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Entry: Tenderness Leads to the Gas Chamber Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/tenderness_leads_to_the_gas_chamber#27534 Post contents: Prof. Dr. Z's latest is one for the files, something increasingly rare at Takimag. There is a serious problem with the word "liberalism", if for no other reason than Europeans mean by it what Gringos used to call "conservatism", real conservatism really not a part of the American tradition -- something to lament. What Gringos mean by "ilberalism" is what Europeans correctly call Social Democracy. The heirs to the real liberal tradition are the libertarians. (So let's dump the word "liberal" and speak more precisely with "social democrats" and "libertarians") Dr. Z has put his finger on the one of three serious problems of libertarianism. The first is that Freedom, for libertarians and even for social democrats is a negative idea. It is against things, not for things. And this is not enough for a cohesive social order. cf. T. S. Eliot, <i>The Idea of a Christian Society</i>. Nor will a soldier offer his life for a negative value. Second, ask libertarians and even social democrats what freedom means positively, the best they can come up with is "doing as one likes". Arnold faulted this view profoundly. Burke told us that before we let people do as they like, we ought to ask what they like to do! Third, (and here Dr. Z's analysis is useful) when confronted with the first two problems, libertarians and social democrats part ways. Libertarians say "your right to swing your fist stops at my nose" (property). But this immediately is a vast restriction on freedom. So libertarians are caught between two driving forces that inevitably conflict: freedom vs property. So libertarians divide between the Lockeans who want The State to stop the fist before the nose, and anti-lockeans who correctly say that the State is the greatest violator of property, and thus the biggest nose buster. Yet such Anti-Lockeans still don't seem to know how to stop violators of property. Social Democrats have their own stupid ideas about freedom. Let's say person A has enough money to free him to buy a flat screen TV. Person B does not have the means and thus isn't as free. So the Social Democrats tax Person A, take his money, and give it to Person B so that Person B can buy a flat screen TV. This is really what Social Welfare Democracy amounts to. Which is another way of saying that neither libertarians nor social democrats have a concept of the Common Good. Sent at: 2008 09 06