Sandy and the failures of blue-statism

The silliness of those episodes speaks to a serious point about the great vulnerability of 21st-century American liberalism: an inability to set the priorities necessary for good government. As a result, government grows both bigger and less capable, especially for people who do not have the resources to fund other options. …In their own ways, Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama embody the obsessions of modern liberalism. Each holds an advanced Ivy League degree. Each believes he would make better choices for others than they could make for themselves. Each has consequently eschewed the gradual and the modest—the unglamorous improvements that might have better prepared, say, Staten Island, for a dangerous storm. These leaders prefer instead the shiny and large, whether it is Mr. Bloomberg’s huge and costly 2nd Avenue subway project or Mr. Obama’s $860 billion federal stimulus. …Hence too the modern unvirtuous circle, where intervention at the federal level encourages waste and grandiosity at the local level. These subsidies distort priorities, which helps explain why California votes to spend money it doesn’t have for a high-speed rail it can’t afford. …The irony is that modern American liberalism has become a movement grounded less in practical politics than a sort of religious fervor—and often requiring the same strong faith in the face of disappointment and failure. The difference, of course, is that while religions often promise to deliver in the next world, government is supposed to do it in this one.

The best religions deliver in this world also, which is one reason the leftists oppose them so fanatically: they know they can’t compete on equal grounds.

AesopFan on November 6, 2012 at 12:46 PM