Wasn't there a big move to tearing down [0] statues [1] because the classical liberals [2] were considered monsters from a different era? Classical liberalism does really poorly under the current progressive zeitgeist and would likely and ironically be labelled "racist white man logic". The strongest thing protecting the classic liberal thinkers from being tarred and feathered is nobody knows who they are.
I don't think the alt right can be said to have "claimed" it as much as the left is rejecting it and there is no other home in a 2-faction classification.
Also, we do not live in a progressive zeitgeist. That is only the narrative. If you look at what is happening instead of what is being said, then not much is progressive or leftist about it. There is some pushing of individualistic identity politics.
But these are not used to emancipate a class. They are used to create a new elite, that is "empathic". They are not talking about righting wrongs of poor people.
I always forget this, but yeah, I think you are right.
Prime example for me were those talks about rail worker strikes. They were completely disallowed from happening. I understand the reasons, but despite not being any sort of leftist, I find it quite unfair that rail workers can't strike.
Police, teachers, actors and writers, etc. all have that right. Rail workers? Nope. I don't know what to call the political economic system we live under, but it seems to just be that our leaders make it up as we go along and allow whatever happens to be convenient and not blatantly illegal. Nobody gives a shit about rail workers, so legally blocking a strike by them isn't going to cause any problems.
a bunch of overzealous students putting paint on one statue of voltaire is hardly a "big move".. voltaire, his ideas and his works are still at the centre of french culture, politics and curricula
If the fringe left are throwing paint on him and the fringe right are saying "we want to be like him!" then I put it to you that the situation is that the left fringe doesn't like classical liberalism.
It isn't that the meaning of the word is changing. There is a detectable (indeed, proud and vocal) anti-liberalism stripe in the people who most loudly disagree with Carl Benjamin. And a lot of his positions are classical liberal positions. The classical liberals wouldn't have been very impressed by the things he criticises (or him, one suspects, but ones character is different from ones political persuasion).
People on the right might be picking these classical liberals for their 'team', but it is probably because they only have the same cursory knowledge of them as they have of the bible. They just believe in a veneer of some simple concepts that they have been spoon fed through commercial marketing. They don't really know what they believe, what is in the bible, and really not what some classical liberal might have said and how it applies to them.
