The Timelessness of C.S. Lewis: 'tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive'

Photo Cred: Sigurdur Jonsson's flickr

Via My Old Man, from C.S. Lewis's essay anthology "God in the Dock" (1948):

My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

 (Emphasis added)

It's tough to make common cause with Progressives, for the libertarian ends I support (for instance, to legalize marijuana), when they fail to see any problem with the i-legalizing of things like soda over a certain size, or banning trans fats.

It's not helped by certain of my progressive friends, who call themselves libertarians (for contrarian, not principled, reasons), who believe their support for pot legalization and their 'why can't we all just marry who we love' attitude towards same sex marriage makes them libertarians.

Their position on these issues is buttressed by their support for an out and out expansion of the nanny state--especially Obamacare.

When confronted with the inconsistency of their position on these and other issues of the day, they (I kid you not) tell me, 'well, Obamacare is [editorial insert: not yet] as bad as the Iraq War, so there.'

These are the people who elected Barack Obama to a second term.

Sorry, buddy, wanting to be able to smoke your pot legally and thinking that your friends ought to be able to get gay married does not make you a libertarian--at least, not when you also think government should expand its services and increase taxes to support that growth.

That just makes you a liberal. Or a progressive. Which label you prefer makes no difference to me.

The Progressive Religion

As Christmas approaches, my thoughts have naturally turned towards things of a more religious nature.

The cause of this change in mindset hasn't all been Christmas-related activity. Much of what has oriented my thinking has been the religion of progressivism.

This is a topic I've addressed numerous times before--so many times, in fact, that I don't dare do a search of my archives and post every link to every article in which I've treated the subject. You'd be bored (more than usual) and I wouldn't have time to go and pick up my laundry from Tony all the way out in Queen's Park.

Suffice it to say that the progressive religion, though perhaps as not clearly outlined as other, more organized and defined religions is, in fact, a religion.

And the leftists--liberals and members of the Democrat party--who reject and sometimes mock Christianity and other religions (not all leftists, but a sizable vocal minority), are no less devout and pious in their belief system than their country bumpkin hick Christian friends on the right.

Indeed, as Byron York points out in latest article, leftist progressives are just as superstitious (in some cases, depending on definition, more so) as conservatives.

"Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics," the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

There's more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.

There are some areas in which the two partisan groups are similar. When Pew asked respondents whether they have had a religious or mystical experience, 50 percent of Republicans said yes, as did 50 percent of Democrats. But overall, there are sizable disparities.

Progressives behave in all the same ways that conservatives do--it just so happens that their religion is become the public religion that Christianity was in Europe in preceding centuries and like Catholicism and early Protestant churches, they use public/government bodies to enforce the right amout of piety.

By recycling (in some areas here in London, you must recycle under penalty of law).

By purchasing carbon indulgences offsets (to rectify past--or future--"bad" behavior).

By paying a forced tithe (taxes) to fund "research centers" like the CRU and other so called "green initiatives" whose goals generally center around public information/marketing campaigns that guilt individuals into donating even more of their money. Or, if you have none, into supporting legislation that will compel those who do, but who do not want to pay (how unrighteous of them!) to pay higher taxes to fund Al Gore's next PowerPoint.

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & State?

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & Science?

Let's take the first, church & state. The consensus opinion in the United States is that separation of church and state has largely aided individual religious liberty. For the most part, I agree. However, if you look at Europe today, the involvement of the state with church seems to have done more damage to the latter than anyone anticipated. No one goes to church. Churches, cathedrals, meetings houses (mosques excepting) are all empty. Religion has become secularized and is no longer compelling to the masses.

In this instance, America's separation of church, while initially about religious liberty, seems to have saved American churches from the same fate as their European brethren.

It is possible, therefore, to surmise that a similar forced adoption of progressivism as the public religion would create the same sort of generational backlash that public religion did in Europe. Granted, it took centuries, but now the youth pay no mind to the faith of their fathers. Indeed, they know practically nothing about it.

