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Dave Rubins recent Dont Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason documents the YouTube personalitys intellectual journey from a Young Turks firebrand to a self-described classical liberal and an unlikely hero of the political right. Rubin hails from what has been termed the intellectual dark web, made up of individuals from the left and right who have found themselves on the wrong side of current political whimsmost notably in regard to free speech, race theory, or gender politics.

These individuals include Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Ben Shapiro, all frequent guests on Daves wildly successful YouTube channel and podcast, The Rubin Report. Rubin prides himself on giving a platform to diverse viewpoints, championing a classical liberal perspective he differentiates from the newer regressive left.

While Rubin agrees with many of the issues conservatives are most vilified forfree speech, freedom of religion, Second Amendment rightshe continues to term himself a classical liberal. In Dont Burn This Book, Rubin shows us why he and others who have left the left still consider themselves liberals, lending itself to a broader conversation about liberal and conservative thought.

Dont Burn This Book isnt a dense treatise. Much of what Rubin is discussing are ideas are both conservatives and liberals have been hashing for centuries. The book isnt a manual of new ideas, but an entreaty to return to the old ideas of the left before it turned, as Rubin puts it, regressive.

Chapter 3, entitled Think Freely or Die, spends more than 40 pages outlining a middle ground on hot topics of the day, decrying the vilification of those who hold the slightest different view from current woke trends, discussing free speech, Second Amendment issues, abortion, American exceptionalism, immigration, and more.

According to Rubin, todays liberals, no longer accept that all men are created equal. He writes, While liberalism aims to produce hard work and pride around a common cause, our new, negative worldview spawns only jealousy and grievance. By contrast, classical liberalism returns to the roots of liberalism, rejecting authoritarian leftism.

Before his political awakening began, Rubin says he was, solidly pro-choice, but has recently begun describing himself as begrudgingly pro-choice. While hes upset with the way the left has fetishize[d] abortion, he still supports the right of women to have an abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy. However, Dave concedes that the unborn child is a human life and argues, What may seem to be a logical inconsistency is a well-thought-out position.

Daves reasoning for his position on abortion skews liberal. He says the 12-week cutoff point for abortions is the optimal compromise between observing the rights of the individual (primarily the mother, then the baby) and the necessary role of public policy, which protects our freedoms in the first place. Dave ranks the right of the mother to choose her destiny above the right of the unborn child to live his or her life.

Liberals arent immoral, but they typically place individual freedom over other moral considerations. In this case, a womans right to free herself of responsibility and the physical and mental toll pregnancy and subsequent motherhood leaves her with trumps the fact that life is sacred. At the same time, Rubin tries to balance this position with the recognition that taking an innocent life is immoral.

In the pro-life debate, conservatives and liberals often talk past each other. Liberals see an individuals potential for self-actualization infringed upon and nothing else. Conservatives see the murder of a human life and nothing else. Rubin recognizes this classic conflict between the liberal and conservative mind, saying, My libertarian side says that government should have nothing to with this decision, Rubin explains, but my realist [or perhaps his conservative] side says the state has a duty to protect the life of the unborn.

Abortion is not the only aspect where Daves classically liberal positions highlight the age-old differences between conservative and liberal thought. Dave, a married gay man, doesnt see why someone who cares about individual liberty would be against same-sex marriage.

While he tolerates religious positions on the issue, an individuals right to act in accordance with that position, he makes a too broad sweep over why some of these individuals also believe the government would be remiss in recognizing same-sex marriages as such. But according to the classical liberal tradition, if individual liberty is all that principally matters, then why would anyone care if a same-sex couple may marry?

If you believe in individual rights, he puts it, then, great stuff, youre on the right path. Rubins explanation of the classical liberal, or libertarian, reasoning for gay marriage is woefully simplistic. Its not that Christians and other religious individuals think their religious beliefs should be foisted upon the rest of the nation, but that up until very recently most agreed that government plays a role in shaping the moral compass of the nation through families.

The idea that the state has a role in protecting moral ends is inherent to conservatism. In the case of abortion, to the conservative this means protecting human life at the expense of a womans claimed right to choose. In the case of gay marriage, this means protecting a certain model of the family as the most conducive to a virtuous society, at the expense of homosexual couples ability to marry.

