There has been a discussion going on for quite some time about how we label the left.
They like “Liberals” because it is happy and sounds like someone you’d want know. While there is some recent history of the label becoming somewhat of an insult and dozens of leftists whining about how their favorite label has been turned in a “dirty word”, and while most thinking folk have figured out that the name is wholly inaccurate and have, for the most part, remembered to not use it any longer, the MSM has kept on helping their side by forgetting that the name is inaccurate and using it regularly.
Myself, I have stuck to using the other label, “progressives”, as often as possible. Mostly because I know the history of the Progressive movement of the early 20th Century and the role it played in setting up both our modern welfare state and European Fascism. But also because it is rather accurate. The leftists believe in government getting progressively more and more powerful and intrusive and think that this is a good thing, because they also believe that the most of what government does is “good”. Sure, there are some some bad things too, but if they put “the right people” in charge, then everything will work out for the best.
/insert the definition of insanity here/
/insert not learning from history quote here/
Sorry about the slash marks there, typing that shit repeatedly gets old after a while. You know the quotes I’m thinking of, right? Then let us move on.
So now the good man, Brian Mickelthwait from Samizdata UK says that the label “progressive” is still too cheerful to let them use or for us to use to label/describe them. I’ll give him that. It is a happy sounding word and most folks would put it in the “sounds like a good idea to me” column.
So now what?
Personally, I like “assholes”, but some folks take objection to that label and you really can’t get that on the radio or television without the FCC or some other governmental agency coming down on you demanding you pay them money for saying a word.
Help a brother out. Leave your answer here or there. There if you actually have a serious answer.
Neo-feudalists. Because once you boil away their impressive sounding rhetoric, what’s left looks suspiciously like the old feudal systems.
I don’t like “Progressive” because it implies “progress,” and the connotations of the word are pretty positive. “We are making progress on solving our problems” and all that.
When you use Communist, Marxist, Fascist, Socialist, etc., they’ll always try to get you bogged down is stupid nit-picky shades-of-purity definitions, and lead you on a bird-walk to nowhere.
I’ve settled on Statist, meaning someone that believe the powers of the State are forces of good; that the intentions of government workers are more important than the actual effects; that the state should, in some form, own/control/regulate pretty much everything of everyone’s lives, including business, home life, kids, choices, lifestyle, associations, guns, recreation, et al. Statists are delusional enough to not only think “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” is a good idea, they think that state organs have the ability to make that determination, and should have the power to enforce it.
Simply use an accurate description that’s not excessively a mouthful: TWANLOC. Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen.
Alternatively we could just settle for historical accuracy and label them small ‘f’ fascists. Certainly the early fascist regime of Benito Mussolini was much less intrusive to the daily lives of the average Italian subject than our current administration would like to be with most Americans now.
I saw that post at Samizdata and thought ‘Totalitarian Assholes’ fit well, but yeah not going to get a lot of airrtime.
I do like neo-feudalists and agree with toast, but I think it goes farther back into tribalism. When I read the crap the ‘Intellectuals’ are spouting I get the distinct impression they view themselves as the village shaman who is the only one who can talk to the spirits and hand down ‘wisdom’ to the rabble.
See, I agree with Rolf on principle, but even the term ‘statist’ doesn’t quite fit. If they were truly devoted to such concepts they would actually LIVE by them. Their laws would apply regardless if you were a Senator or a shoe salesman.
But that’s not what happens. Invariably, the scum at the top enjoy privileges that the masses do not. Bloomberg is happy to disarm Americans but he has his own private security detail. Al Gore lectures us about global warming while riding around in his private jet and sleeping in a mansion with twenty times the power use and carbon footprint of an average home in Tennessee.
Sound familiar? It should. They dream of themselves as barons and dukes, ruling over us commoners, safe behind their landed knights and men-at-arms. Hence, neofeudalists.
How about “Bureaucratic Statists,” then, initials BS. They want all the bureaucratic apparatus, which they assume to be able to control and/or dodge using “appropriate discretion” on the part of their minions/friends, the bureau chiefs. They want state power, but not directed at them because they are simply too smart to “need” to be controlled, it’s only the “other guys” that are too stupid. They want the machinery of state to protect, conceal, hide, support, and back them, while attacking, revealing, undermining, and tripping up their opponents.
How about “neosoc” (neo-socialists) or “neocom” (neo-communists)?
Hey, they thought “neocon” was a neat slur…. just returning the favor.
Rolf: Well played. Sure, that works too.
Abbie: Why do you think they would take that as a slur? After all, communism works if you just put the right people in charge… /sarcasm
How about Totalitarian Anti-Freedom Statists (TAFS)?
I generally go with “collectivist.”
I’m pretty much old school, so I’ll stick with “PINKOS”!!!
Merle
I can go with the term one of them himself (Mussolini) coined: “Totalitarian(s)” – because as he said when he was a Newspaperman, they NEED total involvement to get total control in every aspect of life… Back in the 30’s it was considered cool and “Wholistic” – which is another term they still use themselves for the Whole Engagement – involvement in every aspect…