In his most recent essay, H. Numan lamented what has been done to the word “liberalism”. In the piece below he expands on the topic, charting the demise of true liberalism and tracking the course of the Culture Wars.

I am a liberal, and so are you!

by H. Numan

That’s a of a bit controversial title, right? I have to be honest: it’s click-bait, so you folks will start reading it. Yes, I am a liberal. And proud of it. Much better: you, too, are liberal. Even though you probably don’t know it. Before you get offended by being called a liberal, do read on.

Socialism is like cancer: it takes everything. It took the name — and very little else — of its mortal enemy, liberalism. Especially in America, calling someone a liberal is calling him a commie. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s close to calling a Jew a Nazi, or a black person a Klansman. It makes no sense at all. The same happened in Europe, but much more deviously. The liberal parties changed, or were changed, into full-blown socialist parties. They pretend to be liberal, but in reality are socialism light — at best.

According to Wikipedia, liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, the consent of the governed and equality before the law. In short: the individual matters.

Wikipedia gives the definition for socialism as a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterized by complete, or mainly, social ownership, social control, socialization, or regulation of the means of production. It includes the political theories and movements associated with such systems. In short: the state matters.

These are the fundamental differences between the two. In the first case, you matter. The law is there to protect you. In the second case, you are nothing, the state is everything. The first quote is from Hitler. The well known and popular socialist John Fitzgerald Kennedy phrased it more subtly: Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. He said exactly the same as Hitler, only phrased it better.

See the enormous differences between the two ideologies?

Look at the definitions again. What does it cover? Liberalism doesn’t cover a lot. Certainly not economics. Socialism covers … everything! That is not a strength, but a weakness. Nothing can encompass everything.

Take any religion you want. Almost always economy is a very weak point in it. Seems like God or the gods are clueless how that should work. Also, ‘inherited sin’ is a concept that is legally impossible. Are you guilty of stealing horses if your great-great-great-granddaddy was a horse thief? Of course not. The concept of inherited sin has been taken by socialists from religion and used in a slightly different form on society. Whitey has done it! The patriarchy is evil! Mankind (especially white men) is responsible for global warming! All monotheistic religions have a concept of inherited sin, that’s why nobody even blinks an eye when it pops up in politics.

This is completely unthinkable for liberals. Real liberals, that is. You can’t inherit sin. One can be judged in a court for any actual crimes you committed yourself. That is a benefit, and also a severe weakness. As you are entitled to your own opinion, that includes being a socialist as well. What about McCarthyism? Even at its worst, it was nothing compared to what socialists invariably will do, given half a chance. Compare McCarthy (who wasn’t a liberal to begin with) with the Night of the Long Knives or Stalin’s Purges. It can get much worse, if you look at Mao’s Great Leap Forward or Pol Pot who killed 25% of his entire population.

Socialism is much older than liberalism. It began in the 18th and 19th centuries, as voluntary movements, loosely based on Christian ideas and some of its morality. Even then it always failed. A nice example is the Oneida Community. That was one of the more successful ones. It failed because humans aren’t ants.

Humans are social mammals. We need to interact with other humans to function. Solitary hermits are a rare exception. However, that is where the buck stops. We aren’t beavers who must build a dam, when they hear running water. The experiment has been done: beavers start building dams when they hear the sound of running water, even if it is a tape being played.

Some people like to lead, others do not. Some people like to excel. Most people like to do a reasonable job, for a reasonable wage. It’s just that everybody thinks he himself earns too little, while everybody else earns way too much. The problem isn’t the leaders who got the lion’s share in Oneida (or any other commune). Nor the people at the bottom who got little. The problem was in — and is — in the middle.

The people, most of them, look up and see a few bigwigs doing very little and pocketing a lot. They look down, and see a few shirkers doing even less, and still get something. While they do all the work. Or at least, that is how they perceive it. Just about every voluntary commune and kibbutz that failed, failed because of that. Socialism has a very simple solution. We simply run society as a prison, with socialists as the guards. Everybody gets his fair share. That’s a nice way to say: everything is rationed.

Socialism is older than liberalism, but only became a major player as a response to liberalism. What most people have forgotten is how progressive and especially aggressive liberalism used to be. The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 in particular were very bloody affairs. Makes Antifa and BLM almost look like little unruly children. Those revolutions mostly failed, and were beaten down with a vengeance by the ruling monarchs of the time. Not by the police (that concept barely existed back then) but by the army. Even so, the Austrian army wasn’t enough. They needed and got support from the Russian army. A very different picture of liberals, right? Not quite the old rich men sipping sherry in a gentlemen’s club.

Who invented socialism and liberalism? Every society has three layers. The top layer, a very small one, has those who have full control of the pie. A larger layer of middle class, who like to have a slice of the pie. And everybody else who has to be satisfied with the crumbs. The elites have no reason to change things; it works excellently as it is for them. The lower classes lack the education and the time to do something about it. Joe the Plumber can’t, because he has work to do. The mortgage doesn’t pay itself, you know. That leaves the middle class. They have the education and the time to do something about it. Socialists at the lower end, and liberals at the higher end.

