Where'd the Real Liberals Go

Whatever happened to liberals like Hubert Humphrey or Scoop Jackson? Liberals like that don't exist anymore. If anything, they'd probably be moderate Republicans. JFK's tax policies were closer to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan than they were to Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.

Mark Tapscott opines on the demise of true liberalism:

Here's another shocker. Among the American politicians I most admire is Hubert H. Humphrey, the "Happy Warrior" from Minnesota. His "I am ready to lead this nation" acceptance speech at the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention was a rhetorical masterpiece now lost to history, thanks to Mayor Daley and the Chicago 7.

Polinard viewed him as something of a relic, as I recall, but Humphrey always struck me as the classic voice of the logical, humane and patriotic American liberalism that once commanded the loyalty and votes of millions of people.

But now, four decades later, the liberalism of that former time has become the progressive movement. Today's "liberals" have confiscated two-thirds of the Big Three, they are moving rapidly to take over one fifth of the U.S. economy by nationalizing health care, and they are on the verge of putting environmental bureaucrats in charge of the most minute details of daily American life, allegedly to save the rest of us from the apocalyptic horrors that are sure to come if a mythical global warming is not stopped.

And along the way, they've confiscated trillions of dollars of wealth generated by the sweat and creativity of millions of working Americans who pay taxes, and given it to millions of people who are dependent upon tax-funded paychecks and benefits, government contracts and federal spending programs. They call this "spreading the wealth around," but they always make sure generous helpings go to their favorite special interests like Big Labor, ACORN, the NEA, civil service bureaucrats, and the trial lawyers.

Worst of all, they have all-but-destroyed academic freedom by imposing speech codes in public and private schools across the country, restricted political expression via campaign finance "reform," suppressed full and open scientific inquiry on issues related to evolution and the origins of life, effectively repealed the due process and equal protection of the law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment via Affirmative Action and other race-based policies, and fostered collectivist, group-think multi-culturalism on citizen political participation in elections and policy making.
How did liberalism degenerate from the honorable activism of HHH to the special interest-led Nanny State of Nancy Pelosi, from a devotion to protecting individual rights to relentlessly expanding government as an end in itself?

Liberals old and new forgot what the old Puritan divine John Cotton knew long ago: Government is like the tiger tied to a stake in the morning. By noon, it knows the full length of its tether. It might even be a friendly tiger, straining to be free so that it can turn back other predators. But it is still a tiger and soon enough it devours even those who unleashed it.

It wouldn't be fair to Humphrey to describe modern Democrats as liberals. They're socialists, pure and simple. They have no more in common with Humphrey than they do with Reagan. Humphrey was an unabashed patriot. You'd have a hard time finding someone like that in today's Democrat leadership.