This is the other half of what is really a two-part posting, first questioning the modern “conservative” movement, now performing similar surgery on the so-called “liberals.”
First, a definition: liberal: per the Oxford English Dictionary(1)
1. open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
“they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people”
2. concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
and another opinion… er… um… definition:
Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free markets, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism [and so on] — Taken from Wikipedia
I start with a definition because over the last 30 years the so-called conservative movement in America has managed to modify the definition of “liberal” into something equivalent to monsters, gangsters and villains of the worst kind. For example, I heard a republican senator in a sound byte on some issue when he made a statement so astonishing I now remember neither his name nor what question he was actually answering, but only this one statement. He said, “… rapists, pedophiles, liberals, and other criminals…” That was back around 2004 (more or less).
A senator said that. Hard to match up such muck-raking, inflammatory, fight-seeking, civil-unrest provoking disinformation with a self-proclaimed conservative. Conservative? Surely that’s the statement of a radical , one hoping to overthrow the establishment, and not conservative at all. But, as I indicated in the “What are they Conserving” article, it’s hard to match up modern “conservative” behaviors with any definition of that word.
Might also notice, if you will, that excepting the portions on equal rights and secularism, that second definition sounds a heck of a lot like what the Republican Party claims it stands for. Yet all this comes under the definition of “liberal.” Hmm…
Ok, what’s a liberal, really, then?
I could wax poetic forever, but Hollywood (Aaron Sorkin, rather) already did a pretty good job. Here’s Michael Douglas in a snippet from the movie, the American President
There he’s talking about what it takes to be an American. But it’s really a pretty great statement of what Liberal is all about, as well. At least part of what it’s about. Especially the part about being willing to defend the right of another person to shout at the top of his lungs “that which you would spend a life time fighting against.” The other person has the right to his opinions. Absolutely. Perhaps he’s even right, though I perhaps can not see how it could be. That’s the strength of Liberal Thought, the willingness to admit it is impossible to know everything.
Problem with the American Democratic party is that they aren’t liberal that way. In truth, almost no one is. That is indeed a very high statement of idealism (Andrew Shepard’s soliloquy, above, I mean.) It’s not one you’ll ever get all of a large nation to live by and really mean it. Not at this time, in this place. One day, sure. Probably even times in the past, many of them. Right now? Up-hill work.
No more would you ever get all of a large nation to live by any of the high statements of conservatism (my apologies, but I don’t have a similar clip to share exemplifying that side of the isle).
So what’s a liberal? Some one who thinks you have the right to live the way you want, say what you want to say and marshal your family the way you think it should be, and all he asks in return is the same consideration from you.
That’s a liberal, but Democrats (which are considered the Liberal Party in America, though as with the Republicans, they certainly have no monopoly on those concepts(2)) are only so-so liberal, by the strict definition. They are, much as their detractors claim, more socialist than democratic(3). (And Republicans are increasingly totalitarian rather than representational.)
Truth is, it’s impossible to have a democratic party; it’s a contradiction in terms. Democracy is where every individual gets a voice that is heard by all. Political Parties are a single group voice, and are inherently representative, and that’s — at best — a republic. Which is what America was set up to be: a constitutional republic. Never a democracy.
Liberal: okay, acid test. How many liberals do you know who would fight to the death to defend your right to vote for, what he is thinks is, the worst possible candidate on the planet? Even though he in turn will vote against you, would he all the same protect your right to (in his mind) “be an idiot, if that’s your choice?” Any? Lots? None? Chances are you know several, actually, though you may not know it, because that aspect of political theory rarely comes up in discussion in day-to-day American life.
Now: ask the same question of registered democrats. You won’t get the same people, not at all. Some, a few, but far fewer than of any random group of so-called “Liberals.”
There’s a problem in Human culture in this here odd but historically entertaining 21st Century. That problem is that we say we want “the best” for everyone, but only that best which we think is best, not what they think is best. Conservative and Liberal alike.
Hence police forces, courts of morality (great heavens!) pontificants on television, rallies for this and that, demonstrations against this and that, laws, law suits, bureaucrats, immigration laws, gun laws, highway transport regulations, the FBI, the NSA, Interpol, and on and on… all — at the root of things — because we find it difficult to trust each other. These things have no other reason to exist.
Short version (conclusion of both articles, possibly): most people are neither conservative nor liberal. Not by the true definitions of those terms. Most people aren’t that concerned with any of that great mess. Most people just want to live their lives in peace, without fear of judgment or interference from their neighbors, but with supportive community all the same, and without fear of “authority” coming in to seize their property, their wealth, their sons or daughters… the age old and age old and age old conflict between the governor and the governed, between the War Lord and the Peasant.
Or between the Colony and the Crown.
The very conflict that led to the creation of the American Experiment in the first place, the very experiment that seems so much in peril right now. Give up the terms, give up the labels. Instead, remember what it was all created for, what it was all created to preserve, not to conserve, a world in which no one requires liberation. A world above both Conservatism and Liberalism, a world above political parties.
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA
~ From Leonard Cohen’s Democracy is coming to the US
(1) The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is considered the ultimate source for what English means, its definitions and proper usage.
(2) There are about 30 political parties at any given time in America. The Big Two have a tendency to squeeze out all the others, and even the news services won’t discuss the others until the day after any major election. I believe that’s actually illegal under the laws of the system, but that’s the very same people who would have enforce those laws, and well…
(3) Whether that’s good or bad is an entirely other discussion. We’d have to begin with a thorough discussion of what socialism is, and then how socialism in practice differs from what it ostensibly means, and so on. But consider this: what is social security? Just a thought…