Liberal And Proud

[poliphilo]

I remember a time when "liberal" wasn't a bad word.

And I've never understood how we got to this present situation where politicians of both left and right use it to smear their opponents.

Here's how my Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines it.

Open-handed, generous, not sparing (of), abundant, (of persons, conduct, provision made etc); open-minded, unprejudiced, free from pedantry; (Pol.) advocating democratic reforms......

So what's not to like? I'm seeing a bowl full of scrumptious rosy apples- and you're telling me they're rotten?

I think there's some sort of mean trick being played on us here.

I'm a liberal. Or try to be- it's a high ideal. And I want to live in a liberal society.

Comments

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. How and who made this word an insult - the mystery that I am not able to unveil.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And what's even odder is that liberal people have accepted it and avoid applying the word to themselves.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I just got my Time magazine, and in "Notebook" there's a quote from Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He asserts that the country has plenty of "silent" Democrats, and says:

"Many of them don't say who they are anymore because the culture has said it's not socially acceptable to be a Democrat."

And the word "Democrat" equals "Liberal" these days in this red-and-blue country.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The whole western world seems to have taken a massive swing to the right. How and why did this happen? What's wrong with us?

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

What is wrong? We became complacent. And the Dominionist Christians used deceptive tactics to claim power. They turned the word 'liberal' into a perjoritave. Now, we're using 'progressive' because it has gotten so bad.

An Arkansas House member, whom I dearly love, was labeled 'liberal Republican' because she thinks for herself and doesn't always toe the party line. She fights with them all the time, poor gal. She tells me all the horrid details, and has convinced me that running for public office is the absolute last thing I'll ever do.

It's pretty sad, really.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I console myself by remembering how these things go in cycles. A period of reform is followed by a period of reaction- which will, in time, be followed by another period of reform.

Dig in and wait for the ice to melt.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Hey I use 'conservative' as an insult!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How about "neo-conservative"?

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Don't use language like that to me!

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, "liberal". As Phil Ochs used to say, "A liberal, ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally." Not that I necessarily agree, since I consider myself a liberal as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to be chary of calling myself a "liberal" because it didn't seem lefty enough. But now the left has disappeared and we liberals are next door to being enemies of the state.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Ah, the left is still alive and well in Sweden, and is still fragmented between those who want to keep the Vänsterpartiet (Left Party) name and those who want to go back to calling themselves Communists, which is subdivided into the Leninists and Stalinists, of course.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Leninists and Stalinists- how charmingly olde worlde!

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Isn't it, though? One almost expects them to put out a line of tea towels and clotted cream fudge next.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Stalinist tea towels- Dry your dishes on Uncle Joe's bristling moustache.

Or would that be a shooting offence?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I work with students - law students in particular, but I have contact with the undergrads. And I am surprised at how complacent and conservative they are. I took a Writing and Rhetoric class a few years ago and got into a BIG argument with one of the students (he was at the time a sophomore, I believe) Came from serious MONEY. He was talking about how he thought the internet should be censored. That made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.
"When I get old and get married - you know, about 40 or so..." (I was around 48-49 at the time) "I don't want my four or five year old to be surfing the internet and come across pictures of naked women."
I lost my temper..."What is your four or five year old doing sitting at the computer BY HIMSELF?" Blank look.
I often got into arguments with him in class...him and 98 percent of the other students. They were so willing to let the world pass them by. They thought Bill Clinton was a horrible President because of what happened with Monica L. One of them - Josh - went to the NAFTA conference and demonstrated (got three of his teeth knocked out too) and lived in one of the cardboard boxes on campus for awhile to illustrate what some people had to live like. I admired Josh. He was most certainly a liberal.

As for the other student? Well, he said something about the cardboard houses on campus, and how they looked 'icky' and should be taken down, because 'what will our parents think when they are visiting the campus?"

That was it. I lost my temper big time, slammed my fist on the desk and said "Maybe that you are learning something about real life, you REPUBLICAN." It was the worst insult I could think of at the time.

It still is, I'm sorry to say.

BTW, I got an A+ in that class.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When I was a student we didn't care what our parents thought.

"Mothers and fathers throughout the land
Don't criticise what you can't understand-
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
Your old road is rapidly agein'.
Get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a-changin'"

So much for that, I guess.

