Irving Kristol, 1920-2009

Irving Kristol passed away on Friday at the age of 89. Many of you will recognize the name from the recent work of his son, William Kristol, at Fox News and as the editor of the Weekly Standard magazine. But Bill Kristol's good works comes from a long and distinguished lineage that his father pioneered as the first prominent "neoconservative" thinker and commentator. The senior Kristol's writings at Commentary Magazine and later at the (now defunct) Public Interest were insightful -- and often devastating -- critiques of the modern liberal state. Kristol gave voice to the principles that animated the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, and his arguments in favor of deregulation, economic freedom, lower taxes and less government remain as valid (and important) today as they were then.

For those who are fighting against the renewed liberal onslaught of the Obama administration, Kristol remains a beacon of hope and direction. The Wall Street Journal has today reprinted pieces of his writings for them over the years, and it makes for a great reminder of just how valid the fight against an encroaching Federal government is today. Here is my favorite:

Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform, Dec. 15, 1972

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics. . . .

It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed." Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.

Exactly right! Symbolism over substance. Social entitlements that make the "reformer" feel good but that not only don't work, but do more harm than good. A litany of "good intentions" gone awry, and an almost pathological desire to ignore facts in favor of feelings.

If this doesn't sum up what is wrong with modern liberalism than I don't know what is. And the striking thing is that it hasn't changed since the early 1970s, when George McGovern and his "loony lefties" took over the Democratic Party, marking the final end of JFK-style liberalism that was based at least partly on reality. Today's Democratic Party is stuck in a world of fantasy, in a rut of old ideas that didn't work in the 1970s, and don't work today.

Barack Obama may have styled himself as representing a new generation of leadership on the left, but he really is just another liberal politician pushing tired solutions that have proven not to work. And he has fully embraced the other tenet of McGovern-inspired liberalism -- timidity in foreign policy and a tendency to appease those who oppose us.

McGovern may have lost in '72 -- but he ended up winning the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. And he actually took office in spirit on January 20, 2009 -- much to the detriment of the country.