The problem, of course, is that those of us who do not want to worship mother Gaia would be forced to do so until the zealotry of the current generation of environmental fanatics died out. Given the haste with which fads seem to pass nowadays (and the blatant cooking of the books at the CRU), this would probably only really hurt (and by hurt I mean kill) people in lesser developed countries while those of us in the developed world would only have to deal with the inconvenience of much higher taxes, lower standard of living, etc. I'm a poor student so whatever.

Before we go any further, take a little time to watch this enlightening Q&A with Michael Crichton:

Second & lastly (if you're still with me), science & religion. Look, I have no problem with those who honestly believe (whilst I'm a heretical "denier." note the religious language) in the religion of progressivism with environment, multiculturalism, tolerance, government, taxes (tithes) as their tenets. I wouldn't criticize your belief system at all, except that you insist on turning your beliefs into public policy.

The other major problem I have with you is this--the complete bastardization of science. If you've been following (at all) what's been happening with the scandal at the CRU, you know what I'm talking out. If you don't, here's a pretty good place to start. What has been done is nothing short of a triumph of tribal politics (the sort of stuff they're supposed to leave to me) over science. Where the data didn't produce the right graphs, they "massaged" it. Where the data contradicted their findings, they deleted it. Where skeptical scientists published articles in good academic journals, they ganged up and tried to keep them out or discredit the journal. And where all of this failed, they fantasized about beating up those who disagreed with them.

Whatever climate science has become (or ever was) it is no longer science. The only ones permitted into the inner sanctum and given access to the holy raw data are those who can be trusted to apply the right sorts of "homogenizing" effects or use the tricks of those who actually know how to use (and by use I mean really, you know, use) statistics.

If all of this only hurt their own cause, I would just laugh and laugh and laugh. But no, their complete misrepresentation, misuse and abuse of the scientific method and the peer-review process has done damage to science as a whole. And that really ticks me off. The pressures of faith and money (the environment business is worth tens of billions of dollars after all) have turned "climate science" into nothing more than propaganda machine. Like other rent-seekers, their whole goal is to do whatever is necessary to get more money (see your local newspaper for the latest alarmist prediction).

To sum up: Believe in Global Warmism if you want. I'll leave you to your religion the same way you leave me to mine. However, do not conflate your religion with science, impose it by the state, or try other public policy shenanigans to compel my observance.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

The Latest In My Ongoing Critique Of Progressivism

Yesterday I wrote about how progressives' knee-jerk response to world problems--real or perceived--is yet another government plan that will re-order society, reduce individual liberty and centralize power & control with the enlightened ones.

It's not that I think progressives are bad people. God love 'em, they've got great intentions, it's the unintended consequences of their utopian reordering that I'm worried about.

Consider healthcare. Does the United States have problems? I've admitted countless times that it does and in numerous posts, suggested a few things we could do to reduce costs & improve quality. I always remind people that ~90% of Americans have insurance, another 5% choose not to because they are healthy or wealthy, 2.5% are illegal immigrants, & the remaining 2.5% are the 2.5% I think we can help by introducing market reforms--essentially eliminating state & federal distortions of the market.

I think these things would do much of what progressives want to accomplish, only without a hasty, ad hoc reordering of 1/6th of the American economy.

Progressives are prepared to throw out the baby with the bath water, because for them, health care is a moral issue. Cost/benefit doesn't play a role at all. Despite what they may say (and here I remind readers that I'm not lumping all Democrats together, just the far progressive left), the cost or the quality of the care is not the issue.

The only thing they care about is the fairness of it all. Ah, égalité.

So long as everyone has access to care--even if it's just a few vitamins & a glass of water--it doesn't matter that some people die in the queue for a heart transplant or that others don't get hip replacement surgery or needed meds to improve their quality of life--the only thing that matters is that it is equal for everyone.

