Posted on 12/03/2002 5:59:14 AM PST by no piece
I am tired of hearing the word "liberal" used as an obscenity. Just last week, U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, a high-ranking Republican, said of newly elected Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, "She's a roadblock. That's her hallmark. She's a liberal in the true sense of the word." Well, OK, Debbie, I'm glad you realized that we have a few of them left in Congress. By coincidence, I have a sore knee. My friend the philosopher suggests that it has been traumatized by years of knee-jerk liberalism. When people ask why I am limping, I tell them I have an old liberal injury. The dictionary defines liberalism as "a political philosophy advocating personal freedom for the individual, democratic forms of government, gradual reform in political and social institutions." That doesn't sound too life-threatening.
The political philosophy of liberalism has had a long and varied history. It arose in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, to protest the prerogatives of kings, aristocrats and the church.
Actually, the word simply means a body of political and social beliefs, even as the word "conservative" does.
In today's world, the liberals are the idealists, the people who still believe, in spite of everything that has happened, that they can make the world a better place for everybody. Realistically, they know they're outnumbered, but it is a belief that shapes their lives.
They believe that government is inherently good, that it can make the human condition better. They believe that we have some obligation to our fellow human beings. They believe in personal freedom, in freedom of speech and religion. They believe in the common good, the things people cannot do alone.
The liberal thinks government can make the human condition better. The conservative thinks government always makes things worse.
It takes a long time to create a true liberal. They usually start young and enthusiastic, and are sure they can save the world. But finally they come face-to-face with unfiltered reality. Either they go by way of yoga, guitar lessons or just plain dropping out, or they stay in there swinging. Mark Twain in his "Notebook" in 1898 wrote, "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them."
In 1960, when he was running for president, John F. Kennedy was asked, "What is a liberal?" and he defined it very well:
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas ... . For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves. ... For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society."
Liberal vision has helped build the country. C.E. Owen, an 80-year-old from Canton, Ga., recently wrote in the Atlanta Constitution, "All of us should thank God every day for the stout-hearted liberals of the 1930s and 1940s. The liberals brought electric lights and indoor plumbing to our farm homes." They also brought the Civil Rights Act and Social Security, women's right to vote, bank-deposit insurance, and the Peace Corps. The list goes on and on.
Liberals are not criminals. They are not traitors. They are patriotic Americans. They love their families. They go to work and complain about traffic circles. Most of them probably have cats. Most of them are Christians. Most of them are Democrats. Some of them are Republicans. Most of them say, "You believe your thing and let me believe mine."
No, "liberal" is not a dirty word. It is a proud word. It is an idea of freedom that has been around for several centuries.
I am still limping from my "liberal" injury. It's probably not going to get better anytime soon.
Unless you happen to believe that abortion is wrong, that the Second Amendment means that every individual has an absolute right to possess weapons, unless you believe that religion does have a place in the public square, unless you believe affirmative action is wrong, unless you believe that homosexuality is wrong, unless you believe ... well, you get the idea.
If you believe those things, then you are "evil incarnate" and not only not worthy of discussion but should be banned from "civil society".
Live and let live? Ha ... a liberal doesn't know the meaning of that phrase.
"And hand over your wallet..."
RAT alert!
(Welcome back, dighton... we thought you had shuffled off this FReeper coil!)
“Corn? Or barley is it?”“It’s oats. Soaked in deadly pye-zn. You take just one of them grains in your mouth and you’d be a gonner in five minutes!”
“Honest?”
“Yep. Never out of me sight, this tin.”
He caressed it with his hands and gave it a little shake so that the oat grains rustled softly inside.
“But not today. Your rats don’t get this today. They wouldn’t have it anyway. That they wouldn’t. There’s where you got to know rats. Rats is suspicious. Terrible suspicious, rats is. So today they gets some nice clean tasty oats as’ll do em no harm in the world. Fatten em, that’s all it’ll do. And tomorrow they gets the same again. And it’ll taste so good there’ll be all the rats in the districk comin along after a couple of days.”
“Rather clever.”
“You got to be clever on this job. You got to be cleverer’n a rat and that’s sayin somethin.”
“You’ve almost got to be a rat yourself,” I said. It slipped out in error, before I had time to stop myself, and I couldn’t really help it because I was looking at the man at the time. But the effect upon him was surprising.
“There!” he cried. “Now you got it! Now you really said somethin! A good ratter’s got to be more like a rat than anythin else in the world! Cleverer even than a rat, and that’s not an easy thing to be, let me tell you!”
-- Roald Dahl, The Ratcatcher.
Geez, where to begin...
A person's natural state is to be born with total personal freedom to do anything, and to bear the consequences of those actions and decisions.
The only thing that government can do is limit those personal freedoms through restrictions. This is supposedly done "for our own good" or "for the greater good". These goals are defined by people who seek the power to define the goals. These people must be limited by something (the Constitution) or they will continue to restrict our freedom and add to their own power.
No, there aren't liberals and conservatives in America - there are Socialists and Constitutionalists.
I'm sure the Jew's being gassed and starved to death by Hitler's government thought so. Or the millions killed by Stalin.
They believe in personal freedom, in freedom of speech and religion.
As long as it is their view of freedom, their views being spoken, or their religion. Maybe my view of freedom includes the ability to conceal a firearm with which to blow away any creep who thinks his free society should be free of such arbitrary laws as 'don't commit murder.'
As long as your not critizing what they're speaking freely about. That's hate speak.
Or telling them that they can belive religiously but that doesn't make them right is hate speach too.
Bah!
Yes, friends, THEY know what's best for everyone! [/sarcasm]
Henrietta Hay is a sports-car-driving liberal in a conservative town. In Grand Junction, Colorado, she writes a weekly column for the local Daily Sentinel. In spite of (or because of?) her renegade views, her column is the most popular feature in the paper. Oh, and she's 88 years old.
uh,...'PROJECTILE VOMITING ALERT'...?
What has happened under their ideas is the answer he conveniently leaves out.
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