Many young people believe that liberalism is all about sweetness and light. Democrats so frequently tell them their mission is to rescue the downtrodden that they assume this is true. In their inexperience, however, the young are easily seduced by honeyed words. So, unfortunately, are many not so young.
These folks neglect an alarming contradiction at the heart of liberalism. Despite promises of compassion and kindness, in order to fulfill its promises this creed must resort to the opposite. In the long run, it injures more people than it benefits.
Let’s begin with the liberal assault on government enforcement agencies. Those on the left tell us that the police are pigs. These congenital toughs must therefore be reined in to prevent them from exercising an instinctive desire to abuse the weak. After all, why do people become cops? Isn’t it because they are inherently tyrants?
The same is said about members of the armed forces. Why would they enter the military if they did not look forward to killing people? That is why they are inclined to start wars. This is the reason we must cut military budgets back as deeply as we dare. The money is obviously better spent on the poor.
Now liberals have the long knives out for ICE. They are in the streets chanting for its abolition. So far as they are concerned, its assignment is to harass innocent immigrants. Desperately poor refuges from oppression are forced to look over their shoulders lest they be deported for no good reason.
Liberal dogma has it that once they purge the body politic of the repressive tendencies of capitalists and conservatives, we will finally be able to love one another the way we should. As Barack Obama put it, we will at long last become each other’s keepers. Our inner sympathies will consequently come to the fore.
But as even three year olds know, there are bullies among us. Just as Jean-Jacque Rousseau alleged, we humans have loving qualities. But we also have a dark side. The best among us can sometimes be selfish. The kindest of us occasionally resort to coercion.
Margaret Thatcher told us that the problem with socialism—which is the ultimate endpoint of liberalism—is that eventually we run out of other people’s money. But let’s be specific. By giving, giving, giving to the poor—and the bureaucrats—we invariably exhaust supposedly excess funds.
During the 1930’s, we saw what happens when we do. First, the well-off stop investing because there is no reason to accumulate wealth if it will be confiscated. Second, they conceal what they have. In other words, they fight back. And when they do, the economy goes into a nosedive.
Under these conditions, the only way for the government to gather every dime it desires is to engage in coercion. Funds are seized; recalcitrant citizens are jailed; onerous regulations proliferate. Instead of allowing people to reside in peace, strong-arm tactics are ramped up.
This is the opposite of what was promised, but the inevitable result of relying on the state to enforce equality. We have seen this in actual socialist societies. It was demonstrated in the Soviet Union’s Gulag; revealed in Communist China’s slaughter of ten’s of millions; and surfaced in East Germany’s secret police.
When enormous power is excessively concentrated, the temptation to engage in mistreatment is irresistible. Government functionaries, who are accustomed to being obeyed, turn up the heat when challenged. We recently witnessed this in organizations such as the IRS, the FBI, OSHA, and the EPA.
The point is that to do good—as they see it—they must do bad. In order to protect the weak, they have to injure those with the power to resist. In the end, we wind up with a clutch of tyrants presiding over a nation of cyphers. This is not freedom, or love, or equality. It is despotism.
Here then is the irony, and the contradiction, built into the soul of liberalism. Although liberals consistently excoriate government enforcement agencies, they also depend upon them to administer their mandates. Their vision of an entirely voluntary society is belied by this need to impose their schemes on unwilling subjects.
Oh yes, liberals deny this. When they go too far, they back off and praise the police or military. Nevertheless, they always come back to the same old stand. On the one hand, they regulate the liberty out of our society, while on the other they denounce those charged with maintaining law and order.
This inconsistency cannot work.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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