Of course, it won't be equal for everyone. And this is what history teaches. The rich opt out because they can afford it. The well connected in government opt out because they're owed favors. Everyone else suffers. So it went in the former USSR. And China. Continues for the Castros & their revolutionary cronies in Cuba. Ditto North Korea. Even in the social democracies of Europe--the elites (including socialist & other miscellaneous left-leaning members of parliament) always opt out.

Even in the European countries where you think socialized medicine in all its incarnations is a such a screaming success, it's not. They are dealing with mounting costs which result in higher taxes, more rationing, & poorer overall care.

Additionally, the only reason they are as good as they are is because as in so many other things, they are able to free ride on American drug development and other medical technology improvements. Because of the high prices Americans elect to pay, pharmaceutical & other medical technology companies respond with new and better drugs and medical devices.

Everyone else, everywhere else in the world benefits as a result.

As I said at the outset, social justice (whatever that means) is the morality of this century's progressives. Those who question their crusade for justice & equality--deniers!--will be subject to ad hominem attacks for not submitting to the latest dogmatic demand. Obviously, the degree to which one embraces the social justice cause du jour is a sign of how good of a person she or he happens to be (thus, the unfunny Goode Family).

How socially unrighteous of us deniers. As penance for our skeptical reception of the latest progressive nostrum, I suggest buying a few carbon offsets & repeating aloud Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech 10 times.

But, of course, progressivism as religion is another post for another day.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Ah, Progressives: Albert Jay Nock On The Cool Kids With Their New & Nifty Ideas For Saving The Planet etc.

Because they really believe in the novelty of their ideas and that they, in all their fervor, are the change they've been waiting for.

“I have been thinking,” Nock wrote in 1932, “of how old some of our brand-new economic nostrums really are. Price-regulation by State authority (through State purchase, like our Farm Board) was tried in China about 350 b.c. It did not work. It was tried again, with State distribution, in the first century a.d., and it did not work. Private trading was suppressed in the second century b.c., and regional planning was tried a little later. They did not work; the costs were too high. In the eleventh century a.d., a plan like the R.F.C. [Reconstruction Finance Corporation] was tried, but again cost too much. State monopolies are very old; there were two in China in the seventh century b.c. I suppose there is not a single item on the modern politician’s agenda that was not tried and found wanting ages ago.” Among virtually all of the political writers of the Left and the Right in the 1920s and 1930s, Nock shines brightest for seeing from the outset that the differences between the various collectivist schemes then circulating amounted to differences in branding. “Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism,” he wrote in his Memoirs, “are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.”

Is there a problem in the world? It follows that there is a progressive government "plan" to solve it--a plan that will centralize & ascribe control to your social, intellectual, & educational betters, reduce your liberty, and inevitably fail.

Unfortunately for us, the inevitable failure of these plans--in the case of global warmism & healthcare--may take a number of years and cost society lives, quality of life, and trillions of dollars.

Oh well, what's a few broken eggs on the way to a utopian omelet, right?

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Walter Lippman On The Warfare Between The Obama Admin & Big Business

History repeats itself, again.

The reason is that there are in fact two main tendencies inside the New Deal, and . . . the President is never able finally to make his choice for the one or the other. Between the conciliatory and irreconcilable New Dealers the crucial difference is . . . that the one group is interested primarily in social reform and the other is interested primarily in the control of the economic system.

Thus the reformers wish to provide relief, to practice conservation, to establish social security, and by law to impose social standards upon business and finance. But in order to do these things, they know that there must be money available, and so . . . they would like to promote recovery, not only for its own sake, but in order to finance the reforms. When they are convinced that a certain tax is "deterrent" to enterprise and investment, they would like to modify it.

The radicals, on the other hand, are . . . primarily interested in reducing the power of corporate business men, and the heart of their program is . . . precisely those deterrent taxes and those restrictive regulations which limit private initiative. . . . they would rather not have recovery if the revival of private initiative means a resumption of private control in the management of corporate business.

