Posted on 03/03/2005 10:05:56 AM PST by MikeEdwards
"Liberty has never come from the government.... The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
Woodrow Wilson has often been called a Liberal. But Wilsons brand of liberalism had its focus on opportunities and personal development, not government control.
When I was in college, back in the 1990s, I already knew that it made more sense to be a Conservative than a Liberal. But there was still a lot I didnt know. One day in class, I criticized somebody as being a "classical Liberal."
My professor, being more astute than I, immediately asked me for the definition of a classical Liberal. When I fumbled for an answer, and eventually got it wrong, he taught me something I didnt know. A Liberal was once what we call a Conservative today. For example, both Adam Smith and John Locke were known as Liberals in their day.
That moment was embarrassing for me, but enlightening. It is very interesting to observe how definitions change over time--usually because somebody co-opts a good word to advance a bad agenda. Like using "choice" as a euphemism for infanticide, or "diversity" to promote unnatural sexual deviance, or "tolerance" to legitimize heresy.
Thats exactly what has happened with the word Liberal. Being "liberal," in historical terms, is actually a good thing. The problem is, Democrats have perverted and changed its meaning. (This is a familiar pattern with Democrats.)
What do you think youll get if you go to Google and search: "what is liberalism?"
Here are two definitions of "liberalism" that I found on the Princeton website:
1. a political orientation that favors progress and reform;
2. an economic theory advocating free competition and a self-regulating market.
Wow! . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Well, that's a about as "nice" as you could put it.
Is it just me, or is every conservative "nicer" than I am?
The one thing all lefties have in common, whether they are American, European, Chinese, Cuban, Russian, communists, socialists, democratic socialists, pacifists, animal rights activists, marxists, Trotskyites, or just plain ol modern liberal... is that they all share the same moral concept.
Their idea of justice being served is when a member of a "traditionally oppressed" group wins out over a member of a "traditionally oppressor" group. That is it. That is the essence of the leftist.
Western civilization was founded on a different moral construct. We believe that justice is served when a person doing right in a given situation, prevails over those doing wrong.
All of the strife, confusion, and struggle over the last several decades in the west has come from the fact that the cultural elite have embraced the moral structure of the left and tried to impose it on a civilization with traditions and institutions designed on the assumptions of a completely different moral structure.
As a result we have judges overiding legislatures and making up laws. Our courts are clogged with silly matters they were not designed to, and therefore not able to adjudicate. Our legislatures are busy trying to "right past wrongs" of people who are no longer with us.
And it is all for the children.
As my "Tagline" says
This just in... the Pope is Catholic!
And that is why I call them dem-lib-socialists! Although, I might have to add "communist" onto the label if things keep going as they are!
Case in point: Last week, an email went out at my law school asking folks to show up at the local TacoBell to help the travelling migrant workers boycott/protest there (they're on a 100 city tour). The email request was accompanied by a Washington Post article on the topic. The workers were protesting poor working conditions and low wages from the Imolakee FL tomato growers.
I replied to the email to the entire distribution list, noting that both the article and the protest organizer admit that:
1) TacoBell has done nothing wrong,
2) TacoBell does not have the authority to make the growers change their policies,
3) TacoBell offered to pay $110,000 to help the workers (it was refused because, the protestors said, they had no way of knowing if it reflected the proper amount they "owed" and they had no way to distribute it to the workers who were harmed)
The article also noted that:
4) Yum! Brands Foods (TacoBell's supplier, which actually buys the tomatoes from the growers) also owns Pizza Hut, which uses FAR more tomatoes per serving than the typical TacoBell meal. Why not bother them instead?
Aside from the article, I added:
5) The local TacoBell is indepently-owned, and has even less to do with the FL growers. (growers sell to Yum!, who sells to TacoBell, who sells to the local restaurant)
6) The proper channels for such claims lie within the branches and agencies of government, not in the drive-thru lane (the article noted several successful efforts at improving workers' conditions and punishing illegal acts of growers... all of which were handled by police, the judicial system, and legislation)
7) Boycotting TacoBell could reduce demand for TacoBell, which would reduce the demand for the migrant farmer's work product, thus reducing jobs and/or wages for the "victim" farm workers.
8) Bothering people who are simply trying to enjoy their meal in peace is no way to promote "social justice".
9) This could even be a corporate extortion scheme, since they threaten to disrupt TacoBell's business unless they pay more money.
(I intentionally refused to raise the immigration status of the workers, but national origins were also mentioned in the aricle)
The main elements in the replies I got were "offensive", "ignorant", "evil a$$hole", "schmuck" and "disrespectful"... not a one addressed any of the points I raised. I confronted their zealous belief that the victim group should be paid-off by the "oppressor" group, and they railed, but could not rebut. You are spot-on correct.
I always thought he was Polish.
I have been reading David Horowitz's books, most recently Unholy Alliance and The Politics of Bad Faith, as he tries to look into the mind of these socialists(who call themselves progressives.) Progressive is correct in the sense that they still have the dream of a man made "Heaven on Earth" where everyone (who the government doesn't end up having to kill) has 'equality'. Of course every attempt at this in history has failed and created an ugly mess and mostly misery. Here's my little post on this subject with a actual amusing example:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1345213/posts
First off he gives two quite accurate definitions of "liberal." Definitions that he shows to be in wide use today. Then he calls for the reader to "think" about them in "modern terms for a movement." But that is not what he offers. Instead, he selects a particular group of "new-self styled Liberals" and presents them as being the only kind of Liberals found in the "Democratic Party of today." Which they are not.
He then jumps from his specific (liberals in the Democratic Party), to the general by stating that "Liberals of today are the complete opposite," of those who identify with the ideas found in his second definition of liberal that he had already set out as having wide use today. Instead of attempting to deal with his irony, he changes subject and moves on to defining "socialism."
Then in summarizing his position, he puts forth the the obscure terminology "classical liberal" to replace to replace the well established word "liberal" in total disregard for the widely understood definition of the latter, which he himself proves with his Google search. And then he uses this narrow illogical insight, to state that "today's Liberals are really Socialists. Never mind what his own google search says, and worse, never mind what a dictionary says.
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