Renegade Liberals
It's by now well-established that a man who died over 50 years ago has all the answers to today's problems (well except when he talks on economic policy, or social policy, or class, or etc), so I thought I'd indulge in a little Orwell quoting of my own, which seems particularly apt these days.One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively' endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought.
posted by Matthew @ 9/06/2004 08:32:00 PM
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