Posted on 11/21/2004 1:56:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
I am a liberal, born and bred, complete and unadulterated, pure and simple, without any hyphenated prefix or suffix
Furthermore, it is an appellation I wear openly and proudly, even in this hyperconservative state and in these excruciatingly conservative times. I have done so since I first became politically astute enough to understand the available label choices, some fifty50 or so years ago.
I do not shy away from it as I have witnessed some doing in recent times, choosing to distance themselves from those of us still willing to be properly classified. They engage in linguistic legerdemain by calling themselves moderates, middle-of-the-roaders or some other such mealy-mouthed, mushy, nondescript, euphemistically sissified term, as though they are embarrassed by the old designation whichthat correctly and properly describes our social and political philosophy.
Moreover, I resent deeply that some, for their own selfish political benefits, and to put us on the defense, have been able to give the word a pejorative connotation, somehow labeling anyone brazen enough to still be recognized by the name as some kind of freak, bent on opening the treasury so as to, God forbid, create a welfare state, peopled by hoochie mamas, illegitimate children and illegal aliens, speaking some foreign tongue, while lapping up money at the public trough.
And worst of all, the term has been so successfully demonized and given such a symbolic negative racial connotation by those on the far right that, in the South particularly, it has separated us, on that spurious basis, from those with whom our shared economic status and interest ought to dictate the making of common cause.
As angry as I am about what we have permitted to be foisted upon us by our political enemies, I am equally upset that other liberals have shied away from so labeling themselves.
Liberalism is a proud tradition, and I believe it represents the bedrock principles upon which this country is founded. It is the leavening which softens the stark harshness of a pure capitalistic society and makes it palatable to those of us who care for people who, for whatever reason, cannot always successfully navigate life completely on their own.
Liberalism is the principle that glorifies and revels in the beautiful diversity of this land in all its multicultural, multiracial and multi-lingual aspects. After all, we are a country of immigrants, whether voluntary or forced. As I see it, liberalism is a philosophy that supports a strong role for government in ensuring that all are able to live a decent life and share in the bounties of this incredibly blessed country, regardless of the stations of life into which they were born. And, if government is not about making life just a little bit better by doing those things that require a collective endeavor, such as security, both physical and financial, by creating a military for the former and programs such as Medicare and Social Security to deal with the latter, and helping those who find themselves in a position of needing temporary support, through safety nets like Medicaid, public housing and food stamps, then, pray tell, what in the world is it for? And, perhaps, most important of all, liberalism is about a belief in an entitlement to a good, publicly provided education for all citizens, not just those who can afford to send their children to private institutions so that we all may take part in this participatory democracy as informed citizens.
Certainly, government does not exist simply to ensure that the rich get richer and the powerful gain more power, while the poor remain poor. It is not unpatriotic to be a liberal, either, and the suggestion that it is makes this old 82nd Airborne paratrooper's blood boil. I was drafted, served without complaint (OK, without too much complaint), and was willing to put my life on the line if that had become necessary. And, as I near the seventh decade of life, I am happy to stand as a yellow-dog, East Texas, Franklin Roosevelt liberal in all my unsullied glory.
King is a law professor at Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and was city attorney under Mayor Fred Hofheinz. He can be e-mailed otisking@facultyvoice.com.
Hillary will transform herself as a moderate, as she prepares for her 2008 run and her fellow LIBERALS will follow quietly, disguising their own pathology, because she is the "vessel of their hope" to take back power.
It was a "perfect" storm.
You obviously just sullied yourself. You should go wipe.
Hoochie mamas. I like that. Is that a regional expression?
#2 is good, thanks.
They no longer exist. FDR believed in work, in prayer and in family. Today's Democrats believe in welfare, in secularism and in alternative lifestyles. FDR would not recognize his own party today.
And there is his agenda. Turning the U.S. into one big teet for all the freeloaders of the world to suckle at, while the few Americans left working their 80 hour weeks pay for it. doesn't it just warm your heart to know that the illegal aliens are honored more than they hard working Americans that pay the taxes.
FDR in some ways made the party of today inevitable. He got America used to Uncle Sam's insulation from the vagaries of nature. He tolerated communists in his entourage. He negotiated with Stalin over central Europe, Korea, Vietnam, and eurasia. Most of all, he taught them that the government was their best friend.
The New Deal was probably required given the Depression. But it could have had an expiration tag attached to it.
Ever see the film about the construction of Hoover Dam? Those guys worked! That's what public projects were about in those days: providing people who wanted to work - and knew how to work - with jobs.
Don't think you're right when you say old time liberals no longer exist. I'm one of them. We're just as baffled as conservatives about the new PC reality, and perhaps even more confused as to what to do about it.
Bravo! Bravissimo!! The best summary of Liberalism and its toxic outcomes I've ever read. You have distilled its deadly essence, sir. May we hope for more?
It warms my heart to have them say it as they believe it.
The LIES suck people in.
The truth will drive them away.
The leftist party that achieved some success in the USA in the 1920's was called the Progressive party. It was based in the upper midwest and its claim to fame was Socialism. When some of its ideas were adopted by the Democratic party the Progressive party disbanded. But by that time most Americans had rejected the beliefs of Progressives, so Democrats chose to call their newly adopted leftist philosoply Liberalism.
They had to do so, since the word Progressive had acquired a bad connotation with most Americans. The Progressives in hopes of masking their true beliefs and thereby gaining acceptance started to refer to themselves as Liberals.
Now that Liberalism has garnered such a bad reputation they are starting to refer to themselves once again as Progressives.
The left never understands, socialism will always be rejected in the United States. They can call it Socialism, Liberalism or Progressivism... it does not matter. It is the philosophy that is rejected.. not the name they choose to use to refer to it at any given moment in time.
