The Case for Liberalism in an Age of Extremism

Sanders has always been an uncompromising radical and a socialist. That’s why he never got anything done as a Senator.

We believe that it is the proper role of the professor to teach students how to think, not to propagandize them about what to think.

The case for the center, particularly for the center-left—for liberalism—is a difficult case to make, especially among those young people, students, and academics who tend to see grey-area issues as black and white, and who eschew nuance, complexity, and the need to balance conflicting claims to the truth. For them, there is only one truth, and it

Truth is not a piece of matter or a unit of energy that will survive pummeling and emerge unscathed in one form or another at one time or another. It is a fragile and ethereal aspiration, easily buried, difficult to retrieve, and capable of being lost forever. That is why every time an idea is censored, a person with an idea killed, or a culture de

Like her husband, she should have remained at the liberal center, both on domestic and foreign policy issues. That has always been the winning strategy for Democrats, and the Sanders’ brushfire should not have changed that successful approach.

Both the hard-left and hard-right have little tolerance for dissent because they know the truth, and dissent only strengthens their enemies. Both the hard-left and hard-right are prisoners of their own dogma and do not need science or experience to inform or challenge their fixed ideologies.

A commitment to universal civil liberties—even for one’s ideological opponents—is among the factors that distinguish liberalism from hard-left radicalism.

We haven’t left the left. The left, especially the radical left, has left us. And many in the center-left, especially among the young, seem to be following the lead of their more radical fellow Democrats. Elements within both the Democratic and Republican parties have changed.

Rights come from human experience, particularly experience with injustice. We learn from the mistakes of history that a rights-based system and certain fundamental rights—such as freedom of expression, freedom of and from religion, equal protection of the laws, due process, and participatory democracy—are essential to avoid repetition of the grievo

We are in danger of losing our identity as a nation of centrist liberals and conservatives who talk to and argue with our counterparts, as I used to with William F. Buckley. Debate is being replaced with demonization. Ideas matter less than identity. Disagreements are resolved by shouting louder than the other side, trying to prevent them from spea