Liberals have often been ridiculed for being so open minded their brains fall out, which, while unhelpful as a serious point of political argument, makes a salient point. The liberal tendency is to look to the future and the new to such an extent that they forget the roots that have held together Western Civilization for so long. Thankfully, Rubin has the good sense to avoid that pitfall, dedicating a whole chapter to praising American excellence and the values of Western civilization.

As Rubin finds that the left has abandoned true liberalism, Rubin, who is by no means a conventional conservative, has found an intellectual home on the right. While the principles of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought arent exclusively conservative or liberal (both sides have their bittersweet histories), its also no accident conservatives have been the ones doing the conserving of age-old civil liberties.

In Chapter 5, Rubin recounts the story of how conservative radio host Larry Elder changed his mind on systemic racism on his YouTube show and podcast The Rubin Report. Instead of digging in his heels, Rubin used the interview as an opportunity to open minds, including his own. [W]hether I liked it or not, he writes, this devastatingly embarrassing moment was everything The Rubin Report was meant to be aboutpushing personal and political growth through conversation.

Maybe conservatives could learn from this. Just as liberals tend to look towards the future and the new to the detriment of the tried and true, conservatives tendency to focus on what has been rather than what could be, often blinds them from considering differing viewpoints. Rubin and The Rubin Report are a testament to how people of goodwill on both sides can stand up for the other sides right to say what they think, even when they dont agree.

Sarah Weaver is a graduate student at Hillsdale College. You can read more of her work as well as contact her through her website at sarah-weaver.net. Find Sarah on Twitter @SarahHopeWeaver.

Originally posted here:
Dave Rubin On Where Liberals And Conservatives Can Agree, And Can't - The Federalist

Canada is almost smack-dab in the middle of the freest spending six months ever by any federal government.

Even in the build-up to D-Day during the Second World War, when all the Allies were buying ships, tanks, bombs, guns and planes to defeat Nazi Germany, Ottawa never spent money like it has in the middle of this pandemic.

And its being done almost entirely without Parliamentary oversight.

The Liberals who only have a minority have largely governed without opposition for the past three months and intend to continue doing so for at least three more.

Despite the unprecedented spending, we have seen no budget this year. Finance Minister Bill Morneau hasnt even tabled official spending estimates, so it is impossible to know where all the money is going.

Now the Liberals intend to force a vote on $150 billion in special spending on June 17 after only four hours debate and without amendments.

After that abbreviated debate and arbitrary vote, Parliament (such as it is) will be suspended until at least Sept. 21.

The pretend Parliament on June 17 will culminate three months in which governing in Canada has mostly consisted of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau descending the steps of Rideau Cottage in Ottawa to give a daily news briefing, followed by a handful of softball questions from reporters handpicked by the PMs communication staff and disproportionately selected from Quebec.

In March, Parliament shut down out of fear of spreading the coronavirus. After a month of that lockdown, the only meetings of MPs have been a 30-member committee that is limited to asking questions solely about the pandemic.

Remember, too, during the early weeks of the pandemic, the Liberals sought to vote themselves extraordinary power to tax, spend and borrow without recourse to Parliament until the end of next year.

They have managed all these moves with a minority because the NDP and Bloc Quebecois let them get away with it.

So where is the outrage from the chattering classes? Or are most commentators, networks and academics just so Liberal-friendly they cant bring themselves to criticize Dear Justin?

I saw a meme the other day that said, If Justin Trudeau ate a dog on Parliament Hill, the CBC headline would be Trudeau makes Canada safer for cats.

In 2008, one month after a federal election left Canada with a Tory minority under Stephen Harper, the Liberals and NDP conspired with the Bloc to push the Conservatives out and install their own coalition instead.

Then-Governor General Michaelle Jean agreed to grant Harpers request to prorogue Parliament. That sparked one of the greatest festivals of wailing and shrieking in modern Canadian political history.

The Harper government was called illegitimate and unconstitutional by all manner of scholars and pundits.

Concordia University political scientist Brooke Jeffrey accused Harper of dismantling Canada, while her colleague at the University of Alberta, Lori Thorlakson, insisted Harper had made Canadas Parliament the weakest of the weak.

