Normally, when I write for this blog, I try to be moderate in tone and temperament, even though I make no effort to disguise my classical liberal outlook. Right now, though, I’m really pissed off about the vile, corrupt health care “reform” bill (soon to be law).

On his show today, Rush Limbaugh said of the liberals/progressives, “We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town.” Hearing that, Angry Patrick grumbled, “Tar and feathers, pardner.” But how can said bastards be ejected from town? While Angry Patrick is in charge, I thought I should put him to work doing some strategery. . .

Yes, the time for niceties is over. We must fight against progressivism in a merciless, no-holds-barred fashion. That does not mean, however, that we should abandon discipline and decorum. If anything, as we move into this next phase, it will be even more important for our side to be intellectually precise and strategically sharp. Don’t give the enemy easy opportunities to utilize their corrupt media outlets and cynical bags of tricks to depict us as racist, sexist cretins who hate poor people, orphaned children, and the infirm (like when ”journalists” print rumors of unnamed persons at a peaceful public protest allegedly saying racist things, without ever investigating the claims and/or ignoring the possibility that the actions were carried out agents provacateur).

How do we fight ugly, yet maintain discipline at the same time? For one thing, we should stop referring to the enemy as “progressives.” Unfortunately, most voters are unaware of the true historical legacy of progressivism and do not tend to attach negative meaning to the word. But we should also avoid calling them socialists, too. Sure, much of the Baby Boomer vanguard were sympathetic to socialism before 1989 and only blacklisted that label when it became too much of a liability. Nevertheless, a lot of progressives have never thought of themselves as socialists and there are important differences between socialists and social democrats.

In ”A Perfect Storm of Ignorance,”  Jeffrey Friedman concludes:

What I am calling social democracy is, in its form, very different from socialism. Under social democracy, laws and regulations are issued piecemeal, as flexible responses to the side effects of progress — social and economic problems — as they arise, one by one. (Thus the official name: progressivism.) The case-by-case approach is supposed to be the height of pragmatism. But in substance, there is a striking similarity between social democracy and the most utopian socialism. Whether through piecemeal regulation or central planning, both systems share the conceit that modern societies are so legible that the causes of their problems yield easily to inspection. Social democracy rests on the premise that when something goes wrong, somebody — whether the voter, the legislator, or the specialist regulator — will know what to do about it. This is less ambitious than the premise that central planners will know what to do about everything all at once, but it is no different in principle.

Referring to ”progressives” (or liberals) as social democrats could be effective for several reasons. For half a century, the American educational system and popular culture have been teaching students that socialism has never been a threat to the U.S. and that labeling someone a socialist is a paranoid, irrational act. Progressives would have hard time, however, disowning the social democrat label (especially academics) and few of them are even likely to act offended if called such. That is, until they realized that social democrat is a loaded phrase, which evokes dormant but mostly negative political connotations in the U.S.

Rather than mischaracterize the social democrats, which makes us vulnerable to counterattack, we should use their own words and ideas against them. We should be scrupulously fair and disciplined when dissecting their foundational assumptions, yet harsh and ungenerous when explaining the unintended consequences of their good but tragic intentions. When publicly debating a formidable opponent, you should start out by demonstrating your good faith rationality and keen understanding of the issues; that way, sometime later in the debate, it’ll be easier to slip in a few below-the-belt tactics.

On that note, Professor Paul A. Rahe of Hillsdale College has been writing about the conditions necessary for a genuine political realignment:

This has happened at irregular intervals in our nation’s past – most notably, in 1800, 1828, 1860, and 1932 – and on each occasion the political party benefiting from the upheaval was able to paint a plausible picture depicting their opponents as being parties to a conspiracy to overthrow the liberties possessed by their fellow Americans. This is what Thomas Jefferson did to the Federalists in and after 1800; it was what Andrew Jackson did to John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Nicholas Biddle, and the Whigs in and after 1828; it was what Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans did to the slave power conspiracy and its fellow travelers in the North in and after 1860, and it was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did to Herbert Hoover and the business-minded progressives in and after 1932.

Only after carefully dissecting the weaknesses of social democracy on its own terms (a la Friedman), should we then come out wildly swinging, by depicting the social democrats as conspiring against liberty (a la Rahe). The second part would be a much easier sell than most progressives probably realize.

. . . in an administration that promised transparency, everything has been negotiated behind closed doors in a manner suggestive of tyranny and that, in an administration that promised to distance itself from the lobbyists, every major bill has been written by them and is loaded with special deals that give new meaning to the old phrase “corrupt bargain.”  The stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, healthcare reform: with these Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have brought home to the American people, as never before, the tyrannical propensities inherent in the progressive impulse. Thanks to them, everyone now knows that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat.

Both of the above lines of attack have been tried before, but usually in milder and less disciplined ways, and not in effective combination - they weren’t sufficiently cutting edge (literally and figuratively). An added bonus: these two layers of attacks will help to bring together intellectual conservatism/classical liberalism/libertarianism and conservative populism.

Update

This weekend, we had yet another example of mainstream media malpractice. What we don’t know yet is whether the media were just being lazy and biased, as usual, or whether they were participating in a disgusting, contrived “blood libel” of sorts. If it’s the latter, then it is also points to a prime example of when we need to counterattack against the social democrats with relentless brutality (rhetorically speaking, of course).

The unsubstantiated allegations that Tea Party protestors shouted racial slurs at members of the Congressional Black Caucus are looking more bogus by the day. Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has been looking into the episode. I don’t know who said what, if anything, and/or what their motives might have been, because I wasn’t there. No matter what happened, though, the media clearly sensationalized a story that was backed up by very little evidence. Of course, it was merely coincidental that the story helped to promote the ObamaCare agenda, right?    

Also, I will say two things: 1). If such a thing really happened, the “progressive” left and CBC would typically be demanding a thorough investigation, insistent that the violators be prosecuted for hate speech; 2). I’d trust an airline receptionist long before I’d ever trust a leftist used car salesmen like Clyburn or John Lewis. 

Anyway, the left has used these ”blood libel” tactics for decades now. They’re less effective than they were, say, 10 years ago, but can still do damage going forward. But I wonder if it’s better to counterattack along the lines of what Professor Rahe suggests: depict any (verified) examples of p.c.-style race baiting, for example, as part of a larger narrative of the social democrats’ conspiring against liberty. For years, conservatives/classical liberals tried to tackle the p.c./grievance industry head on, with limited positive effect. Instead of getting all tangled up in messy affairs, concentrate instead on the dirty, liberty-depriving bargains, sell-offs, frauds, and backroom deals that are used to promote the social democratic agenda at all costs.