Tag: matthew yglesias

Matthew Yglesias endorses key point of Liberal Fascism.

A little surprising, that. 

Background: in the course of trying to boost what has been generally conceded to be a not-particularly-good Second Inaugural speech made by Barack Obama yesterday, Yglesias wrote:

Summing up the ideological brief, Obama even indulged in American liberalism’s favorite ideological tic—the insistence that it’s not an ideology at all, but simply a pragmatic response to changing circumstances.

 Which, if you’ve read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, actually sounds very familiar.  It is, in fact, at the core of the parallel he draws between how modern American liberalism sells itself and how fascist movements have sold themselves:

The unique threat of today’s left-wing political religions is precisely that they claim to be free from dogma. Instead, they profess to be champions of liberty and pragmatism, which in their view are self-evident goods. They eschew “ideological” concerns. Therefore they make it impossible to argue with their most basic ideas and exceedingly difficult to expose the totalitarian temptations residing in their hearts. They have a dogma, but they put it out of bounds.

Continue reading Matthew Yglesias endorses key point of Liberal Fascism.

#rsrh What’s funnier about this ThinkProgress piece?

That a philosophy major is arrogantly blaming a local drought on climate change (if the kid aging wunderkind had done some research, he’d know that droughts have been recorded in Texas as occurring on a regular basis for roughly five hundred years*); or that ThinkProgress can’t afford editors?

“Dialectic,” Yglesias.  Dialectic. Not that I take seriously the half-witticisms* of Trotsky, who was of course a secular prophet of the single most blood-soaked failed economic/political philosophy in recorded history, but since Ygelsias’ website apparently does take said prophet seriously then you’d think that they’d show more respect.

Moe Lane

PS: Yglesisas gets extra points for the anthropomorphizing, by the way: apparently Governor Perry’s problem in the Left’s eyes was that he likes praying to the wrong God.

*For the benefit of progressives and other historical illiterates: that means that they predate the Industrial Revolution.  By a lot.

**Honestly, the man probably gained a bit of intelligence for a moment, thanks to the ice pick: by all accounts, the hole probably gave parts of Trotsky’s brain access to the first oxygen that they had had in years.

What?  Disrespect?  Huh.  As I understand the rules of Trotsky’s own religion, he’s in no position to care if I’m being mean to him.

#rsrh QotD, the Atlantic was once readable edition.

B.R. Myers:

The question of where Europe ends and Asia begins has troubled many people over the years, but here’s a rule of thumb: if someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it’s part of Asia.

– Quoted by The New Ledger’s Christopher Badeux, as part of his elegantly savage takedown of crypto-Durantyites* Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias.  Mind you, I don’t agree with everything Myers writes in that article… but it’s nice to read an Atlantic article where the author has no subconscious need to proactively wince over the magazine’s unseemly fascination with Sarah Palin’s uterus.

Moe Lane

*This was almost ‘neo-Durantyites,’ but I thought that I’d save that sneer for the first really hardcore apologists for Tienanmen Square.

Actually, I agree with both Reynolds *and* Yglesias.

The country is indeed ungovernable.

…By Democrats.

I mean, seriously: remember what life was like four years ago, when it was the GOP running things?  Miss it yet?  You should: rather more of the people reading this had jobs back then.  And fatter retirement accounts.  And better value in their houses.  And soon – very, very soon – lower taxes.

Remember, folks: the GOP can run things without Democratic input. At least, the Democrats certainly spent six or so years saying that we did*.  In contrast, the Democrats can’t run a Sunday School picnic without a Republican supervising them every step of the way.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t really think that Reynolds would disagree with this.  Or that Yglesias would agree, although I mention that last only out of completeness.

*Which is, by the way, not true.

Crossposted to RedState.