Several academics banded together to pen an open letter insisting no other P.M. had so abused power. And The Economist magazine editorialized that the danger in permitting prime ministers to end discussion any time they choose, is that parliaments then become accountable to them rather than the other way around.

Whether you agreed with those positions on Harpers moves or not, you have to ask, Where is the similar level of outrage this time around?

Surely the danger of a six-month suspension of Parliament during a pandemic and unprecedented spending is just as great a threat as Harpers two-month prorogation.

But I guess it doesnt bother as many academics and journalists when its the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedures.

See the article here:
GUNTER: Where's the outrage at the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedure? - Toronto Sun

In these trying times, its difficult to find something to smile about. But Ive found some modicum of mirth watching very sympathetic liberals go the extra mile to help hone the message of activists calling to "defund the police." For instance, Katy Tur, an MSNBC anchor, had Isaac Bryan, the executive director of the Black Policy Project at UCLA on Meet the Press Daily to explain what "Defund the Police" really means.

Isaac, thank you so much for joining us. Lets talk about what this means because I think there are a lot of people out there who hear defund the police and [think] it means abolishing a police department. It doesnt. So can you explain it to me?"

Bryan very politely replied that he disagreed with the premise of the question. Defund the police doesnt in fact preclude abolishing the police. Bryan says the term means taking that idea as far as the political imagination and the political will of our leaders across the country is willing to push this idea."

Most Democratic politicians understand that actually abolishing police departments root and branch would be close to political suicide (and terrible policy). Even Sen. Bernie Sanders is against it. They also understand that nobody in America wants the Democrats to embrace this idea more than Donald Trump.

Thats why many liberals want Defund the Police to mean reform the police or even reinvent the police. The problem is the activists who hold the emotional and psychological high ground wont play along. When the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, spoke with protesters last week, he said almost everything the crowd wanted about fundamental reform, systemic racism, etc. But when a leader of the protests asked him, yes or no do you favor outright abolition of the police, he said no. The crowd booed. The leader told him to get the [expletive deleted] out of here. And he wandered off to chants of shame and a sea of extended middle fingers.

What we have here isnt a failure to communicate but a legitimate difference of opinion. Some people favor serious reform. Some favor actual abolition. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the people who truly favor abolition should continue to say so and the people who dont should probably stop trying to prove their solidarity by using a slogan they disagree with. And, so far, most prominent Democrats, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have done exactly that.

So much for the politics. What about the actual ideas?

Lets start with reform. Banning choke holds, redirecting some responsibilities to mental health professionals, EMTs, and social workers has been tried with some success. Moving further on that front is sensible.

Repealing qualified immunity laws so that police officers can be held more responsible for their actions is more complicated but certainly worth exploring. As a matter of principle, Im opposed to all public sector unions, even if some do worthwhile things, so Im certainly open to fresh thinking about police unions.

Many people have focused on the example of Camden, New Jersey, as a model for defunding the police. Except it isnt. In 2012, the cash strapped city decided to disband the existing force, which was rife with corruption and union-fueled dysfunction, and started over. They rehired some 100 officers and committed to retraining. It appears to have been modestly successful. But no one driving through Camden today would mistake it for some cop-free utopia where yeoman citizens police themselves.

But abolishing the police? Thats insane.No really, its insane. Who will respond to school shootings? Social workers? What about bank robberies? Who will investigate murders? If you just want to rename the police, fine. But the police function is essential to a civilized society. And there are times when that function can only be performed by agents of the government willing and able to use force.

Some defunders propose community patrols, which sound a bit like local militias to me. But whatever name you give them, how does that not create more problems? Do you really want untrained groups of cop wannabes confronting suspicious characters in a neighborhood? Thats how Trayvon Martin got killed by George Zimmerman. All of the problems with race, but also class, would be exacerbated if local communities took it upon themselves to do police work. Affluent, mostly white, communities would have more resources and poorer, mostly black, communities would have fewer.

Anger over George Floyds killing is justified. But what is true of individuals is also true of mass movements: You dont do your best thinking when youre really angry.

See the article here:
Liberals Want 'Defund the Police' to Mean 'Reform.' It Doesn't. - The Dispatch

Liberals are constantly demanding that we believe the science. Im all for that. But the problem is the science changes, often quickly. Worse yet, what some want to call science is increasingly politics masquerading as science. And nothing has demonstrated that better than the coronavirus.