"Liberal" is not a word in my vocabulary anymore. I have replaced it with the word "LEFTIST". The leftists don't much care for being called "leftists", they always bring up another of their favorite words, "dialog". LOL!
He had his faults to be sure. But he did not go further than Americans were prepared to accept. His heirs show no such recognition of the limits of ambition never mind power.
That's why you're here. This is the tip of the spear.
We need a fierce defense of what our forebears established and our Greatest plus Cold warrior Generations defended. I mean very fierce.
The blowback from failure could mean losing our constitutional freedoms (including privacy and religious tolerance, and not the Jerry Falwell type).
Defending the second amendment, marriage, borders, and western democracy means that we go just a little while longer before the free for all starts.
Think about it.
***.....Peggy Noonan is right. The focus of Hillary Clinton's ambition is not her country. But it is not just herself either. It is also a place that does not exist. It is the vision of a world that can only be achieved when the Chosen accumulate enough power to change this one.
That is why Hillary and Sid Blumenthal, her fawning New Left Machiavelli, call their own political philosophy the politics of "The Third Way." This distinguishes it from the "triangulation" strategy Dick Morris used to resurrect Bill Clinton's presidency. Morris guided Clinton, in appropriating specific Republican policies towards a balanced budget and welfare reform as a means of securing his re-election. Hillary Clinton was on board for these policies, and in that sense is a triangulator herself. But "triangulation" is too merely tactical and too morally crass to define a serious political philosophy. Above all, it fails to project the sense of promise that intoxicates the imaginations of self-styled "progressives." That is why Hillary and Sid call their politics "The Third Way."
"The Third Way" is a familiar term from the lexicon of the left with a long and dishonorable pedigree in the catastrophes created by messianic socialists in the 20th Century. It is the most ornate panel in the tapestry of deception I described at the beginning of this essay.
In the 1930s, Nazis used "The Third Way" to characterize their own brand of national socialism as a equidistant between the "internationalist" socialism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of the West. Trotskyists used "The Third Way" as a term to distinguish their own Marxism from Stalinism and capitalism. In the 1960s, New Leftists used "The Third Way" to define their politics as an independent socialism between the Soviet gulag and America's democracy.
But as the history of Nazism, Trotskyism and the New Left have shown, there is no "Third Way." There is the capitalist, democratic way based on private property and individual rights-a way that leads to liberty and universal opportunity. And there is the socialist way of group identities, group rights, a relentless expansion of the political state, restricted liberty and diminished opportunity. The Third Way is not a path to the future. It is just the suspension between these two destinations. It is a bad faith attempt on the part of people who are incapable of giving up their socialist schemes to escape the taint of their discredited past.
Is there a practical difference in the modus operandi of Clinton narcissism and Clinton messianism? I think there is, and it is the difference between "triangulation"-a cynical compromise to hang onto power until the next election cycle, and "The Third Way"-a cynical deception to ensure the continuance of Us, until we acquire enough power to transform everyone else. It is the difference between the politics of getting what you can, and the politics of changing the world.
A capsule illustration of these different political ambitions can be found in the book Primary Colors , which describes, in thinly veiled fiction, Bill Clinton's road to the presidency. Primary Colors is an admiring portrait not only of the candidate, but of the dedicated missionaries-the true believing staffers and the long-suffering wife-who serve Clinton's political agendas, but at the price of enabling the demons of self.
These staffers-political functionaries like Harold Ickes and George Stephanopoulos-serve as the flak-catchers and "bimbo eruption"-controllers who clean up his personal messes and shape his image for gullible publics. But they are also the idealists who design his message. And in the end, they enable him to politically succeed.
It is Primary Colors' insight into the minds of these missionaries that is revealing. They see Clinton clearly as a flawed and often repellent human being. They see him as a lecher, a liar and a man who would destroy an innocent person in order to advance his own career. (This is, in fact, the climactic drama of the text). Yet through all the sordidness and lying, the personal ruthlessness and disorder, the idealistic missionaries faithfully follow and serve the leader.
They do it not because they are themselves corrupted through material rewards. The prospect of fame is not even what drives them. Think only of Harold Ickes, personally betrayed and brutally cast aside by Clinton, who nonetheless refused to turn on him, even after the betrayal. Instead, Ickes kept his own counsel and protected Clinton, biding his time and waiting for Hillary. Then joined her staff to manage her Senate campaign.
The idealistic missionaries in this true tale bite their tongues and betray their principles, rather than betray him. They do so because in Bill Clinton they see a necessary vehicle of their noble ambition and uplifting dreams. He, too, cares about social justice, about poor people and blacks (or so he makes them believe). They will serve him and lie for him and destroy for him, because he is the vessel of their hope.
Because Bill Clinton "cares," he is the vital connection to the power they need to accomplish the redemption. Because the keys to the state are within Clinton's grasp, he becomes in their eyes the only prospect for advancing the progressive cause. Therefore, they will sacrifice anything and everything-principle, friends, country-to make him succeed. ...***
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39611fde5615.htm
*shudder*
The middle road was never there. You were just brainwashed to think that Repubs were evil. After all the great legacy of the Dum Party, is the Civil War,Dums pro-salvery. The Jim Crow laws of the south, Dums. The 40 Acres and a mule reparitions provided by the Republican President, abolished by the Dums. It is also believed that in Texas post civil War, that just as many Republicans were lynched as Blacks. However, the true number of Black lynchings may not be accurate becasue some may have been barried in unmarked graves. Yes the Republicans have finally retaken the Great State of Texas, and the dums are being relegated to the dust bin of history. but, for you viewing pleasure you can watch Tom delay take out Nancy Pelosi, and hopefully a few more of the leftist traitors in the house.
I'm sorry sir. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.