They look for support to the lower class, just as the elites do. The elites give a few crumbs to get the lower classes behind them. Both the socialists and the liberals promise them a paradise. Usually the authorities win, but not completely. They have to compromise and pay some of the crumbs to the people who supported them. That compromise is a tiny sliver of the pie.

Eventually liberals (and later socialists) got what they wanted, and both automatically became conservative. They want to preserve what they had accomplished. The fiery revolutionaries from 1848 are now old fashioned conservatives who resist change. With a glass of sherry. Or port. Exactly the same thing happened with democratic socialism in Europe. They achieved most everything they could possibly think of, and want to preserve their achievements as well.

However, socialism is multi-faceted. There isn’t one ultimate or true version. There are many. Just like there are many variations of Christianity. All are in one or many ways different from another. In Europe democratic socialism rules. In America almost the same, in the Democrat Party. Both are turning into very conservative closed parties that fight to preserve their privileges. (And to keep as much of the pie for themselves.)

In Europe there are plenty of extreme left-wing parties that aren’t satisfied. In America it’s slightly different. Those extreme left-wingers operate mainly within the umbrella of the DNC, at the fringes. The same happens in the UK. Why? Because of the two-party system. Either you are in one of the two parties, or none at all. Supposing Antifa or BLM were to set up a political party, they’d be out of a job within a day. Within a party, Labour or the DNC, they thrive. Image AOC in an extreme left-wing party. No more Gucci or Prado outfits for free. Kind of difficult to imagine.

On both sides of the pond die-hard communists worked for decades to dismantle liberalism. With success, as most people nowadays see liberals as left-wing loonies. That dismantling process is nearly complete, and far more disturbing than you can possibly imagine. For example, why should women need to work? Why exactly in the army, as front-line infantry? Why is marriage nowadays seen as old fashioned and out of date? Why must we question everything — except for left-wing dogmas? Why, at least in America, is gender just a construct? I’ve seen a movie in which Anne Boleyn is played by a black woman. Nobody even dares to question that. Why are we told slavery is the sin of the white man only?

We live in the most prosperous period in human history. Wealth has never been distributed more equally. In Western countries even the poorest of the poor live a better life than the Sun King in Versailles. Poverty is at an all-time low. Never in human history has poverty disappeared so fast. Yet… for some people it is not enough. They still want more. More equality, more of everything. They are in exactly the same group as before: the progressive socialists of today. People who never ever experienced any hardship in their lives.

Those progressives with way too much free time know they can’t convince anyone with arguments. That’s what French communist elites and the Frankfurt School discovered in the ’50s. The masses, certainly in the West, didn’t fall for it anymore. So they came up with a plan to keep on selling their snake oil. Make everybody question everything. Nothing is certain. Nothing is valuable. Encourage young people to experiment with sex and drugs. I don’t know about you, but I much rather find out my son is smoking cigarettes than find him wasted with a stash of weed. Question everything! Smoking is dangerous, being stoned out of your skull is good (for socialism). Men and women no longer exist. They are all humans. Gender is just a preference. However, a sex change is forever.

In five or ten years, lots and lots of misguided “women” will need hugely expensive reverse operations and counseling for decisions they take now. Doesn’t matter. Those great costs are borne by society — which we want to destroy anyway. Supposing socialism wins? No problem, those problem cases simply disappear. Either between six planks or “im Nacht und Nebel ”.

Winston Churchill said: Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

What made liberalism work and work so well is what is lacking in socialism: a healthy dose of democracy, together with a sound economic system. It wasn’t there when liberalism began. At the end of the 19th century, conditions for most people were appalling. I recall a debate we had in my family. What modern convenience would we mist the most? A fridge? A microwave? Telephone? My old mum settled the debate: “I wouldn’t like to miss hot running water.” When she grew up, running water was a luxury. Compare that with teenagers who are mortally offended if you don’t call them xer, or when the Internet is down.

That ‘raw liberalism’ problem has been solved. Not in a revolution, but by evolution. First more people (only men, and only well-to-do men) got the vote. Later it was extended to all men. Later again, to everybody, men and women. More legislation controlled robber barons. Cronyism and corruption are still there, and probably always will be there. But it is no longer socially acceptable to get rich that way. We’re not there, but we’re in a much better position than ever before.

Fortunately, you have the worst president ever in office, with an even worse vice president. Compared to him Buchanan looks pretty good. The Ice Witch (Hillary) is thawing backstage, just in case. We have been saved in the nick of time, twice. First the Ice Witch was completely unexpectedly defeated by Donald Trump. Not only that, but he was one of the better presidents of all time. The second time was by Biden’s senility and Harris’ incompetence. Nobody in the DNC expected Biden to deteriorate so fast, or that Harris would be such a blithering idiot. Had those two events not happened, America would have been a people’s republic by now.

— H. Numan