The Nation's Pulse / A Few Liberals Sober Up
Barnes, Fred
my way when I give a perfectly serious account of things." This weird mixture of detachment and commitment, of frivolity and seriousness may derive from the fact that Spark is an English...
...Whew...
...Koch stopped his speech...
...Instead of bemoaning what has happened, however, or pretending that the bomb sites will facilitate urban renewal, she sits on a convenient pile of rubble and tells bright...
...You're the people who pay the taxes and create the jobs for others so that we can collect revenues that make it possible to provide services for the poor.'" When Jimmy Carter was President, Koch and Moynihan were often critical of him and thus earned the epithet neoconservative...
...Unconscionable," he said...
...The bill lost...
...Koch, once a liberal purist, is proof that there really is a new liberalism...
...Concentration per se might not be bad," added Bradley...
...The neoliberal approach to unions is hardly liberalism as usual, either...
...They were leery of individual rate reductions in the Reagan tax bill, but they supported cuts in the capital gains and corporate income taxes...
...Arthur M. Schlesinger, J r . , in his role as ideological policeman on the Left, has complained about both of them, Koch especially...
...Although I can give no specifics, personal contacts told me last spring of a local pastor being sued by the parents of a suicide, on the theory that the pastor's negligent counseling failed to prevent death...
...and N.Y...
...Nor would many liberals agree with Bradley's idea that "the key is how to get the economy moving again, not how to get new government delivery systems going...
...Try it i m speaking entirely in French...
...And a few hands went up...
...115...
...They are dovish on defense and foreign matters, but they generally back substantial cuts in governTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 19"@2 29 ment spending, encouragement of business through tax cuts, free trade, restrained demands by labor unions, and oil price decontrol...
...We lost touch with reality...
...And several neoliberals unhesitatingly opposed across-theboard marginal tax rate reductions for individuals as "trickle down economics" while proposing targeted tax cuts for business that are "trickle down" in its purest form...
...That wing, he said, "consists largely of elitists whose intellect or personal interests lead them to make their careers mostly in the public sector...
...Perhaps it is more than a coincidence, then, that the man who is slouching toward the neoliberal position as he seeks the 1984 Presidential somination is Walter F. Mondale, Carter's Vice President...
...Is it any wonder the program is being disbanded...
...3. Bishop says "no court has yet allowed a suit, on behalf of a defective infant, for 'wrongful life.' " No, but in late August, the Seventh Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a malpractice award of $900,000 to the parents of a defective child...
...149...
...In foreign affairs, as Russia dramatically increased its conventional arms buildup, we continued to follow the defense policies that had served us adequately before the Vietnam War...
...Bill me [] .$12.00 check enclosed NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE~ ZIP Mail to: The Southern Partisan, PO...
...Spiritually, she enjoys robust good health and writes about the psychic ills of her characters from the point of view of a visitor to the cuckoo's nest rather than a patient there...
...But his policies amounted to liberalism of a defanged sort...
...It has a fancy name, neoliberalism, and a growing set of distinguishable ideas, but don't start applauding yet...
...He declared: What happened over the last decade is that we became the party of the status quo, the party of government for government's sake, the party of abstraction...
...Poverty programs provided jobs for the people running the programs but often did not help the poor...
...Neoliberals tend to give, then take away...
...The Court of Appeals, Second District, heard the appeal and reversed the dismissal...
...The first thing we have to do is realize the degree to cial resources these days and there- which the public thinks we are wrong fore ambitious new social programs on all the issues," advised Moynihan are out of the question...
...477 (1980), a suit was brought in Los Angeles by a child who was born with Tay-Sachs disease, against the laboratory which provided her parents with erroneous genetic tests prior to her birth...
...So did one the neoliberals joined Senate Republicans to defeat...
...It's different from the old liberalism, but not that different...
...HUMAN EVENTS " . . . a breath o f fresh a i r . . , a voice crying in the wilderness...
...What sort of people need to learn a foreign Part'B introduces more complex structures _9 language as quickly and effectively as possi, and additional vocabulary...
...he was asked...
...If you're not convinced it's This course turns your cassette player into the fastest, easiest, most pain~ass way to m a "teaching machine...
...The neoliberal position is distinctive on three specific economic issues...
...Their goal is to see that power is allocated to government...
...Koch agree on the threshold political delivered the same neoliberal critique in October to the Democratic National Strategy Council...
