Semantics and Rhetoric

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Jan 15, 2008 at 17:58

Much as I like Jonah Goldberg's columns, I part company with him here. Yes, there is a clear and largely unexplored connection between Fascism and socialism, but let's be careful about what kind of "liberalism" we mean.

Liberalism originally meant individualism and liberty as the highest political good. Amity Shlaes' book on the great depression points out how it was only in the days of FDR that "liberalism" came to be synonymous with social democracy.

While I do not identify with present-day "liberalism", I gladly recognize that in some left-liberal circles there remains a mistrust of government intrusion and censorship--a legacy of the classical liberalism of the 18th century down through Lord Acton in the 19th.

So, Friend Jonah, let's get a little more in depth research going--and, while we're at it, let's go back to letting words mean what they were meant to mean.

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