Charles Murray has a very interesting piece in today’s Wall Street Journal arguing that we should distinguish between liberals (left-of-center people who still believe in somewhat traditional American political arrangements and constitutional rights) and progressives (champions of an “unrestrained regulatory state”). I’ll get to the substance in a subsequent post. But for reasons that should be obvious, I particularly liked this passage:
It is that core philosophy extolling the urge to mold society that still animates progressives today—a mind-set that produces the shutdown of debate and growing intolerance that we are witnessing in today’s America. Such thinking on the left also is behind the rationales for indulging President Obama in his anti-Constitutional use of executive power. If you want substantiation for what I’m saying, read Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 book “Liberal Fascism,” an erudite and closely argued exposition of American progressivism and its subsequent effects on liberalism. The title is all too accurate.