The intellectual and political degeneration of the "progressive" wing of the
Democratic party continues apace, as Tom Watson – a prominent spokesman for the
movement – attacks
the upcoming "Stop Watching Us"
rally, to be held in Washington this coming weekend (Saturday, October 26).
Although he claims to support the goals of the rally – more on that later – he
writes:
"Yet I cannot support this coalition or the rally. It is fatally compromised
by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other
libertarian student groups; their hard-core ideology stands in direct opposition
to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat."
The reasoning behind Watson’s sectarianism is ostensibly ideological: he goes
through the hate-on-libertarians mantra, so familiar to readers of
Salon.com, including our opposition to the welfare state, gun control,
Obama-care, and, oddly – for an alleged progressive – he cites with horror the
Libertarian Party platform which calls
for "unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all
types."
There’s more libertarian-baiting in Watson’s screed – the equivalent, for
Salon readers, of progressive porn – in which he reels off supposedly horrifying
examples of the libertarians’ transgressive politics. I won’t bore my readers
with the gory details, beyond remarking on the crudity of
Watson’s smears: does he really believe libertarians are "infatuated with
Mussolini"?
The incredibly
weak argument that libertarianism is somehow a cleverly disguised variety of
fascism is supplemented by an even weaker stab at a strategic argument: Watson
opines that by associating with these Very Bad People "the loss is much greater
than the gain." How does that calculus work out, exactly? Well, you see, simply
by standing on a stage with these subversive elements, progressives "convey
legitimacy" to libertarians – as if Watson and his fellow progressives are the
Final Arbiters of Legitimacy.
Read the entire article
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