What's your alternative? Which of:
competitive elections universal suffrage extensive civil and political liberties democratic decisionmaking (as opposed to imposition of someone's idea of the good life will-we-nil-we)
would you give up? What would you replace them with? What eclectic ideas could we mix in with a gutted liberalism that would be better?
I leave out the free markets, lots of people here would give those up, but they are not an essential component of _political_ liberalism.
As I said to Carrol, who asserted of list that liberalism is as dead as Marxism-Leninism, I fear that liberalism may be dying. But the alternatives are exceedingly grim. George W. Bush and this Christofascists have an alternative, so do the Islamists, but I don't want mix and match their ideas with those of Madison and Dewey, thank you.
--- ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> On 3 Jul, 2007, at 4:28 AM, andie nachgeborenen
> wrote:
> >
> > Liberalism is the ONLY thing that has ANY prospect
> of
> > offering even a remote chance at a civilized life.
> > <snip happens>
> > What's your alternative, the dictatorship of the
> > proletariat? Give me a break. Liberalism hasn't
> lived
> > up to its promise? No. Has it brought the age of
> > reason? Of course not. But a few centuries ago
> women,
> > blacks and propertyless could not vote. Slavery
> was
> > legal. <...>
> >
> > As Marvin said, but not nearly as elegantly as I
> am
> > going to put on it, you shit on the hard-won
> victories
> > for which our martyrs died. <more...>
>
>
> I am afraid this reminds me a bit of Doug's "No
> Alternatives" post/
> forward. The original author of that piece claimed
> that there were no
> alternatives to [what I dub] Western establishment
> medicine. This of
> course after this establishment medicine
> opportunistically absorbed
> (and continues to absorbs) "alternative" remedies.
> My "martyrs" (a
> bit different perhaps from yours) wouldn't have
> called themselves
> "liberals" or their movement/ideology "liberalism".
> I OTOH do
> consider myself a liberal. It seems to me that both
> in the case of
> establishment medicine and the liberal me, what we
> are (and what our
> ideology is) is an end product, not a source. We are
> opportunistic,
> and that's a good thing, but that also calls for
> humility (which was
> sorely lacking in the "No Alternatives" author as is
> also lacking
> amidst modern liberals i.e., the blogosphere, etc,
> which now prefers
> the term "progressive"). It is true that such a
> liberalism is part of
> the next cycle -- but here, IMHO, it serves as a
> sort of nourishing
> ground for new left ideas, movements, and leadership
> to emerge.
>
> I write at the top that Andie's post reminds me "a
> bit" -- I think
> what I offer, in my usual half-arse way ;-). in the
> following
> sentences is my version of Andie's points (informed
> by Carrol's
> criticism), and not an anti-thesis to them. All
> offered FWIW.
>
> --ravi
>
>
> IMHO = in my humble opinion
> OTOH = on the other hand
> FWIW = for whatever its worth
>
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