Among the radical New Dealers the essence of the New Deal is the reduction of private corporate control by collective bargaining and labor legislation, on the one side, and by restrictive, competitive and deterrent government action on the other side. Thus they cling to taxes which do not come anywhere near to yielding enough revenue to balance the budget because those particular taxes paralyze the financial power of the rich and well-to-do. . . .

This is the issue between the reformers and the radicals. Both believe in spending. . . . [But] [t]he reformers regard the spending as an instrument of recovery and a means for improving the condition of the people. The radicals regard the spending as a substitute for recovery and as a means of altering the balance of social policy.

Throughout history, there have always been people who thought they were better, smarter, & more benevolent than the rest of society and as a result, ought to be running things.

We've called them different things, progressives, New Dealers, liberals, progressives again, and sometimes post-partisans.

They always adopt these new names because gradually, the old names took on a negative connotation as people saw them as they really were: self-righteous, condescending, & power-hungry.

'Leave it to us,' they say, with their positivist understanding of the world, 'and we'll solve the world's ills with our social science.'

Looking for another sign you're about to be, in the words of one friend, "shaboozled" by a liberal Nietzschean Übermensch? Humility is not a defining feature.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Liberal Sensitivity Training

This is progress. And by "progress," I mean part of the progressive agenda to outlaw anything they don't like--in this case, speech they find offensive.

Mark Steyn & Iowahawk are the two funniest political pundits in the webosphere. This is why I bring you their stuff so frequently.

Here's a bit from Steyn's latest:

Ah, but, as the computer wallahs say, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then criminalizing words is a way of disarming potential opposition, of inculcating a reflexive self-censorship in the citizenry. And, after all, self-suppression is the most cost-effective of tyranny. Political correctness isn’t merely the blasphemy law of our time. It makes communication impossible. It renders a people literally illiterate: The conventions of language used by functioning societies throughout human history - irony, indirect quotation, period evocation, and, yes, even comic stereotype - are all suddenly suspect. What a strange fate to embrace. In London, the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor West End plays was finally abolished in 1968: It was widely accepted by then that there was something absurd in a palace courtier ruling that your script could have three “Bastards!” but not four, and that two specific references to sodomy had to be replaced with one vague allusion to heavy petting. Yet, four decades on, Britons now think it entirely normal for police constables and timeserving bureaucrats to function as literary critics determining the “intent” behind a throwaway jest.

I see a lot of this in higher ed.

Just the other day my brother and I discussed the ever-changing PC words for various things. Right now, disabled is out as the word of choice for those either physically or mentally, well, disabled.

Before "disabled," we called them handicapped.

Now we call them "special needs." (hell, even special has become a pejorative)

As that takes on the same negative connotation as disabled & handicapped (because people feel bad to acknowledge that there is, in fact, anything wrong), we'll find some new, meaningless PC word to describe them and then cast off once it has worn out its welcome.

In today's society, the focus is not on expressing oneself accurately or well, but on offending the fewest amount of people. This is why 30 Rock got so much mileage out of the "Puerto Rican joke."


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Conservatism & The Family

We've been thinking about the American family for quite a while now. First came the Peggy Noonan quote (see below) and then we had a conversation with one of our former professors. This isn't our first word on the family, nor will it be our last. We can't even make this a coherent essay on the topic like we might normally prefer. Please excuse the disjointed nature of this post.

The moral traditionalist wing of conservatism and the Republican party has long waged political battle with so-called progressives over issues related to the family. They understood, and we with them, that families are the very building blocks of a successful society. Every measurable statistic related to an individual's potential success and happy life improves significantly when they come from a home with a mother and a father.

We mention this with caution, as we have a number of friends who come from homes without either a mother or a father. This does not, of course, make it any less of a family. In many instances they, and others across this country, have overcome the odds to be successful, productive members of society. But those who have done so without the support of a traditional family are the exception.

