Essay: Classical liberalism's renaissance is underway

I am going to posit something that I think could be happening, on a larger scale than this just election and it will be far more plausibly true if president Trump is re-elected. 

When Trump was a candidate in 2016, a lot of conservatives did not trust that he was a true conservative.  He had donated to Democrats in the past.  There was reason to be suspicious.  Things have changed since his election. He's not who many worried about.  But so too did things change prior to his election. Many things started to change during the Obama administration; not due to him but he was the impetus for them. The Tea Party and the values it espouses were a direct result of the Obama march towards socialism. Freedom, individual liberty were rightly understood in terms of their importance. Later, Donald Trump became the right man at the right time to both embody and capitalize on an amalgamation of beliefs.

Consider that conservatism used to be staunchly against gay marriage. Now we are only against the imposition of supporting it due to governmental coercion.  It's more of a classical liberal position.  Conservatives used to be dogmatically pro-free trade. Now conservatives have a more nuanced position - free trade is good, but only if it is of benefit to Americans. Conservatism used to be staunchly pro-life, pro-God, pro-gun and pro-law and order. Well, those things it mainly still is. But look at Democrats - unions support Trump now, or at least union members do. And it turns out a lot of Democrats are the ones out buying guns now, out of fear of mob violence. Democrats in growing numbers are embracing common sense, fundamental values and an appreciation for America.

There's a confluence of Republican and Democrat positions into a classical liberalism (which is essentially modern conservatism's core values) that pre-dates Trump's presidency, but it is beginning to thrive during it.  It's bigger than president Trump, but he embodies it and is enabling it accelerating it. A trump victory in this election will allow it to truly flourish, but even without that, it may be irreversible now.  Ironically, president Obama probably was the catalyst to starting it.

Coming out of this election I can see the Republican party and many Democrats melding into a new, more robust version of the conservative, classical liberal view of the world, and a socialist progressive split or takeover of the Democratic party with a minority status for decades to come.  This presents a massive opportunity for conservatives to reshape the institutions of education, governmental beaurocracy, and media into institutions that are based on classical, originalist values. 

It will require a lot of work, and it is not going to happen over night, or even finish during a second president Trump term.  But just as president Obama was unwittingly the ignition of classical liberalism's resurgence, president Trump is a potent accelerant. It would folly for Americans who hold the framer's vision of the country dear to ignore this opportunity to set America straight, for decades.  It is no longer just about voting.  Americans must take a page from the script of the far left and work tirelessly towards their goals.  Progressivism is on its back foot and playing defense.  Now is the time to ensure it stays that way.  Not this day, this decade.  The time is now.  Seize it. The benefits to the entire country and future generations is too great to let slip away.

Classical Liberalism probably isn't what you think

David Rubin, former progressive, offers this little bit of wisdom as an explainer.

#WalkAway is happening

Classical liberalism was what conservatism now defends.  Current liberalism is fascism. That's why so many are starting to walk away.

Real diversity vs SJW diversity

Diversity. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Today, people who call themselves liberals insist that America (or the West in general) is not diverse enough.  They claim that we are not diverse enough with respect to gender (no really, there are more than two genders. Okay.) or ethnicity or sexual orientation, or religion.   The problem with their claims is actually two distinct problems: (1) that's not really diversity and (2) it goes against actual liberal principles.

Real diversity means diversity of thought.  The way liberals classify diversity by identifiable categories like race and gender is literally, superficial.  Real diversity - the diversity that makes America a great country - is diversity of thought. Making sure that society is a certain percentage gay, a set percentage female, an exact ratio Muslim and an equal proportion of African American, Hispanic, Asian, White or otherwise does absolutely zero.  The ultimate question is what does that offer?  Next to zero benefit will arise from the supposed fairness this offers. I'll save the fairness argument for another time. Instead let's look at viewpoint diversity.

Tackling a problem with viewpoints from the left and right, from a passive or aggressive viewpoint, a scientific and humanitarian perspective concurrently, allows for a greater possibility of a comprehensive and successful solution to a problem than one developed by a visibly diverse but otherwise homogeneously-thinking group.  Without ideas being challenged they do not get tested before being put in place.  That's a recipe for failure.  But that's exactly what social justice warriors want to happen.

This is where the other problem of incongruity with liberal principles comes into play.  As a reminder, here's what classical liberalism actually is:

Classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology belonging to liberalism in which primary emphasis is placed on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government.

The philosophy emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe and the United States.

It advocates civil liberties with a limited government under the rule of law, private property, and belief in laissez-faire economic policy.

"Securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of government".  Social Justice Warriors want the government to impose equality on everyone. And by that they mean equality of outcome, not of opportunity.  They mean equality of visibility based on visual identifiers.  That comes at the expense of ideas.  There will be no diversity of ideas under that model and that means that individual freedom of thought is superseded by these visual markers.  That represents the death of liberty and true classical liberal ideals.

The problem for the country is that leftist leadership are adept at using that social justice warrior thinking to increase the preponderance of that sort of thinking. And while they have had a lot of success at doing that, they have simultaneously tried to tamp down individual thinking within these identity groups; if you are African American you have to be a Democrat.  If you are gay and are a Republican you need to have your head examined.  If you don't use the pronouns people choose to identify themselves by, you are a racist, misogynist homophobic neanderthal. 

The synergy of progressive liberalism with the consolidation of superficial identity groups is a recipe for totalitarianism. Classical liberalism it is not.

What is classical liberalism?

Are you a classical liberal?  Test yourself using the points in this video.  How many of the 10 points do you agree with?

I scored quite high, so I would classify myself as a classical liberal.  However I didn't get a 10 out of 10. More like 9.5.  There are a few points in there that I'd argue need a more robust definition.  For example on tolerance, does it imply that we should tolerate intolerance?  (Modern, progressive) Liberals cannot tolerate conservative ideas. There are some who are intolerant of conservatives' views.  Should they be challenged on their hypocrisy and intolerance rather than just tolerated?  Arguably yes.

At least it's something to think about.  I'm going to review my views on these in the future as well as the implications of each of the 10 points raised, in a little more depth.  But if you are a conservative, a liberal or a libertarian, review the video and score yourself a point for each of the ten elements you agree with.  If you're brave, post your score in the comments section.

If it makes sense, it makes sense.

I stumbled onto a new blog that I'll be adding to my blogroll today.  It's titled Freedom quest of Zork (the) Hun.  And I thought my blog title was too long.  Despite the title, Zork (if I can call the author that) is a self described social libertarian.  While I don't agree with everything that I've read so far on his blog, there's a lot there that makes sense.

Reading it and agreeing with it does not make me think that I am becoming more libertarian in my beliefs.  It reminds me that modern conservatism (properly applied) or classical liberalism has much in common with libertarianism.  If it were viewed as a Venn Diagram, there would be significant overlap (intersection) but not a complete union.  But it doesn't matter if a viewpoint is forwarded by a conservative or a libertarian - if it makes sense, it makes sense.  Common sense transcends labels anyway.  

Zork makes a lot of sense, and it's worth checking out his blog.  He's a fellow Canadian (Hungarian by birth, but clearly Canadian) and not a fan of socialized medicine (for example).  He tackles issues in a logical way, something I used to do more often when I had more time to devote to longer essay type posts to this blog.

If you get a chance, head over and check out his blog - it's worth the read.