What is Communitarianism?

[kandrathe]

If the concept is that Democrats have a more community-centric view of citizenship, liberty, and the role of the state than Libertarians do, and therefore are more sympathetic to contemporary developments in political philosophy that emphasize those aspects, then that would be correct, but definitely not news.

Yes, I agree it is not news. I guess what is new to me is the coalescing of political thought from Democrat to Republican around this "Third Way" which has become a destructive force for individual liberty. My father was a union Blue Dog democrat, and my mother was a Eisenhower Republican. Their common politic bond was on the rights and responsibilities of the individual. This third way is contrary to any politics I knew growing up.

If the idea is that there is a vast left wing conspiracy centered around the shadowy ideology of Communitarianism, then I think what I've seen falls way, way short of the mark.

Right. There is no conspiracy. It is out in the open, at least in the halls of academia and permeating the worlds governments and the UN. Being that people do not outright label themselves as "Communitarians", but rather chose non-descriptive party labels like Democrat or Repuplican makes opposing their ideologies more difficult. People vote along party lines thinking, "Democrats stand for this which I'm for, and Republican stand for this, which I'm against." When that line of thinking is total crap, then what we have is a deluded electorate and a political party system which has so commingled itself as to become meaningless.

Speaking of Not News, have you noticed that all this stuff seems a bit... dated? Like, from Clinton's first term?

Well, I was specifically looking at Clinton, so that is why much of what I've posted is dated. Here is something more recent from Dr. Etzioni (the Father of Neo-Communitarianism) about Obama on the Huffy post.