...Just look at the way we structured the LEAA [Law Enforcement Assistance Administration...
...We believed that a mandate from Washington--to make transportation "accessible to the handicapped," to make waters "swimmable and fishable," to provide special education to the emotionally and physically handicapped--could solve problems Without money or, in some cases, even without the necessary technology...
...for three weeks...
...We remained locked into busing as the way to correct the inadequacies of ghetto schools, even after blacks, whites, and virtually every scholar who looked at the issue agreed busing was not the answer...
...And enough people were f r i g h t e n e d into a l m o s t intimidation, t h a t they have to vote to save America for God's sake and to repel the communists...
...C O R R E S P O N D E N C E Misunderstanding Europe In his editorial "While Germany Sleeps," which appeared in the, November American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Her loyalties are complicated, even divided, but secure...
...That is not too illiberal, but Tsongas also had the gall to challenge the $1.1 billion pay raise for union workers included in the federal bailout for the Chrysler Corporation...
...Tsongas calls himself a *Alfred A. Knopf, $12.95...
...His viewpoint is often shared by Senators Gary Hart of Colorado and Bill Bradley of New Jersey, and by a group of a dozen or so Democrats in the House of Representatives led by Congressman Leon Panetta of California...
...It would be difficult to prove that his prescriptions for salvation were wrong...
...CIVIL WAR PRESS-CORPS READ: Andrew Lytle - Russell Kirk - M.E...
...His book, The Road From Here: Liberalism and Realities in the 1980s," is the first neotiberal manifesto...
...m The u.s...
...They are eager to promote the new high technology industries, and they express doubts about propping up the older smokestack industries...
...Banks pEAK renca t _9 _9 l , luke a dnplomat...
...residents add sales tax...
...2. Lieberman lists novel tort causes of action...
...9 hie...
...Tsongas represents the other-wing of neoliberalism...
...When it came to crime, though we talked tough, we consistently sided with the need to protect the civil liberties of the criminal, not the victim...
...3d 811, 165 Cal...
...Koch's apostasy is most flagrant on the crime issue: He's for the death penalty and against lenient Fred Barnes is National Political Reporter for the Baltimore Sun...
...For the present highly unstable and tragic state of the world we must bear part of the responsibility...
...judges...
...Bradley urges that risk be injected into the economy again, but he voted for the Chrysler bailout...
...Neoliberals like Koch and Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts are not on the brink of embracing Ronald Reagan conservatism, but on some fundamental issues they have drifted far afield from undUuted liberalism...
...Meanwhile, our support among the rank and file of such union membership is shaky at best and nonexistent at worst...
...Koch paused, then bellowed, "DUMMIES...
...Businessmen must "treat risk as an opportunity and not as a t h r e a t , " he told me last month...
...With its unique "pat- /earn French...
...While I am in no position to doubt Mr...
...Theory: Because the physician failed to diagnose the mother's rubella, he thereby deprived her of an informed decision to abort . . . . --Robert K. Olsen Los Angeles, California As a first year law student at the University of Virginia, I read with particular interest Joseph Bishop's review of Lieberman's The Litigious Society...
...Her fellow English Catholic, Evelyn Waugh, chronicled the pillaging of it...
...Instead of ritualistically attacking big business, neoliberals style themselves as pro-business, even proconglomerate in some cases...
...When some pointed to abuse of welfare, medicaid and food stamps, we avoided the issue...
...Koch relishes an incident that occurred when he visited a senior citizens" center in the Bronx during his campaign for mayor in 1978...
...So has the regulatory zeal of bureaucrats in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA...
...As much sense as the Koch critique may make to conservatives, it is rigorously denied by undeviating liberals...
...remarks quite correctly that "th~ Germans' understanding of us is not very sound," which he follows with the observation, "Nonetheless, the United States has come to the assistance of Europeans on no less than three occasions in this century: Two world wars and the unprecedented Marshall Plan...
...Tsongas encountered this phenomenon when he appeared on "The Dick Cavett Show" last October with F a t h e r Robert Drinan, the former congressman from Massachusetts and current president of Americans for Democratic Action, and othel liberals...
...We looked the other way...
...Along with issues like pay rates, health benefits and work safety, their agenda should include such matters as quality control, productivity, and absenteer Old Times Here Are Not Forgotten...
...Box Ila38, Columbia SC 29211 A8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982 31 ism...
