NB: This was for a class. "Slander" and "Treason" refer to Coulter's books by those names. Others are more complicated, and I'm too busy to give you even a cursory bibliography. Have fun, bitches!
The "liberal" part of early liberalism stems from the radical notion of pluralist democracy [Ross 397]. This idea is not, to wit, liberal today. In fact, one of President Bush's strongest campaign strategies was to adopt a fumbling "everyman" persona.
But what is liberalism today? What is a liberal? For current opinion, I turn to the one person whose voice about liberals speaks loudest: Ann Coulter. In a website featuring "The Best Quotes from Ann Coulter's Treason ," and similar highlights from her book Slander, I found a fascinating impressions of the state of liberalism today. The real question, I've found, is how to reconcile Ms. Coulter's views of liberalism with what the so-called "scholars" have to say.
Coulter takes early liberalism's anti-aristocracy rhetoric, the redistribution of means under the New Deal, and the redistribution of rights under Rights Liberalism, and reaches the only possible conclusion: liberals are Communist sympathizers, which is in no way compatible with her notion of America. Liberals, she says "whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein" are "either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant" [Treason 16]. Not only does liberalism threaten to restrict the average man's rights in support of the weak, their indignation is misdirected at such rarities as police violence, not at the "criminals," who liberals actually favor [Slander 28]. Liberals, it seems, have taken their tradition of redistribution (which Coulter, as a conservative, dislikes) to the extreme of redistribution of morality. Liberals have made good men (soldiers and police) evil, and evil men (detainees at Guantanamo Bay) good.
This inverted morality is almost certainly linked to liberals' hatred of religion (nevermind Daniel Webster--see Ellis and Hawkinson, 756). Liberals cannot stand religion, Coulter claims, because they see it as competing with politics and "can't stand the competition" [Slander 194]. Liberals are so obsessed with this soulless "civic religion" [Treason 262] that morality is an alien concept, which competes with their ideology on every front.
The sense of an alien presence is, perhaps, shared by Coulter. Liberals, in their confused and morally reprehensible state "hate America" [Slander 5]. This follows naturally from her conception of America as generally Christian, conservative, pro-war, anti-big government, and self-concerned. If I had to guess, I'd say that I've made her argument more rational than she has, which is unfortunate. She has taken some fundamental disagreements with Democrats (who are frequently called "liberals" whether they really are or not) and found them to be so basic as to constitute ideological warfare. She puts liberals in a socio-economic and academic elite, a razor-thin intellectual minority. This conflicts rather directly with the (ironically) academic understanding of liberalism, which if I may make a bold generalization, is focused on the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal" and a value judgment asserting that such equality should be persistent throughout one's life.
In summation, it is my opinion that Ann Coulter hates liberals because she fears them: she fears their different values, their permissiveness, and their toleration of heterogeneity. She sees these things in 'liberals' and not in 'America.'
The "liberal" part of early liberalism stems from the radical notion of pluralist democracy [Ross 397]. This idea is not, to wit, liberal today. In fact, one of President Bush's strongest campaign strategies was to adopt a fumbling "everyman" persona.
But what is liberalism today? What is a liberal? For current opinion, I turn to the one person whose voice about liberals speaks loudest: Ann Coulter. In a website featuring "The Best Quotes from Ann Coulter's Treason ," and similar highlights from her book Slander, I found a fascinating impressions of the state of liberalism today. The real question, I've found, is how to reconcile Ms. Coulter's views of liberalism with what the so-called "scholars" have to say.
Coulter takes early liberalism's anti-aristocracy rhetoric, the redistribution of means under the New Deal, and the redistribution of rights under Rights Liberalism, and reaches the only possible conclusion: liberals are Communist sympathizers, which is in no way compatible with her notion of America. Liberals, she says "whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein" are "either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant" [Treason 16]. Not only does liberalism threaten to restrict the average man's rights in support of the weak, their indignation is misdirected at such rarities as police violence, not at the "criminals," who liberals actually favor [Slander 28]. Liberals, it seems, have taken their tradition of redistribution (which Coulter, as a conservative, dislikes) to the extreme of redistribution of morality. Liberals have made good men (soldiers and police) evil, and evil men (detainees at Guantanamo Bay) good.
This inverted morality is almost certainly linked to liberals' hatred of religion (nevermind Daniel Webster--see Ellis and Hawkinson, 756). Liberals cannot stand religion, Coulter claims, because they see it as competing with politics and "can't stand the competition" [Slander 194]. Liberals are so obsessed with this soulless "civic religion" [Treason 262] that morality is an alien concept, which competes with their ideology on every front.
The sense of an alien presence is, perhaps, shared by Coulter. Liberals, in their confused and morally reprehensible state "hate America" [Slander 5]. This follows naturally from her conception of America as generally Christian, conservative, pro-war, anti-big government, and self-concerned. If I had to guess, I'd say that I've made her argument more rational than she has, which is unfortunate. She has taken some fundamental disagreements with Democrats (who are frequently called "liberals" whether they really are or not) and found them to be so basic as to constitute ideological warfare. She puts liberals in a socio-economic and academic elite, a razor-thin intellectual minority. This conflicts rather directly with the (ironically) academic understanding of liberalism, which if I may make a bold generalization, is focused on the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal" and a value judgment asserting that such equality should be persistent throughout one's life.
In summation, it is my opinion that Ann Coulter hates liberals because she fears them: she fears their different values, their permissiveness, and their toleration of heterogeneity. She sees these things in 'liberals' and not in 'America.'