From Horsefeathers:
Horsefeathers has been fascinated by the decline of Liberalism. Perhaps this is because its rise and fall has occurred over the course of his own lifetime. It sometimes strikes us that all the people, now departed, whose opinions mattered most to us were liberals. While they are gone, Liberalism itself lingers, sick unto death, an almost moribund version of its once lively self. Liberalism was a part of the world of ideas in which we lived, part of what we admired in the older generation. It was the air we breathed and the way we thought of ourselves: we were Liberals, and proud of it. And now it is no more.
How did a once robust philosophy devolve into a childish set of insular, self- flattering beliefs? How and why did the requirement for reasoned self-criticism, so vital to Liberalism as we knew it, give way to a whiny, feminized set of politically correct sentiments articulated with all the intelligence of a bumper sticker? How did feelings come to assume primacy over thought, while victim status became more sought after than real achievement? Finally, how did Liberalism come to reject reason itself, in favor of politically correct stances and naïve fantasies about human nature?
He is a recovering Liberal, like so many conservatives. For his answers to these questions, read the whole thing.
