One of the stable arguments of American liberals,

from President Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton,

from education reformer John Dewey,

to New York Times columnist Tom Freeman,

is that they don't believe in labels.

Liberals are pragmatists and realists and empiricists.

They only care about what works.

Concerned as meanwhile are ideologues or extremists

or dogmatists are just plain lunatics

who are blinded by ideology.

Here's what President Barack Obama said on the subject.

What is required is a new declaration of independence,

not just in our nation, but in our own lives,

from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.

Did you catch that?

If you have an ideology,

you belong amongst the bigots and the mentally confused.

Once you start paying attention,

you'll hear variations on this claim all over the place.

And truth, it is a very old technique

pioneered by none other than Napoleon Bonaparte,

who sought to demonize his critics as mesmerized theorists

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