Tom Daschle: Politician of the Far Left

Here are comments made by Tom Daschle last night in Vermillion:

"We have allowed our notion for freedom in all of its gifts to degrade somewhat," Daschle said. "But in an age of such remarkable wealth and affluence, could we not as a nation work together to include economic security that makes freedom real?"

Daschle said older Americans who lose their homes because they cannot afford the high cost of prescription drugs also lose their freedom to live their lives as they wish.

Quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Daschle said people need not only freedom of speech and worship, but also freedom from want and fear.

Daschle's speech was titled "The Politics of Freedom: A Progressive Vision of American Liberty." The event included a dinner and remarks from former Sen. George McGovern, former Republican Gov. and Rep. Bill Janklow and USA Today founder Al Neuharth.

Let’s set a couple of things straight right now. I don’t want to hear anymore Daschle supporters telling about how Tom was just a middle of the road guy who was tarred as a left-winger. All that Thune stuff about how Daschle said one thing in DC but another thing in South Dakota was a lie, they say.  Well, here is Tom Daschle embracing an extreme “progressive” (read: left wing) view of freedom and America. Look at the title of his speech. Daschle is aligning himself with “progressivism.” Lest anyone be confused, progressive is now what the left-wingers call, well, left-wing politics. He is aligning himself with the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party. Also, Daschle is taking a very Progressive stance, harkening back to the Progressives of the early 20^th Century. Daschle is positing a notion of freedom unrecognizable to the American Founders. This is not a freedom where we pursue happiness free of government interference, but a freedom which demands government provide us with all sorts of material needs as a precursor to “real” freedom. These ideas were popular in the works of Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Croly. The  two explicitly rejected the American Founding, the Constitution in particular. The Progressives where highly influenced by German philosophy (e.g. Max Weber) with notions of science, social evolution and historicism as their grounding, as opposed to constitutionalism and natural rights.  I don’t wish to turn this into a treatise on American political thought. And this is not to say that Daschle’s views are good or bad. I will leave that to the reader. But there is no doubt that Daschle has aligned himself with notions of freedom and the role of government that have more in common with the radical social democrats of the early 1900s than they do with the American Founders. Dorothy, I think he’s not from South Dakota anymore.