Consider House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiNRCC turns up heat on vulnerable Democrats over Omar's call to abolish police Shocking job numbers raise hopes for quicker recovery Engel primary challenger hits million in donations MORE (D-Calif.). In an April press conference discussing the coronavirus pandemic she said, If you dont believe in science and you dont believe in governance, that is their [Republicans] approach.

Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersBiden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Trump signs order removing environmental reviews for major projects | New Trump air rule will limit future pollution regulations, critics say | DNC climate group calls for larger federal investment on climate than Biden plan Google: Chinese and Iranian hackers targeting Biden, Trump campaigns MORE (I-Vt.) said last March that the Trump White House has shown the world that it does not believe in science.

And lets not overlook Democratic presidential nominee Joe BidenJoe BidenBiden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination The Memo: Job numbers boost Trump and challenge Biden Chris Wallace: Jobs numbers show 'the political resilience of Donald Trump' MORE. On May 19 he tweeted, We need a president who believes in science.

These believe the science scolds are little more than thinly vailed efforts to attack conservatives who ask reasonable questions. They also convey a sanctimonious intellectual superiority over anyone who challenges the left.

But demands that we believe the science raise the question: Which science are we supposed to believe?

Earlier this year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rejected the notion that the public should be wearing face masks. CDC Director Robert Redfield told a House committee, There is no role for these masks in the community. And U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted, STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus.

I watched several of the experts explaining last January and February why wearing anything but an N95 mask wouldnt protect the wearer or others. And several TV pundits went so far as to mock people who did wear masks.

But by early April, the CDC had flipped. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus.

So in February you were silly if you wore a mask, and by April you were a fool not to. As Biden said of President Trump the day after Memorial Day, hes an absolute fool for not wearing a mask.

Heres the question: Was it science (1) when the CDC rejected mask wearing; or (2) when the CDC strongly recommended everyone wear a mask; or (3) does the CDC flip-flop demonstrate that the science may change when more information becomes available?

Warning to liberals: If you choose the third option you undercut all of your politically motivated believe the science rants.

Oh, and now the health experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) say heathy people should only wear masks if they are taking care of someone with COVID-19 or coughing or sneezing or under a few other circumstances.

So while Trumps recent in-person meetings with businesses apparently did not meet Bidens science, he did meet the WHOs science.

Will someone please tell me which science I am supposed to believe?

Theres more. In March and April, we saw lots of scientific studies discussing how long the coronavirus could survive on various objects. That led to massive wipe-downs, fumigations and sterilizations of everything.

But the CDC recently updated its guidance, informing us that the virus is spread mainly from person-to-person. While it can happen, the CDC does not think the virus spreads easily through contact with things.

And the political nature of believe the science appeared again in the recent protest marches and even riots over the tragic death of George Floyd.

For the past few months the left has warned us against reopening the economy too soon. The science, we were told, said it would lead to a spike in coronavirus infections and death.

But those same people have been largely silent as thousands of people flooded the streets to protest the Floyd death. Most protesters were not wearing masks. Most were not socially distancing. Many were singing, chanting and even screaming all of which the science now says are the primary ways the coronavirus is spread.

The George Floyd demonstrations are both understandable and a constitutional right unless they devolve into riots and destruction. But not only are the believe-the-science scolds not criticizing the protest marches, they are supporting them.

Science changes over time as we learn more, which is why one has to be careful in proclaiming that an issue is settled science.

Its the blatantly political nature of believe the science that has so many people questioning and even doubting the claims. Because when liberals admonish people to believe the science, what they are usually saying is shut up and do as youre told.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.

View original post here:
Liberals: Which 'science' are we supposed to believe? | TheHill - The Hill

The polarization of American life, the withdrawal of liberal and conservative Americans from one another, has generated a poisonous distillation on both sides. In separating into geographic-distinct enclaves, into heartland and metropole, our factions have become steadily worse versions of themselves deprived of the leaven of perspective, hardening into self-caricature, losing the democratic capacities that a more diverse and fluid political atmosphere can teach.

The poisoning on the right helped give us the Trump presidency, which speaks to the alienation of conservative America from the corridors of wealth and power the sense across rural and exurban America that our great cities are alien, their inhabitants dangerous, their elites grasping and malign without speaking effectively to anybody else.

