It’s interesting how quaintly outdated the liberal rhetoric is. We hear about “sex assigned at birth” when science has long allowed to determine a baby’s sex through a simple blood test given to the mother just a few weeks into the pregnancy. That whole thing with a midwife lifting the baby up in the air so that everybody could see the genitals and announcing the sex is from the 1920s. A whole ideological edifice was erected on this “sex assigned at birth” which doesn’t exist anymore.
They talk about abortion as if it were 1963 and abortion pills didn’t exist. Abortion to them is “a procedure” and you have to travel to see a doctor. It never occurs to them that if this were true, COVID lockdowns would have constituted an abortion ban. Cancer patients had to delay procedures. Women went without mammograms. Hypertensives skipped phlebotomies. How come, then, that abortions were not affected? Why were no coat hangers used for desperate home-made abortions? It was because of the invention called telemedicine. It has only existed for a few decades, so it’s understandable that some people are failing to clock on.
Immigration to progressives is stuck in the era of the Ellis Island and should be administered exactly as it was back then. They seem not to know that the Internet has been invented, for example. Or that the world economy changed, Hitler is long dead, and Madison Square Garden is used daily for non-Nazi events.
To them, Jim Crow still exists and there are no xerox machines in rural areas. The possibility of scanning a document by means of a device called a smartphone never occurs.
They believe it’s crucial that newspapers endorse political candidates as if social media didn’t exist. And that books can be banned because in their world there’s still no Amazon.
They want to progress from the baseline of 1939. We saw this clearly here on the blog in yesterday’s debate about immigration. The discussion is ultimately fruitless because one side was discussing what is today while the other was still rehashing old fights from 80 years ago.
Clarissa's Blog 
“It never occurs to them that if this were true, COVID lockdowns would have constituted an abortion ban.” You’d think so, but no, when Ohio tried to shut down surgical abortion clinics, they were overruled by a federal court because it was a “constitutional right” at the time.
https://www.acluohio.org/en/press-releases/federal-court-preserves-abortion-access-ohio-during-covid-19-pandemic
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Planned Parenthood was administering record numbers of abortions through telemedicine throughout COVID.
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Oh, for sure. I’m just noting that surgical abortion was also full speed ahead with no restrictions.
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It’s an absolute disgrace. My father couldn’t get a phlebotomy for 18 months. He’s now dead. My uncle didn’t get diagnosed with cancer on time. He’s also now dead. These were apparently not “life-saving treatments.”
These people are spitting into our faces while we cry at the cemetery.
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I almost agree with this “outdated progressivism” post. Yesterday’s blog debate about immigration was… well, one reader evoking the past and the other “side” (i.e., everybody else) talking about… well, let’s call it “today-adjacent.”
“Today-adjacent” has many real-life elements of today, but it’s the horror-story worst case scenario of today (as Old Reader astutely pointed out). It’s another variation of “The cats! The cats! They’re eating the cats!”
But, on the other side… can we evoke the principles of old Ellis Island, let’s fight Hitler, let’s get these huddled masses yearning to breathe free processed (complete with a nice dining hall) with the practical realities of the 21st century?
What would be nice is the following:
That would need a level of cooperation that’s beyond this blog, of course; it would be ridiculous to expect such a thing. But maybe voting for the right combination of people who could work together… it would be cool to live to see that.
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First off, I put a negative mark on your comment, and I would like to explain why.
One of the biggest reasons we are in the mess we are in is compromise, and more specifically compromising with those acting in bad faith.
Your word’s “But maybe voting for the right combination of people who could work together… it would be cool to live to see that.” I have a problem with this. If this was back in the 1960s I would probably have agreed with you. However since the 1960s started we have had seen 60+ years showing that when you “compromise” with those who want mass immigration, what you get is agreements like this. We will give amnesty to those already in the country illegally in exchange for strengthening the border the following year. The following year the border is not strengthened, and those who were given amnesty are then allowed to bring their family into the country.
You do not compromise with the wicked, nor do you compromise with those negotiating in bad faith. In this case you are attempting to compromise with both.
I find this highly naive, and since this concerns not only my home, but the safety and prosperity of my family, and my people. I am extremely hostile to not only the idea of mass immigration, but of compromising with those acting in bad faith in order to make it come about.
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You’re making many fair points, W… some time back I’d’ve dismissed your more emotional responses as John Birch Society silliness (my references tend to be kind of old), but yes–wicked, bad-faith actors are exploiting this problem (or series of related problems), because that’s what wicked, bad-faith actors do.
Sometimes you absolutely can’t compromise… I’ve gone over with students the Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act, and we talk about how could anyone work with and appease slaveowners? Well, nobody wanted a Civil War, of course (or The War of Northern Aggression, where I grew up), but we know how that worked out. (Of course, Trump could have settled it. Sorry, that was me being snarky. He really did say that, though.)
