"Pervasive Pessimism"

I just read an article “Pervasive Pessimism” by Jan Larson on the conservative blog site “The American Daily” (www.americandaily.com/article/9747). I took exception to it because I found it distorted, rabid and flagrantly wrong. I wrote Larson about it and this is what I said. I edited my original letter to be clearer:

Dear Mr. Larson,

As soon as I read you saying that liberals are naturally pessimistic I could hardly contain myself. I think you made that up just to be polemic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a liberal and I am not a pessimist. However, neither am I the pollyanna, ***-eyed optimist you seem to be.

Conservative are optimists. [Ha!] If so, why are so many railing against [Larson equates criticism with pessimism] Bush's deficit spending, his choice of Miers for the Supreme Court, his making government bigger and his getting involved in a war that wasn't really necessary. Conservatives are pretty pessimistic about what has happened to the U.S. military. Conservative are pessimistic because Bush is not behaving like the conservative he said he was. And why are so many conservative hankering for "the good old days"? That seems like a pessimistic outlook to me.

[Anyway,] I think a dose of pessimism is good. [For instance,] sound economic policy is base more on pessimism than optimism, like the possibility of shortages, slowdowns, terrorist attacks and things just going plain wrong. That is why economics is called the "dismal science". It was a conservative that gave it that title - Thomas Carlyle.

You say that liberals are always being negative about this administration, but not offering any new ideas or solutions. Well, the liberal have come up with the best answers and here are conservative constantly knocking them down. When the liberals regain power they will continue with those great ideas they have put into place. There are only so many great and wise ideas that can be had in human governance and liberals have discovered most of them. But let's be optimistic, there is always room for improvement, even in the mind of a liberal.

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Larson’s big evidence that liberals are visceral pessimists is that they dominate the media. He says that the media of late has been full of news stories about disasters. (Like, they never happen.) Sadly, what I hear from him is that if conservatives dominated the media they would talk about only happy stories, not necessarily news, but warm fuzzy stories. Perhaps they would just mention that ‘silver lining’ that accompanies disasters. His other evidence that liberals are always pessimistic is their constant criticism of the President, for his starting an unnecessary war, for being slow in his response to natural disasters, for giving tax cuts to the rich, for gutting essential government programs and for chipping away at our democratic institutions. Larson doesn’t see any of the liberal criticism as necessary or constructive but just plain partisan bitching. I say, if liberals seem pessimistic it is because they see their nation being spoiled and tarnished by an extremely ideological, self-serving conservative movement.

Criticism, which Larson equates with pessimism, is an integral part of a vibrant and legitimate Democracy. Without criticism states have become dictatorships. In a Democracy if one feels that one party has virtually all the power, ramming its ideologically through without any means of legislative opposition, one naturally resorts to the only means one has to be noticed, being vocal and critical. Conservatives have acted that way in the past and rightly so. Perhaps liberals have been hyperbolic and shrilled in their criticism. But that’s because it has been the only means of getting the public’s and the media’s attention, a public and media that has been until now generally reluctant to criticize this administration. And liberals have been intimidated and gagged by this administration at every opportunity. There have been too many failures of late to remain uncritical. Another thing, when criticism is denied and stonewalled bad news and deeds tends to be swept under the proverbial rug. Criticism keeps democratic governments transparent and accountable. There is little transparency in this administration and that is a good reason for pessimism, all around.

Larson says that liberals just criticize and don't offer any new ideas. The new ideas liberals have had were implemented years ago. The liberal idea today is to continue to build on them. However, the conservatives are now rolling back many of them. Conservative new ideas are ‘hatchet-job’ ideas. They include ridiculous tax cuts for the rich, eliminating environmental protections, the gutting of government and international treaties, the dismantling of the UN, preemptive wars and the discrediting and marginalizing of the opposition. They literally would like to do away with the secular state. They want to turn back the clock to a supposedly better time. In this sense liberals are more realistic than conservatives.

I know of at least on pessimistic conservative, Pat Buchanan. He said something that I think is pretty pessimistic for him to say, that "The conservative movement has passed into history," That statement is pretty profound because it comes from one of America's chief conservative leaders. That statement confirms something I have always believed, that liberalism is the main force of Democracy, not conservatism. If we live in a democracy, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, we are all liberals - some with conservative tendencies, but all liberals. Liberalism holds the sway and that is noticeable in how BushCo is beginning to unravel, under its pressure for more openness and flexibility.

It begs the question, is there room for ultra, unabashed conservatism in a Democracy? I think only on the periphery, as a sort of counterweight or stopgap. If conservatives held total power their so-called optimism would kill us.