Congratulations on the A+!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I"ll tell you, going to college in 'middle age' is a whole lot different from going to college in your 20s. Your perspective is different.

And you know...the profs are usually inordinately grateful to see *old people* in their classes.

I love Dylan, and I love that song you quoted.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Liberal parents tend to breed conservative children, for some reason. I don't know why this is so, but it seems to happen a lot.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess its just the contrariness of youth.

Whatever mummy and daddy stand for- I'm against it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was naive.

The whole student protest thing was naive.

But we were right to march against the Vietnam war.

Why aren't today's young marching against the war in Iraq?

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

A lot of people I know have that "America is always right" mentality. It's intoxicating.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I thought (naively) that the Vietnam experience had rooted that out.

Seems like it's grown back again

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I've heard that each generations forgets...the good and the bad.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That seems to be the case.

Heigh-ho!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I think they should be marching against it too. But there are a couple of things...

first the armed services are ALL volunteer now. So there's no such thing as being drafted.

second, the thing about Vietnam went all haywire. So many of the veterans felt they never had any support back here in this country, so many of them were called terrible names for doing what they were ordered to do, that it seems *we* are tiptoeing around the whole thing. It's difficult to be against the war and FOR the troops...or at least so says my veteran father (78!) and my mother who knew many soldiers that went off to the war and didn't return.

So...I wear my yellow ribbon and hope for their return. I speak against the President having put them there...and do the best that I can do.
And to anyone who might read this who has a son or daughter overseas...I do support our troops. I do not support them being sent there.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I just call myself a socialist now - that usually shuts people up. They're going to think I'm a "loony" because I'm a liberal, so I might as well go all the way. Besides, I really do have socialist leanings.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to vote Labour.

Then along came Tony Blair and moved "my" party to the right. Now, on some issues, they're more authoritarian and illiberal than the Conservatives.

I'm terribly confused by it all.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Proof that politics is all just buckets of bilge, is what I think.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

It is...but it's bilge we have to deal with every day...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking this more and more. I went through a phase where I had an addiction to political news; now I'm easing back.

I've never lived any place where my vote made a difference. No matter who I vote for in the next election it's a done deal that the Labour candidate will win.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

In the ill fated election between Gore and the present Yahoo in the WhiteHouse, I asked the young man I was riding with at the time if he was registered to vote. He said he was, but he didn't intend to vote. I gave him the 'your vote counts, if you don't vote you don't have any right to complain...' lecture, and he voted. He voted for Gore (just as I did). And we all know what the results of THAT were.

I will give him credit, though, after he moved he did register, and he emailed to tell me I'd be proud of him, he voted in the last election.

But...I feel the same way you do. It isn't a race. It's obvious long before the election who is going to win, which I think might keep people away from the polls...I dunno. It makes me sad. I always vote, I believe enough to believe that it is IMPORTANT to vote, that it is my civic duty to vote. And then I hear the so called 'intelligent' folks say they won't vote because it doesn't make a different. If all the people who don't vote because it doesn't make a difference got together and voted, maybe it WOULD make a difference. What's it teaching the 'kids' if their teachers and profs don't vote - I think it's teaching THEM that their vote doesn't count...but


well, you get the idea.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's this word that's been cropping up recently and it bothers me.

"post-democratic".

There's a feeling over here (maybe over there as well) that our democracy isn't working any more. People aren't participating, the institutions are decaying, our leaders are getting to be less answerable to the people.

So what happens in a post-democratic world?

Will I like it?

As Churchill said, "democracy is the worst system of government there is- apart from all the others."

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

There's a feeling over here (maybe over there as well) that our democracy isn't working any more. People aren't participating, the institutions are decaying, our leaders are getting to be less answerable to the people.

If 'the people' don't elect them, then why should they be answerable?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a vicious circle.

And of course the people in power are delighted if no-one holds them to account.

[hepo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what I am.

In regards to what I believe would be best for the country I have a tendency to lean towards the benefits of a dictatorship.

HePo

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

With dictatorship you end up at the mercy of one man's whim.

Once in a while you get a benevolent dictator, but that's rare. In many cases the pressures and possibilities of absolute power drive the guy mad.

Dictatorship has a bad track record.

Stalin
Hitler
Mao
Saddam Hussein.....

Need I go on?