We first wrote about family-related issues when a former BYU professor wrote an open letter in the Salt Lake Tribune encouraging the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be more allowing of homosexual unions. (here and here)

Then, a couple of weeks ago, in a column about Obama and Clinton, Peggy Noonan mentioned by the by that the great divide in America was not between the haves and the have nots or even between black and white or brown and white, but between those who have functioning families and those who do not. Or, as she put it, "the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family." We think she's right.

What's fascinating is that the Left, (for whom it is now chic to refer to oneself as "progressive") which loves to solve societal problems with the latest, greatest gimmicky idea--it takes a village!--ignores the very simplest solution: strengthen the family. This, despite the fact that empirical evidence shows that everything they'd like to improve with their village!, from test scores to jail rates to literacy (really, the list could go on indefinitely) improves when an individual comes from a functioning family. There is nothing more or less complicated to it than that.

It would seem prudent, therefore, that we do what we can to shore up the American family. What the heck is a no-fault divorce, anyway? Marriage for life has ceased to be the norm. Heck, two marriages are quickly ceasing to be the norm. We conservatives almost nominated a man on his third marriage. And much of the multiple marriages and single parent families can be traced back to the easing of divorce laws in the '60's. As James Q. Wilson pointed out, it's easier to get out of a marriage than it is to get out of a mortgage.

(though it would seem many now might wish it were the other way around)

As anyone who has taken intro to economics will tell you: lower the cost of something and demand will rise. As marriage has devolved from lifelong union to a union of convenience, fewer and fewer people get married and fewer and fewer children come from 2-parent homes.

To come at this from another angle, if you want to invest in America's human capital, do what you can to strengthen marriages. Our friends in the teaching profession often talk to us about how they are unable to "reach" certain students or have the impact they'd like because the students' parents are not involved. We still think that vouchers and more school choice could help alleviate that problem, but they do nothing to address the core issue--the breakdown of the family.

And this isn't something we can go about haphazardly. When we first debated gay marriage on this blog, those in favor said, 'where is the empirical evidence that gay marriage doesn't equal successful home?' We pointed to a number of studies coming out of the United Kingdom and the nordic countries, but, unfortunately, we can't prove it conclusively one way or the other.

But we can't prove it now the same way those who were against the loosening of divorce laws in the '60's couldn't prove the disastrous effect that would have on families either. That is to say, progressives are convinced that whatever the latest idea to come down is better than whatever we have now. The case for and from moral traditionalists and conservatism, broadly speaking, is that things are the way they are now because over the centuries of human experience, it has proven to work.

We know that families with a mother and a father have a far greater chance of creating successful happy offspring than any other organization developed. Why experiment with something so essential, something so integral to civilization as the family? The burden of proof in favor of something new, of change for change's sake or because it is being trumped up as a right(!), lies not with conservatives to defend what is, but with progressives to convince that what they have, whether gay marriage or polygamy or some sort of arrangement with them and their vacuum cleaner or a communal village pitch-in effort, can match the success of the family.

Because marriage in this country is not a right, it's a privilege and a responsibility. Furthermore, it's one which should be closely guarded and fortified and strengthened and whatever other verb we've used in this post. We will continue to argue in favor of the family on principle and because it makes good policy sense.

Wherever you may be reading this, we invite you to take up the cause of defending marriage. There are many ways you can do this: vote for and helping to elect people for whom family is important; vote in favor of initiatives that define marriage as between a man and a woman; write letters to the editor of your local newspaper... the list goes on.

For further reading on this topic, see the following from James Q. Wilson:

Why We Don't Marry
The Ties That Do Not Bind: The Decline Of Marriage And Loyalty
The Family Way
Welfare Reform And Character Development
No Easy Answers
James Q. Wilson Interview


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This Guy is a Genius

In the Core Course of our Masters program, we explore the question, "what's modern, about modern history?" It's broken up into 4 themes which are taught by 3 different professors. The first set of seminars explored the Historiography of Modern History and History in general and the second, current seminar, has explored history through Nationalism.

