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THE INTERESTING THING ABOUT RIGHTWING BLOGS: In response to Blake: I generally do not read rightwing blogs myself, as I typically find their argumentation so tautological and their views so ill-considered that they are totally unpersuasive. However, one thing they can do is make you understand your own beliefs more clearly--and not only out of revulsion at theirs. Some of the better writers at some of the better blogs, like The Corner, actually have a fairly nuanced understanding of American liberalism, even if they try to cover it up with outlandish book titles. Last week I had a back and forth with libertarian blogger Julian Sanchez (sidenote: libertarians, because they actually have a consistent philosophy and they share certain liberal assumptions are generally much more interesting to read than conservatives in my opinion) about whether a conservative or libertarian politician who opposes social security, funding for stem cell research or civil rights protections for the disabled, can be called "anti-disabled" even if he himself is disabled. Jonah Goldberg, writing on The Corner responded,
[Adler] works from the assumption that the disabled are entitled to everything and anything the state can conceivably provide, and then he assumes that any opposition to such generosity is a sign of evil intent, a sort of larceny by conservatism. In short, in Adler's view, the disabled are already entitled to everything and the conservative who disagrees wants to take away what is already theirs. This is a fascinating snippet of the assumptions behind Progressive thought. For it holds that positive rights exist prior to everything else and that conservatives are champions of subtraction from an already existing edifice.And my first thought was, he's absolutely right! I do think that in the richest society in the history of mankind people are born with positive material rights, e.g. not just the right to vote, but the right to decent education and healthcare. I had never actually put it in quite those blunt terms, and Goldberg may think my beliefs on this are self-evidently absurd, but he helped me crystalize my own philosophy.Caveat: None of the above is meant to excuse this sort of hackishness that emanates from NRO and even more so from the less reputable rightwing sites.
--Ben Adler