...CHARLESTON NEWS & COURIER "AT LAST...
...Ladies and gentlemen, do you know that a judge was mugged this week...
...In 1971, the perc e n t a g e of the American people who wanted more defense spending was 10 percent...
...Many Europeans, not unjustifiably, I think, take a rather critical View of the consequences of two of the occasions when, as Tyrrell put it, "we came to their assistance," as is evident in the following paragraph from an article from a recent issue of the conservative German magazine Criticon, by Harald Ruddenklau, who is a political advisor to the Christian Democratic Union: The 20th century brought a new element into European history through the fact that the overwhelming intervention of the United States destroyed the European ~tate structure, secured the survival and victory of the bolshevistic Soviet Union and helped the Soviet Union become a world power by handing over to it, by the elimination of Germany, the domination of Central Europe...
...Simply follow the spoken and writwith your name and address, and a check or money order...
...Koch responded...
...Koch, who calls himself "a liberal with sanity," represents one wing of neoliberalism...
...17 hours) and 200-page text...
...In h i s book, Tsongas acknowledges that the Soviets are aggressive and insists that "we as a n a t i o n . . , must come to grips with the actuality of the Soviet military buildup...
...Carter sounded unconventional and occasionally conservative as a candidate for President in 1976, if only for the sake of expedience...
...new liberal," or a "revisionist liberal," and bills his ideology as ".compassionate realism...
...Quinn's complaint is that the liberal-dominated Democratic party responds "almost instinctively to instructions from union leadership...
...We became unable and unwilling to recast programs that, however wellintentioned, had faults...
...There is a name for the impulse to swaddle liberal policies in nonliberal wrapping--Carterism...
...No full-fledged liberal would have passed up a chance to denounce a Federal Reserve that pursues tight money...
...He called a press conference and said, 'This mugging will in no way affect my judgment in matters of this kind.'" And an elderly lady in the back of the room stood up and said...
...I'd like to try THE SOUTHERN PARTISAN at the special introductory rate o f $12.00 per year...
...Basic French Course: 1 embassies abroad must be able to converse O Basic French, Part A. 12 cassettes fluently in every situation...
...Tsongas advocates a "new unionism" that has found little favor among labor leaders...
...But his recommended policy is approval of the Salt II treaty and a naive application "to overseas situations internal American principles-such as racial equality, equal justice, and self-determination--to forestall Soviet targets of opportunity in the Third World...
...it would be better to recognize this than to take exception to the failure of others to understand us...
...Understandably, America--beset by inflation, high interest rates, an uncertain position in the world and a declining quality of life--rejected what we were offering...
...By 1981, it was 71 percent...
...Hen~ Regnery Chicago, Illinois The Litigious Society Allow me three comments on Joseph W. Bishop's review of The Litigious Society, by Jethro K. Lieberman, (September 198t): 1. Discussing malpractice insurance for clergy, Bishop notes that "there is no example of a holy man being hauled into court for professional incompetence...
...Tsongas, the most vigorous promoter of neoliberalism, identifies in his book with Carter's policies on arms control, human rights, Africa, energy, and nuclear power, to name a few...
...The Tsongas-Drinan exchange went like this: 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982 Tsongas: You did have the Carter phenomenon, the rejection of Carter, but that does not explain why so many members of Congress, e s p e c i a l l y in the S e n a t e , went down as well...
...Foreign service personne/, that's who...
...THE SOUTHERN PARTISAN HAS ARRIVED...
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...i.e., to their own use...
...Tsongas: There were two major issues in 1980 and will be in 1982: the economy and military spending...
...9 thousands of dollars developing this course...
...And Tsongas is noisy in his support for nuclear power...
...By The Foreign Service Institute's French _9 the end of the course you'll be learning and course is unconditionally guaranteed...
...witty, fantastic stories about the people who pass by her in the ruins...
...A FEW LIBERALS SOBER UP by F r e d Barnes Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York traveled to Brooklyn one day in 1980 for the dedication of a shopping center...
...The two wings come t o g e t h e r in accepting the proposition that the federal government has limited finanquestion that separates them from unreconstructed liberals...
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...the Atlantic Charter, which was proclaimed as our objective in intervening again, ended in the agreements made at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam...
...Part A provides . _9 _9 Audmo Forum an introduction to the simpler forms of the S "" '*- _9 I ,anguagep,usabas,c vocabulary, oU'l .h:/Green...
