If you want an insight into today’s left, look at its multifront war against the American Legislative Exchange Council for committing the grave sin of pushing free-market bills in state legislatures.
At a recent meeting in Washington, Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado summed up the left-wing’s campaign against ALEC: “Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase.”
I worked for a couple decades in state-level legislating. Looking at other states' laws and looking at model laws that various organizations put out was a common avenue to explore if a state legislator was interested in introducing a bill on some issue.
I was always aware of the suspicion that ALEC prompted even in the center-left environment I worked in. I never did get why there was so much disdain for them when they were just one of many to do the same thing. And I never recall their products being out of bounds, or anything.
But as I've long felt, our language does a great dis-service to our analysis by confusing "liberal minded" with "open minded." Far too often those terms have nothing to do with each other.