This week we gave a presentation based on an article by Prasenjit Duara entitled, "Transnationalism and the Challenge of National Histories." It is from Rethinking American History in a Global Age, Thomas Bender, editor. Among other things, he warns against the use of history to promote ultranationalism and encourages a study of history that does avoids using the current evolutionary borders as limits or guidelines to historical research ie. British History, American History, Modern Germany, etc. He cites several examples in China and the Mexican border that show how history cuts across borders and must, to be truly understood, be examined locally.

In his Chinese local example, he shows how two different regimes in China plus Japan all used a folk history to promote different ends. He argues that this is part of the tension that exists between modernity and tradition--a Marxist argument that has been passed as fact. The Fascist regime in Japan and the Marxist and Fascist regimes he refers to in China most assuredly bent the history to establish their legitimacy as governors of Japan and China respectively. This does not, however, necessarily mean that an either/or dichotomy exists between tradition and modernization.

The Unites States, unlike those Chinese and Japanese governments, does not suppress alternate histories. We have, collectively, been forced to come to terms with the ugliness of our history--treatment of native peoples, slavery, women, etc., have all been incorporated into our history and collective memory. Despite these scars of history, we continue to embrace the good traditions of our past while looking forward to continued modernization. Such is the case in democratic, pluralistic societies.

We've linked to One Cosmos a couple of times in the past, and do so again here because of the light he sheds on this tension between tradition and modernization.

How do you tie free trade, progressivism, the tradition of the religious right, and scientific revolution into one post? Like this:

But what to do about it? The paradox, or “complementarity” at the heart of the modern conservative movement is the tension between tradition, which preserves, and the free market, which relentlessly destroys in order to build. While individual conservatives may or may not contain this tension within themselves, the conservative coalition definitely does, with the “religious right” on one end and libertarians and free marketeers on the other. People wonder how these seeming opposites can coexist in the same tent, but the key may lie in their dynamic complementarity, for freedom only becomes operative, or "evolutionary," when it is bound by transcendent limitations -- which, by the way, is equally true for the individual.

The ironically named progressive left is an inverse image of this evolutionary complementarity. This is because it rejects both the creative destruction of capitalism and the restraints of tradition. Therefore, it is static where it should be dynamic, and dynamic where it should be static. It is as if they want to stop the world and “freeze frame” one version of capitalism, which is why, for example, they oppose free trade. While free trade is always beneficial in the long run, it is obviously going to displace some people and some occupations. It is as if the progressive is an “economic traditionalist,” transferring the resistance to change to the immament realm of economics instead of the spiritual realm of transcendent essences.

I know this is true, because it is what I used to believe when I was a liberal. For example, I grew up at a time when most people worked for large corporations that gave their employees generous pensions and health benefits. As such, it seemed "natural" or normative. In reality, this was just a brief phase of American capitalism, lasting from the mid-1950’s through the 1970’s. But backward looking progressives act as if this aberration was “in the nature of things.” They have a similar attitude toward factory jobs in heavy industry, as if we could somehow go back in time and preserve these high-wage, low-skill jobs.

But while the progressive is thoroughly backward looking with regard to economics, he is the opposite with regard to the spiritual realm. For him, mankind was basically worthless until the scientific revolution, mired as he was in myth, magic, and superstition. Rather, the only reliable way to understand the world is through the scientific method, which has the effect of throwing overboard centuries of truly priceless accumulated spiritual wisdom. It literally severs man from his deepest metaphysical roots and ruptures his vertical continuity. In reality, it destroys the very possibility of man in the archetypal sense -- i.e., actualizing his "spiritual blueprint."

A new kind of man is born out of this progressive spiritual inversion. Yesterday we spoke of castes and of “spiritual DNA.” Progressives, starting with Karl Marx, waged an assault on labor, eliminating its spiritual significance and reducing it to a mindless, collective “proletariat.” You might say that the left honors labor in the same way they honor the military: both are losers.

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