not a troll.

ASDF,
Agreed. It was fun while it lasted but it's time to move on.

AM

"A Luddite put simply is someone who does not believe in technological progress." -HeHe

Yay, you can look things up.

I'm quite sure Dan is aware that a liberal in Victorian England is a Libertarian today. The point of the quote, that you stunningly managed to miss, is that regardless of what one is trying to achieve, attempting to enact radical reform over society with a mind towards creating some utopia or near-utopia on Earth, is always a failure. Ideologues however, refuse to admit that their ideology of choice, whatever it may be, has, instead of creating the utopia they thought that it would, needlessly destroyed society. Rejecting the wisdom of tradition and the experiance of generations, they instead plunge civilization into darkness for what amounts to little more than stroking their ego. While their original intentions are almost categorically very good, they have achieved almost the opposite of what they set out to.

This trend is identifiable many times throughout history, from the Protestant Reformers to the French Revolutionaries, from the abolitionists to bolsheviks.

In the face of this folly, conservatism, real conservatism, the conservatism of Burke, advocates a tempered approach, constantly supicious of innovation and deferring to tradition, enacting change only in a slow, steady, manner. This approach saw its greatest victories in the American Revolution and the transition of Great Britain from monarchy to republicanism.

P.S: You complain that others are not refuting your arguments but you plainly do not have any. You do not seem to actually know what it is that you yourself believe. You earlier called yourself someone who was once a proud conservative on the one hand, while essentially denouncing all conservatives as racist on the other. You claim to be a devotee of Newt Gingrich conservatism, but you here are seemingly defending a libertarian worldview, to which Gingrich and his followers, though small government types, do not endorse. And finally you would seem to paint yourself as a true conservative, in contrast to what I suppose you believe are the fake conservatives here, but as you just demonstrated you are not actually aware of what conservatism denotes.

Ben-T,
Great replies. You brought up some instances of Utopia through radical activism that I had nearly forgotten about.

Thanks

I don't think there is anything strange about changing political parties.

I was a republican very briefly in the 1990's in Clinton's first term. I thought the Clinton presidency got off to a horrible start and that Republicans needed to take the 1994 elections.

I supported Newt and his boys right up until impeachment, which I thought was rediculous. Bill Clinton had been then wisened up and Robert Rubin was managing government finances brilliantly. By the end of the 1990's I was solidly a Clinton democrat.

I toyed with supporting Bush in his first election, even spending a few days volunteering for him early in the campaign. I liked his free-market outlook and centrist image. In the end though I didn't want someone with no experience in international affairs leading the country. I supported Gore.

Obviously like all Americans I as a strong supporter of the President in 2001, but I was appalled by what the Republicans did in the 2002 elections. By 2004 - after Republicans had totally abandoned fiscal conservatism and commited the worst strategic error in national security history, I was soilidly back in the Democratic camp. I supported Kerry, and I support the Democrats in 06.

I don't think there's anything strange in this political development of mine. Most people switch between the two parties through their lives, and if y'all we're such partisnistas you would know that.

I don't think all Republicans are racist. But I do think that there are more racist Republicans then racist Democrats, and that the Republicans have done too little to repudiate their history of race -baiting. We all know the Democrats have a horrible history on civil rights. But they made themselves right under Johnson.

I'm still waiting on the Republicans apology for the Southern Strategy.

You said that you used to be a "proud Republican" in a way so as to suggest that you were a supporter of the actual conservative values the Republican party claims it defends.

Ignoring the fact that most people here, myself included, are not Republicans, you lambasted us more or less categorically as racists upon making your first post here. Stop being intellectualy dishonest.

Ben-T: you're right on. Steady factual arguments.

Defending George Allen's actions is racist, and I don't mean to single anyone out personally but there are racist undertones to certain elements of the "conservative" movement today. Immigration is probably the most obvious.

Macaca, besides not being a racist remark, is not a word at all. If it is a word at all, it is not a slur for native Americans, and not a slut George Allen likely would have been exposed to, not, to my knowledge, having spent any extensive time in central Africa.

The likelihood that he was being intentionally racist is non-existant.

Actually (and this might shock some people) but Allen's mother is of Tunesian French orgin and Macaca is a French slur (former colony) for anyone brown-colored.

Allen speaks his mother's dialect of French, and should have well known what that meant.

What he may not have known was that in that age of the Internet, Americans would pick up on what it meant too.

With this in mind the likelyhood that he was being intentionally racist is far from non-existant.