Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge: Peter Robinson Interviewing David Mamet On Conservatism

Source:The New Democrat

The type of liberalism that David Mamet seems to be talking about an interested in is how Liberals get stereotyped by what my father calls knee-jerk Liberals. People who are actually not very liberal at all, but who wear the label because they thing Progressive is a sellout and they don’t want to have to deal the negative Americans stereotypes of Socialists and socialism. Or even a further left ideology than that. That if you’re a Liberal, you’re really a European leftist ideologically and you don’t like America and what it stands for. And that is putting it simply.

That if you’re a Liberal you believe in political correctness who defines that as being against any speech that offends groups of people who you generally support. And that some language is so offensive that it must not only be talked down upon, but banned. And speaking groups of people, that all people are members of groups. And because of that they should be treated as members of groups and not as individuals who can take care of themselves and even think for themselves. Even if a lot of members of their so-called tribe feel differently about certain issues.

That if you’re a Liberal you not only support the welfare state, but you are all about the welfare state. And that people are generally stupid and can’t be relied to take care of themselves. And are going to make mistakes that the society as a whole is going to have to pay for. So why don’t we just have a government a superstate big enough to take care of everyone with taxes high enough to finance this superstate to take care of everyone. That individualism and individual success and wealth by nature are bad things. Because it encourages people to go on their own and those things should be discouraged.

These are the negative and false stereotypes of liberalism that David Mamet seems to of bought into. And I would think someone as smart and as good of a writer that he is would know better than that. And perhaps has spent too much time with the Far-Left in America and now believes that everyone on the Left is part of the Far-Left. That there’s no such thing as Liberal, Socialist, Social Democrat, Democratic Socialist or Communist. That all of these political groups are liberal and all of these people are Liberals. Which is simply not true.