> Safire column is an interesting example of a larger tendency in recent
> years: the fact that the most vocal voices defending civil liberties in
the
> United States often come from the libertarian/anti-statist right. That
> certainly is not the case in Canada or (I would imagine) in Europe. Why is
> this the case? Is it just an example of the marginalization of the left in
> the U.S., so that the only arguments that take place are between different
> strands of the right.
To invoke the spectre of Hitchens, it is all to do with the way the left has marginalized itself, less capable of trading on libertarian, consumed by absolutist, totalizing, and purist theorizing, petty factionalizing, and acting as if critique is more productive than embracing something positive. So, if I were to channel Hitchens (he was on the radio this afternoon), perhaps he might observe how the movement formerly known as the left heaps abuse on the trappings of bourgeois democracy, namely civil rights and liberties, or persists in its own mythology of how in the last instance all global injustice and disorder are ochestrated, covertly and overtly, by the Empire, or that all that is vile and witless is capitalist, or the need to be ever alert to the dangers posed by those who say they're on your side when in fact they're the main impediment to revolution (the democratic party, liberals, academics, white supremecist leftos, right-wing social democrats, and all manner of apostates, including Hitchens himself). Mind you, I'm only channeling a spectre of the man himself. As a disclaimer, I should point out that I'm opposed to all that is wrong in the world and a staunch supporter of all that is right and honorable.
Dennis Breslin