Dylan Hales

March 18, 2009

Evan McLaren’s most recent post raises a very interesting question; what on Earth does the “Left” denote at this point? 

Commentators on this site and elsewhere have questioned the relevance of the term “conservative” in a post-Bush world, and that discussion is well worth having.  And yet as someone who floated over from the Left after becoming totally disgusted with its poor sense of priorities (among other things), I find that trying to grasp some sort of cohesive, sensible, message in what passes for “Left” thought these days is nearly impossible.  In fact the smarter Leftists – and the ones worth reading—have slowly begun to gravitate over to a paleo/Alternative Right friendly position. While there are differences of opinion on some very important issues, the emergence of a decentralist Left is hardly something the decentralist Right should be wary of.

The hyper-statism of the liberal-left is a totally different matter.  Epitomized by Hillary Clinton-style micromanagement ethos, the liberal-left is absolutely in bed with Wall Street, as Evan notes.  This is due in large part to the “efficiency for efficiency’s sake” philosophy of modern liberalism. In the eyes of these folks government programs are never to be questioned, because everything will work out okay in the end as long as the right managerial team is in place.  Again this general concept was best exemplified in the Presidential campaign of Mrs. Clinton, though President Obama hardly seems uncomfortable with it. 

While the liberal-left is fairly well organized and solidly behind the state socialization promoted so brazenly by the Obamanoids, the hard Left is in almost the exact opposite position.  Eaten alive by its absurd commitment to multiculturalism and diversity, the openly Marxist wing of the American Left is now totally irrelevant.  Unable to cheerlead for a series of nationalization schemes that don’t conform closely enough to their “Orthodox” models, most of them have delved even deeper into cults of identity, a tactic that will win no recruits in the end.

As a life long opponent of Socialism, and a man who thinks Marx was wrong about nearly everything, I find it impossible to mourn the coming extinction of his most committed adherents.  Still I confess that the vanguardists scare me less than the left-liberals do.  As strange as it may sound, modern liberalism’s faith in the State at least equals that of the Bolsheviks, and its deification of bureaucracy is something that would have made Lenin blush.

Not only do left-liberals pose no threat to Wall Street, unlike the commies – they don’t even pretend to want to see the State wither away.  Simply put, some Gods are too big to fail.