Those "Tranzis"
John Fonte's
Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism is a
must read and the blogosphere has been hammering it to death. But, I've decided that it deserves a permlink, so look to the left and at the bottom of "Razib's Links" you'll see it for a while longer.
One point that I think might weaken the idea of a common "Transnational Progressive" front is the fact that unalloyed multiculturalism and progressivism are to a great extent incompatible. An irony of the modern Left is that they make two assertions that conflict:
- That each communal ethnos must be allowed self-determination and freedom that supersedes both the nation-state and the individuals that form it.
- Ethnic groups are basically the same aside from cosmetic differences (everyone is a peace-loving individual against exploitation, we just dance and drink in our quaint ethnic ways).
You see, Fonte brings up the fact that the Tranzis want to ban hate speech and promote women's rights. Not only would some Tranzis dissent from the former (the
ACLU for instance), but many "oppressed" people of color would object to the latter. Fonte makes the point that Tranzis want to redefine human beings by their race, religion and gender, and yet this is problematic if these groups have different goals. I suspect that though we liberals (in the old broad sense) will win in the end simply because we are far less ambitious in our goals. (I got the term "Tranzis" from
Libertarian Samizdata)