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...So you had an enormous change in the public's attitude...
...Moynihan concluded a speech to more than 1,000 reporters, congressmen, and Administration officials (including the President) last March with a paean to government...
...I voted for it because I felt on balance the human-questions outweighed the efficiency questions," he said...
...If one considea:s not just the announced purposes of our intervention into the two European wars of this century, but their results, the difficulty of the Europeans to understand us becomes more comprehensible: Wilson's Fourteen Points became the Versailles Treaty, which continued the war with different means and led to its violent resumption in 1939...
...Conn...
...Everybody who wants Lindsay back, raise your h a n d , " he said...
...Going after the Fed is a bumper sticker approach...
...The most dramatic departure for neoliberalism is on economic issues...
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...Quinn's assault on "the Mondale-McGovernKennedy wing of the Democratic party" would likely create apoplexy among liberals...
...But one thing is certain--Doctor Johnson would have read her, and most likely have praised her...
...For example, the creation of the Department of Education--a bureaucratic boondoggle if there ever was one--or American bottoms for the maritime unions --probably the most expensive per capita subsidy ever devised...
...The court sustained defendant's demurrer and plaintiff appealed...
...return it and we'll refund every m tern drill" learning method, you set your own penny you paid...
...10017 (212)753-1783 d...
...The joke in Washington is that the Democratic liberals in Congress vote for the same old programs, while the neoliberals sigh--and then vote for the same old programs...
...The court held that there were grounds for the retarded child to collect damages, and they held that she was also entitled to punitive damages...
...Lindsay, of course, is a former mayor of New York, one usually blamed by Koch and nearly everyone else for the city's firiancial troubles...
...The landscape that she passes rejoicing through is a devastated one...
...Koch followed his riveting election critique before the Democratic National Strategy Council with a plea for' restoration of a basically liberal agenda...
...Government's role is not to protect business against risl~, but it is to protect people from suffering...
...Our traditional industries must adapt to the new economic realities: slower growth in demand for their products and increasing foreign competition," Hart wrote in an unpublished paper last summer...
...Order today...
...Democrats, he said, "believe in American government and we fully expect those who now denigrate it, and even despise it, will soon or late find themselves turning to it in necessity, even desperation...
...We need labor unions that care about the condition of the t economy," he writes...
...You may order one, or both parts of the America's diplomatic corps assigned to U.S...
...They are hawkish on defense matters, favor a stiff anti-Communism in foreign affairs, support selective cutbacks in federal programs, are sometimes resistant to demands by labor leaders, and normally identify themselves with middle-class anxieties like crime...
...She may sometimes lack the sort of bottomless despair that we have come to expect from serious writers of contemporary fiction...
...Rptr...
...VISA, MasterGard, n Diners Club) by enclosing card number, ex- m piration date...
...The coterie of Senate neoliberals also banded together to support a Bradley bill that would, as Bradley put it, "let the market allocate oil and set the price" but have the government recycle oil tax revenues to individuals in the form of tax relief...
...With Reagan in the White House, and the center of political gravity shifted, they were instantly neoliberal...
...We need to encourage innovation, entrepreneurs...
...They insist on the nation's need for greater productivity and economic growth...
...3 Basic French, Part B. 18 cassettes sonnel do -~, with the Foreign Service Insti- (25'/2 hours) and 300-page text...
...As he wound up his speech, a black man in the audience shouted, "We want John Lindsay...
...and your signature...
...Now that might be selling them a trifle short...
...And they would not feel- entirely comfortable with Panetta's inclination "to consider other approaches to prablens than a knee-jerk, new-government-program approach...
...negligent infliction of severe emotional distress," in which a plaintiff may recover for simply being upset by the defendant's less than careful conduct...
...Much of this neoliberal rhetoric is pleasing to conservatives, but there is a measure of deception~in it, a fashionable disguise for conventional liberalism...
...But of course she cannot escape the twentieth century's moral disintegration...
...We conferred on special interests-particularly friendly special interests like labor, environmental groups, organizations for the handicapped--the right to set out legislative agenda...
...It consists of traditional liberals of the "Kennedy Democrat" variety (that's John F. Kennedy), folks such as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Rodney S. Quinn, the Maine secretary of state...
...It instructed President Reagan to jawbone the Federal Reserve Board to lower interest rates within 90 days...
...9 tute's Basic French Course...
