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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Faulty logic. Running away from the word "liberal" doesn't make sense unless we agree that liberal is really a bad word. You can make "Progressive" bad, too. For example, you can say that "the situation became progressively worse". Any word can be turned into a negative, and by letting the right have "liberal", we've ceded power to them - the power to define us. We need to stop trying to change what we are and start convincing people that what we offer is good. The right is doing that with Abraham Lincoln. He was a Republican, and the right is very happy to acknowledge him a such even though his politics were pretty left wing during his time. We need to acknowledge Roosevelt and educate people about how much his "liberal" policies have helped us to this day. We need to stop running from what we are.
We keep running from words because the right distorts them. Homosexual has become evil, since they are pushing "the homosexual agenda". I've actually been told that it's not acceptable to use that term. "Feminism" is another that has taken on a negative connotation. They seem to own "God" and "religion" (although we're taking that back a bit). We're running from them instead of taking them on. And "progressives" have been leading the charge away from the right. We won this election because things got so bad that even the right-wing couldn't convince people that their agenda was working, but things won't stay bad forever and we'd better have some positive ideas to offer them soon.
This is the conversation goes through somebody's head when they hear someone describe themselves as "progressive."
"This guy's a progressive."
"Progressive? What does that mean?"
"It means he's a liberal."
"Well, why doesn't he just say that?"
"Because he thinks everyone dislikes "liberals."
"Oh. So he came up with a synonym and thought we wouldn't realize it's the same word. He's afraid to call himself what he really is and would rather hide behind a new word that hasn't been attacked so much yet? Rather than challenging misconceptions, he's trying to trick us?"
"Pretty much. Yeah."
re: "Liberal" comes from the Latin word for "free."
In the real world, however, it has come to mean many different things to many different people, in large part because of the fact that individual political leaders who have proclaimed themselves to be "liberal" or "conservative" have diminished the brands, so to speak.
Bush calls himself a "conservative", for example, yet he pursued blatant wars of aggression, ran up trillions of $ in debt and increased "big guv'ment" in size and scope more than any previous President. Hardly conservative positions by any definition of which I am aware.
Conversely, LBJ lied us into the nightmare of Vietnam and indiscriminately murdered millions in the process, which is hardly something I would associate with the term "liberal".
This is why I simply refuse to be labeled as anything other than an American.
I love The Constitution. I respect others' right to dissent, no matter what the issue. I believe in a free and open society, with equal opportunity, liberty and justice for all. I hate political correctness. I have no problem whatsoever with law-abiding Americans owning firearms, or with people smoking in public places. I believe that we have a moral obligation that is also a Constitutional one to "promote the general welfare". I believe in as much personal freedom as possible, limited only by those actions that may endanger the peace and freedom of others. I believe that America should practice what it preaches...
Sorry. I didn't mean to get carried away. It's just that labels are far too confining and confusing. Am I a "liberal"? Or a "libertarian"? Or even a "conservative"? Depending upon the issue, some may even categorize me as a "socialist".
I'm just an American.
I reject most of the metaphysical assumptions of the liberal intellectual tradition. Ideologically, I identify as a communitarian, but I think 'progressive' works well enough since it captures the broad political coalition that I'm a part of without implying many further beliefs beyond the particular policies I support in the context of American politics.
I mean, if you want to call yourself a liberal, that's fine by me, but there's more to the progressive coalition than liberals.
Seriously, is it the fact that he didn't want his country to be under the rule of the French? The fact that he dared to win a war the U.S. futilely fought in his country? The fact that we were so scared of communism that we were willing to fight AGAINST another people's freedom to protect ourselves from it?
Get a life, dude. Castro = seriously messed up. HCM, while not a perfect leader, clearly, at least had the guts to lead his country to freedom from the French. I can't really believe you think that French colonialism was a good thing. Ugh, color THIS liberal unimpressed with your lame article.
"At least the far-left progressives were honest. They genuinely despised the mid-century American liberals, whom they viewed simply as another species of bourgeois imperialists. This is another one of the reasons I dislike the term "progressive." Why should I call myself by the name preferred by deluded radicals who despised the New Deal and the Great Society liberals I admire?"
Honest indeed. Finally a spokesman for American liberalism admits that they are not part of the Left. If only they would admit that "the Center" is just a code-word for mainstream conservatism, then they might be just as honest. Just so you know, those "deluded radicals" are the only reason there was a New Deal, which was FDR's way of avoiding a real revolution---and LBJ was an imperialist pig.
This trap that the Right has set here in America is so much nonsense. What should labels matter? Frankly, there's something inherently evil about denigrating what someone who believes in civil liberties and social justice for all, call themselves.
I would like to think that most Americans believe in the Constitution not simply because of some misguided Patriotic notion, but because they truly value the protections it enumerates.
If that's the case, then aren't they "liberals" as well? Yes, Sarah Palin, Michael Medved, Anne Coulter, et. al. I am a Liberal.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
