Are you really a Liberal?

SmallGovTimes.com ^ | March 8th, 2007 | Selwyn Duke

[sdnet]

Writers such as myself devote a lot of ink to the species known as liberals. And when you carry your banners openly on the field of battle, you define yourself and relinquish any pretense at that most illusory quality, impartiality. This places you in the crosshairs, although you can take solace in knowing that your adversaries will always miss left.

Some of the liberals who contact me spew callow vitriol, at times peppered with language that would make a guttersnipe blush. But there’s another type of “liberal” respondent. This person is almost always civil, even when indignant. He’ll query me and wonder how I could ascribe all the qualities I do to liberalism, mystified that I would impugn an ideology possessed of but the most ethereal of virtues. Then, either confused or fancying me so, he’ll provide a dictionary definition, something always to the effect of:

“lib-er-al-ism . . . a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for tolerance and freedom for the individual from arbitrary authority in all spheres of life.”(1)

[lilylangtree]

I'm as much a liberal as Puce Pelosi is a conservative.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

The only important difference between Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Socialism and Liberalism is the spelling, and that the last group hasn't got the brains to figure it out.
- Bill Vance

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A fine article - bookmarked.

I define "conservative" according to Theodore Roosevelt's dictum:

"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt

If you agree with that and live by it, you're a conservative. If you are a journalist, as a practical matter you define "objectivity" as being the exact opposite of that. You do nothing, but you promote yourself and your craft above those who actually get things done. And you do it by criticizing and second guessing businessmen and the police and the military - anyone who works to a bottom line.

And if you are a journalist, you describe as "liberal" the exact same political attitude which in a fellow journalist you would style "objective."

IOW "liberalism" is whatever is in the self interest of journalism. Journalism defines itself as being the public interest.

[auboy]

Critics do what critics do best… second guess from a safe vantage point.

[PerConPat]

An excellent read...It's true and one hell of lot less turgid than the great Edmund Burke.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[rlmorel]

LOL...was your tagline an inoculation against the pro-Giuliani forces on FR???

[rlmorel]

Better yet...

Liberalism is like Pornography. I cannot define it, but I know it when I see it.

Only kidding. I CAN define it in certain terms, that is, by defining the boundaries. I'll do that when I get home so I don't have to type it...:)

[Hemingway's Ghost]

“lib-er-al-ism . . . a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for tolerance and freedom for the individual from arbitrary authority in all spheres of life.”

That definition looks like the modern version of the word spliced before the definition of classic liberalism in order to make it look good. You can see the splice mark right about the comma after "goodness of man."

[westmichman]

I believe liberals are leftists and that would fit your last two (Communism and Socialism) but I don't believe Nazism and Fascism are considered leftist ideologies.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

"Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world.
All the other social groups- workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers- exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction.
But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship.
Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars.
Businessmen are the symbol of a free society- the symbol of America."

AYN RAND

[westmichman]

Excellent quote. I bow to Ayn Rand, and you for finding it.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Nazism and Fascism are National Socialism which is the control of all products by the government.

[westmichman]

By that description they would also be leftist.

[westmichman]

My brother is a Montgomery, Tx. Veteran. (Vietnam)

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Not very far from Huntsville and in the early fifties, I knocked on every door in this small town selling produce!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I don't believe Nazism and Fascism are considered leftist ideologies.

You obviously haven't read F A Hayek's WWII classic,

The Road to Serfdom
(Link to the Readers' Digest Condensed Version in PDF)

[PGalt]

Good post; great link to the RD "The Road to Serfdom".

Thanks very much for the ping and post.

[westmichman]

Thanks, I made a hard copy.