...I don't see the Fed as the problem," said Tsongas last month...
...Drinan: You have to bring in the Moral Majority when you talk about liberalism, and I think that they e n t e r e d the l a s t e l e c t i o n , and it may not be the people voting against liberalism at all, or even a g a i n s t Jimmy C a r t e r , [hut] that they were frightened by the demagogues of the New Right, the Moral Majority, the Reverend Falwells...
...He appealed for a federal takeover of all welfare and medical assistance, establishment of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation to funnel federal money to public works projects, more federal spending to combat crime, and restoration of the 70 percent tax rate on investment income...
...Department of State has spent Shipped in handsome library binders...
...They put forth a refreshing analysis, then trot out the old liberal approach...
...Import quotas, tariff barriers, export subsidies, and large scale federal credit infusions can artificially boost their growth, but only temporarily, and only at considerable cost in lost growth and efficiency for the entire economy...
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...They say, 'You cater to the middle class.' I say, 'You bet I do.' I tell middle-class people, 'We ought to be kissing your feet for not leaving the city...
...One paragraph in particular from this incredible case illustrates the direction we are headed if other courts follow the lead of their brethren in California: (continued on page 40) 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982...
...Certainly neoliberals are not the enemies of government...
...Now you can make a start on learning to speak French just as these diplomatic per...
...Neoliberals believe that the massive Democratic setbacks in the 1980 elections should be a t t r i b u t e d to the p a r t y ' s overbearing liberalism...
...This weird mixture of detachment and commitment, of frivolity and seriousness may derive from the fact that Spark is an English Roman Catholic...
...Bishop, I thought his statement " . . . to be sure, no court has yet allowed a suit on behalf of a defective infant for 'wrongful life' . . . " was a little misleading even though accurate...
...They blame Jimmy Carter or yet more insidious forces for dragging so many liberals down to defeat in 1980...
...In defiance of that old liberal bugaboo, business concentration, neoliberals are plugging for relaxation of antitrust laws in order to promote American exports...
...Secondly, if you look at the percentage of people who thought the Democrats were better at handling the economy in 1971, compared to 1981, [you see a] remarkable shift to the Republicans . . . The Moral Majority was obviously the f r o s t i n g on the cake, but we have to deal with those basic issues...
...I think the country clecided t h a t . . , liberalism was simply an unworkable a p p r o a c h , and they rejected it...
...Consequently, their primary interest is power...
...She is, in other words, a universalist who finds herself tagged as a sectarian, a non-conformist conformist...
...We supported racial quot.as to end discrimination, even after it became clear that quotas were pitting race against race, ethnic group against ethnic group, rather than helping to bring about racial harmony...
...We had no part in the outbreak of World War I, but our intervention had a profound effect on what followed, and not,,l think it can be convincingly argued, for the better...
...Let us also not forget that the Marshall Plan, unprecedented as it was, followed the equally unprecedented Morgenthau Plan, which, if carried to its final conclusion, wotqd have led to the impoverishment and bolshevization not only of Germany, but all of Europe...
...What are you doing about crime...
...Mondale, an aide said, has no intention of competing with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to be the spokesman for unswerving liberalism...
...Bradley emphasizes the need to restot'e risk'to the business environment...
...In Curlender v. Bio-Science Laboratories 106 Cal...
...Bradford Unpublished work by Richard Weaver - And more in THE MAGAZINE YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR Yes...
...Rather than seeing ourselves as the inheritors of a dynamic, pragmatic, humane tradition, we sought to embalm our past successes--the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society--in regulations and programs...
...They readily concede that programs like the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and unemployment compensation have been excessive...
...l l l l l l l l l l l l l m l ~ r should be allowed to finance export trading companies to help them compete with German and Japanese firms, he notes...
...They also in an interview last September...
...It's a great policy until you get elected...
...For threatened industries, like automobiles, where international competition insures consumer choice, we should provide antitrust exemptions to allow cooperation between firms and, where necessary, mergers," Tsongas writes in his book...
...m ten instructions, listening and repeating...
...The comments on "wrongful life" were particularly interesting as our first year legal wrking assignments deal with "wrongful life" cases...
...People on the Left attack me," Koch told me last spring...
...Then mug him again...
...The wildest I have encountered is California's (where else...
...When job training programs did not work, we put more money in...
Vol. 15 • January 1982 • No. 1