Trumps administration is Washington-based performance art for Americans who know the capital primarily as a television backdrop, a festival of lib-owning and deep-state bashing and as of last night, bizarre tear-gas-and-the-Bible photo ops that doesnt even try to master the government it notionally runs. His reeling, staggering style of governance once blackly comic, now deadly serious and disastrous reflects not just the incapacity of its leader but also the insularity of his coalition, which doesnt encompass enough of Americas diversity to claim a real democratic mandate or include enough of the administrative talent that it would need to competently rule.

But the riots engulfing Americas cities arent just a testament to Trumps mix of provocation and abdication. They also reveal how the Democratic coalitions distillation into a metropolitan formation, a liberalism of the global city, has created deep pressures inside the liberal coalition, fissures that can widen with the right cascade of shocks.

The coalition of the liberal city is a high-low coalition, an alliance of highly educated urbanites, service workers and the underclass, inhabiting the same geography but very different social spaces, sharing a common political opponent but lacking a common way of life. The weaknesses of the conservative coalition are reversed for liberals. Instead of uniformity, there is Balkanization. Instead of chauvinism against outsiders there is suspicion against neighbors. Instead of a pious Christianity thats too often distant from the stranger and the orphan, there is a pious liberalism that depends on the cheap labor of immigrants and the surveillance and harassment of the poor.

Above all, the liberal city lacks a middle the ballast of a substantial middle class, the mediating institutions of old-fashioned machine politics, the cement of shared religious and cultural institutions. Instead, its mediating institutions are the cops, the public schools and welfare bureaucracy, and the professional-activist class. None of these groups have broad legitimacy. The cops are distrusted from below and from above increasingly regarded by the cosmopolitan class as distasteful mercenaries, a necessary evil to protect gentrifications gains. The schools and welfare system are stagnant yet resilient, constantly resisting attempted reinventions by elites whose own families rarely use them. The activists portray themselves as spokesmen for their race or class, but their main task appears to be running consciousness-raising sessions to salve the uneasy consciences of white elites.

In place of any broad legitimacy, the liberal city relies for public order on wealth and entertainment, surveillance and prison sentences, pot and video games, elite guilt and lower-class forbearance.

This is a decadent-but-sustainable arrangement under normal circumstances, but the coronavirus has exposed its weak points. Take away schools, pools, sports and movies and suddenly the infotainment complex is reduced to Zoom and Netflix and claustrophobia sets in. Tell people to wear masks and the surveillance camera doesnt seem like such a threat. Close the colleges and suddenly the activist cohort and its more radical pupils are set idle. Put cops to work enforcing social distancing and their authoritarian temptations are magnified and then all you need is a particularly brazen injustice to light the spark.

Now that its been lit, the liberal coalitions claim to represent order against Trumpian chaos or political competence against right-wing fecklessness is burning day by day. And the torching of its credibility has happened fastest among the white and woke. As public officials, white progressives lack both credibility with aggrieved protesters and full control over their own overzealous cops. As supposed custodians of public health, theyve proven unable to sustain social distancing requirements when its someone other than disreputable conservatives challenging them. And as ostensible champions of facts and reason, theyve been as quick as any Southern sheriff in the 1960s to blame outside agitators, false flags and even foreigners for their own misgovernment.

But worse than progressive officials are the young white radicals, anarchists and antifa and would-be Tyler Durdens, who have decided that the suffering of black communities is an excellent justification for a frenzy of white-on-white (or, sometimes, white-on-immigrant-owned-business) crime. One of the most striking trends of the last few years, the studies showing that white liberals are increasingly angrier about racism than the average black American, has reached its consummation in the spectacle of peaceful black protesters remonstrating with white kids who just want to loot, burn and fight.

Perhaps the logic of polarization will eventually help restore stability. Perhaps whatever flailing or cruel response Trump eventually gets goaded into will reunite the liberal cities against the right-wing president. Perhaps we can return to a world where Nike mouths radical slogans but nobody loots their stores.

But weve seen what happens when you pull back that surface, and we know whats underneath: the grinning skull beneath the liberal citys skin.

See original here:
Crisis in the Liberal City - The New York Times