From Albert Jay Nock, “Liberals Never Learn,” The American Mercury, August, 1937

What I have seen of the Liberal and Progressive movement gives me no wish for its continuance — far from it — and if it disintegrated tomorrow I should be disposed to congratulate the country on its deliverance from a peculiarly dangerous and noisome nuisance. With regard to “all Liberal and Progressive ideas,” I have never been able to make out that there are any. Pseudo-ideas, yes, in abundance; sentiment, emotion, wishful dreams and visions, grandiose castles in Spain, political panaceas and placebos made up of milk, moonshine, and bilge-water in approximately equal parts — yes, these seem to be almost a peculium of Liberalism. But ideas, no.

(The complete series of Nock’s essays for The American Mercury can be found at JAYS).