Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

What Kind of Liberal is He?

According to Charles Kesler, our president is the prophet of American unexceptionalism.

Discussions - 5 Comments

Thanks for this essay.

I thought that I might read it, but couldn't get past the first sentence. These guys are really dedicated to keeping the GOP in the minority for a long time.

Here's another plea to administration to can this stupid filter that verifies you're a human in order to post your post: The screener forced me to type the word "shareearnings" in order to post. Not only is it a waste of time to stop a spam or two, but it has a liberal slant:) yuck

Ck seems about right, but I might quible with his placement of Hamilton as antithetical to whatever he means by Darwinian. It was Hamilton's split with Jefferson over the banks and the meaning of "necessary" in the "necessary and proper clause"...I mean Darwin enters on Hamilton's side(or so it seems to me) in determining what is necessary.

Many great observations by Kesler. One that caught my eye was that Obama seeks to advance culturally liberal policies while avoiding the alienating styles that people associate with liberals who are passionate about social liberal issues. This might indicate that many of liberalism's political problems over the last few decades are rooted significantly in attitude, and especially the attitudes of the liberal portion of the politically active Baby Boomer upper middle class. Howard Dean in 2004 was a poster child for this kind of politics. The style was self rightous and secular (though always willing to lecture others on the true meaning of their faith), and obsessed with tolerance while radiating intolerance for contrary opinion. Obama isn't really different from Dean on the social issues but he is able to speak to faith, and tradition in a way that Dean never could. Maybe the political (as in electoral)problem was less the social liberalism than the social liberals.

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