Wisconsin: reactionary liberalism unchained

**Posted by Phineas

Pajamas Media co-founder Roger L. Simon is a Hollywood screenwriter and lifelong Left-liberal who in recent years has made a journey back toward a pragmatic conservatism; it was through his writings at PJM and his earlier blog that I came to realize that American liberals and progressives are among the most reactionary people in today’s political environment. They cling bitterly to their ideology in the face of all evidence contradicting it, while conservatives such as Paul Ryan or Sarah Palin instead look at what’s been tried and what really works in the search for solutions to today’s problems — empiricism as opposed to dogma, reaction as opposed to thought.

In his post today at PJM, Roger recounts the saga so far of Wisconsin’s attempt to reform public employee benefits and collection bargaining and then asks why has American liberalism become so juvenile and reactionary? His answer, selfishness:

Liberalism has become a mask for greed in our culture β€” a way of hiding excessive selfishness from others and, importantly, from the self. It’s a deflection, really.

We see this in the billionaire extremes of a George Soros and a John Kerry, but also now in the demonstrators in the streets of Madison. Many are suffering economically in our country. Huge numbers are unemployed. But when asked to pull together for the good of the mean, the liberals, the ones who pay the greatest lip service to equality, say NO.

They hide behind β€œUnion! Union! Union!” and β€œNo pasaran!,” but it’s all a fake. When the chips are down, our modern liberals are overcome by their own sense of entitlement. Christopher Lasch’s Culture of Narcissism has infected them to such a degree reality cannot intrude. I get my pension even if there’s no money, even if you have to pay for it and you’re broke without any pension of your own.

Socialism, my fat fanny! It’s just plain old selfish greed.

I think this is spot on, at least for the large mass of those demonstrating in Madison and elsewhere for the preservation of their gold-plated benefits and outsized political influence. Among the ideologues and left-liberal elites, including our president, there’s a desire and a goal to reshape our nation along European social-democratic lines, the vast, highly regulated welfare-entitlement state we see in a France or —God help us!— a Greece. But for many, maybe most, it comes down to throwing a tantrum when some adult says there are no more cookies in the jar.

Be sure to read the rest.

RELATED: Another former Lefty “gone Right.” Ron Radosh on “How the Left sees the union crisis in Madison.”

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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