Ideological As A Loaded Term

The Cato Institute's Michael Tanner notes the way opposition to the stimulus has been dismissed as idea ideological.

In its lead editorial today, the New York Times dismisses criticism of the stimulus bill that passed the House last night as “mostly ideological.” Similarly, a McClatchy News story about the economists who signed Cato’s newspaper advertisement opposing the stimulus bill, dismissed signers as “ideologically opposed” to government spending. This is part of a trend we’ve seen since President Obama’s election. Opposition to Obama’s programs is dismissed as “ideological,” whereas the belief by President Obama and Congressional Democrats in ever bigger and more activist government is, in the word’s of EJ Dionne, “anti-ideological.”

After all, President Obama has called for “a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.”

Apparently then, to believe in free-markets, limited government, and individual liberty is to be “ideological,” on a par with being a small-thinking bigot. On the other hand, to believe that government should run more and more of our lives, that government functions better than markets, and that government should redistribute wealth is…what?