Also, you’re understandably concerned about safety… we do some interesting things in the interest of safety. Tim Walz has been blasted (rightly? maybe) on this blog for his hotline during COVID–but was not the motivation safety? We had, or thought we had, a contagion issue, surely that trumps (no pun meant there) human rights? Or doesn’t it?
What part of our humanity and decency are we willing to sacrifice in order to be safe? And who are we responsible for? Ourselves? Family? Friends? Country?
I think somebody has to find a way to work with somebody. If we can’t count on everyone to be honest (I’m pretty sure we can’t), then can we convince everyone that they’re getting the better deal?
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Clarissa criticizes progressive positions by portraying them as outdated and failing to acknowledge technological and societal advances. It questions the persistence of traditional concepts in discussions about sex assignment, abortion access, immigration, racial discrimination, and political endorsements, arguing that progressives use old narratives that ignore innovations like prenatal gender tests, telemedicine, smartphone accessibility, and online platforms. It suggests that liberal discourse remains tied to past issues without fully adapting to contemporary changes in medicine, media, and social dynamics.
Her critique clearly favors modern conservative viewpoints, as it dismisses progressive arguments as stuck in past concerns, suggesting that more recent technological and economic realities have diminished the need for some long-standing progressive causes. This excellent analysis I totally support and concur.
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I find that liberal-progressivism is rooted in moral self-admiration built around an idealised Self. Those things you, Clarissa, decry as being outdated when not even ridiculously anachronistic, are battle cries, shibboleths, idealistic paragons to cling to, used to recognise one’s ideological kith and kin and claimed as badges of honour.
I do not doubt the good faith of many liberal progressives, since I was one myself until relatively recently (2014). For example, the entreaties to some form of cooperation between moderates from opposing camps made by one of the commenters on this blog, Col. Potter, remind me of my old self and have led me to believe that he is a genuine idealist and not a benighted moron as I had, erroneously, thought in my first interaction with him.
And yet, how many times does one have to be mauled by reality to change one’s mind and, more importantly, to relinquish long-held ideological positions cherished not because of some childish attachment to outdated ideas but precisely because those are the ideas that turned us into the individuals we are today? In my case, reality bit me so many times and held on tight until the slow realisation that things were not as I had thought for so long started to make its way in me.
I used to be much more judgemental in the past when observing others who have not shared my path from radical progressivism to conservative orthodoxy (religious and political) because I understand now that such a process, while gradual, does involve a tearing apart of one’s innermost core, the abandonment of ideas and concepts which had literally built one’s persona. Not everybody can sustain this kind of strain, the tension and the effort that rebuilding oneself requires. I have lost all my friends in the process, two in particular who were dearest to me and am at times almost unbearably lonely but even at my lowest ebb I could not have done otherwise. Still, at 59 it’s very difficult to make new friends, even in the parish I belong to: there are lovely people at church, but they can only ever be mere acquaintances, not real friends.
I would like to mention two books that help explain what happens when you start to realise that you have lived through a lie for decades and are now left with the arduous task of going about seeing the world through new eyes while the people around you still believe what you now know to be a lie. They were written by Jews about Jews and I have an inkling that Col. Potter might be Jewish like me, but their poetry is of universal reach and appeal: Joseph Roth, Job – The Story of a Simple Man, and David Horowitz, Radical Son.
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I get it completely, Avi. I have gone through this same process, and yes, it’s lonely and scary and very unpleasant. I reconciled myself to it now but the first couple of years were harsh. Every day I was discovering something new and shedding something that previously was part of me. So I totally get it. And it’s wonderful to have you around here.
Col. Potter is a lovely person and completely sincere. I appreciate his presence here, too.
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Thank you to both Clarissa and Avi–I’m honored that you consider me lovely, sincere, and not a benighted moron. (I guess the line between genuine idealist and moron can be pretty fine.) In turn, I appreciate the blog, and you two, and do not think of either of you as benighted morons either.
I’d like to see the books Avi recommends. I guess I’m not sure I see myself as getting “mauled” by reality. Disappointed? Dented, maybe?
I do get being older without many friends–just turned 61, and I’d count my true friends at maybe… 3?… ish? And yes, I’m Jewish although we’re raising the kids Catholic–got bar mitzvahed and all that.
As William Saroyan writes in “The Time of Your Life,” it takes a lot of rehearsal to get to be yourself. But a rehearsal, done properly, isn’t just doing the same thing over and over to make sure you’ve got it right–it’s also supposed to be a time of surprise and discovery. That’s usually a positive thing, although sometimes…
Have to get ravioli started.
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