Saturday, April 30, 2011

Whither liberalism?



PBM ain't gonna like.

2 comments:

PBM said...

TJE, you could say many of the same things about the right not responding to legitimate critiques from the left. His only example is Paul Krugman though. Also, he completely contradicts himself by saying the left should respond to respected writers on the right, then going on to praise the rise of Fox News and Talk Radio. Does he think Rush and O'Reilly should be bunched into this group of "respected" conservatives?

His only example is Paul Krugman. Has he read the New Republic or the WaPo editorial page? Yes, a lot of their time is spent pointing out the hypocrisies, contradictions, and ridiculousness of the modern GOP, and rightly so, but they still respond to conservative critique (especially New Republic.) I also think its funny that he is basing his "death of liberalism" not off electoral outcomes or anything like that, but off a petty fight between the right and Paul Krugman. Really shows well for the status of American Conservatism right now. (Just kidding, TJE, unlike this author, I know that you can't make broad generalizations about one side of the aisle based completely off the opinions of one writer from that side).

I think his complaint about Krugman is legitimate, but that doesn't mean you need to proclaim that liberalism is dead. The right doesn't respond to a lot of criticism from the left, that's just life. Also let's just look to the period after the 2008 elections to understand how little it means for someone to say that either conservatism or liberalism "is dead."

TJE said...

Where have you gone DPM?