One of the most astonishing and frustrating things about American politics to me is the false pretense on which we talk about the varying levels of partisanship in the two major parties. Whenever one dares to condemn conservative Republican hyperbole and demonization of Democrats, it can be rest assured that within a matter of seconds some well-intentioned but blinded person will, under the facade of moderation, remind us that "it's equally bad on both sides"- except the fact that, well, it's not. Not only are solid Democrats not as aggressively partisan as their conservative counterparts, but they're afraid of even being called by their rightful name: liberal. It was on account of my undying frustration and bewilderment at this fact, that I was overjoyed when I stumbled across this video on YouTube a couple years ago:
I've never really watched the "West Wing" unfortunately (many of my friends have recommended it to me due to my love of politics), but this was a video worth re-sharing. I gleefully posted it on my Facebook page and shared it on the wall of a couple of misguided conservative friends of mine, overjoyed that some writer for that show (that turned out to be MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell) had so perfectly and eloquently expressed the very sentiments that I had been feeling all along. Why in the world are liberals ashamed to be called by their rightful name? Liberals are responsible for almost everything good that's ever happened in this country! Granted, Ronald Reagan was a great president in certain respects but otherwise American conservatism has a long track record of ignominy and shame- from John C. Calhoun's articulation of a "states' rights" theory of federalism designed to protect slavery and make secession possible, to Herbert Hoover's refusal in the face of the Depression to do anything to make the American peoples' lives any easier, Strom Thurmond's attempted filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, all the way down to George W. Bush's doctrine of preemptive invasion and staunch opposition to even basic rights for gay people such as myself.
Last night on his show, Lawrence O'Donnell made note of the wide circulation on Facebook of the headline photo for this article, and devoted the closing "Rewrite" segment of his show to explaining the quote, and his commitment to "rewriting" what the word 'liberal' has become in American politics. But aren't the conservatives the ones who have been doing the "rewriting"? Liberalism is and always has been the philosophy of freedom from arbitrary rule- whether that rule be by an absolute monarch, a Pope, a corporate baron, or a Soviet commissar. Indeed, liberalism is a coherent and timeless political philosophy, the core of which has remained the same for the past 300 years- unlike conservatism, often painted as its equal and opposite, though in reality it's more of a personality disposition hostile to change and/or new ideas than it is a coherent and consistent ideology like liberalism. The base purposes of these two schools of thought can be found in their very names- the word 'liberal' coming from the Latin word liber for freedom, while the word 'conservative' comes from the verb conservare, which means "to preserve." Liberalism stands for the principle of freedom- a principle which, though understood imperfectly and not applied universally by the earliest liberals (such as the American founding fathers) means freedom from arbitrary rule, government coercion, and to pursue one's passions and talents in life without fear of poverty or malnourishment for doing so- the latter of which is (or, rather, should be) guaranteed by a welfare state and education system funded by taxes collected in large part from those whom the liberal society has already benefitted beyond all imagination (i.e.- Mitt Romney). Conservatism, on the other hand, is merely centered around preserving the existing status quo- but such a principle is hardly universal in the same sense that freedom is. In the 18th Century, the things being "preserved" by conservatives were absolute monarchy, taxation without representation, and mingling of church and state. In the 19th Century (at least here in America), it meant guaranteeing the "rights" of slaveholders to keep their fellow human-beings in bondage. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, among other things, it has meant protecting the new aristocracy that has been created by capitalism, from being taxed or regulated- oh yeah, and denying people like me the right to get married. In the end though, I sleep easy at night, knowing that conservatives are just as sure to ultimately lose the battles they fight today, as they were to lose all those they've fought since liberalism arrived on the scene in the 18th Century Enlightenment- for ultimately, liberalism isn't the opposite of conservatism: it's its superior. Whereas conservatism only seeks to 'preserve'- an activity which will have very different ramifications depending on what exactly is being 'preserved' in the time and place you live, liberalism stands for the furtherance of certain universal principles everywhere, not merely a religious devotion to upsetting the status quo in the same way that conservatism seeks to defend it (the euphemism "progressive" though, does have that very connotation- one of the reasons that it absolutely infuriates me that American liberals often use that word rather than its more noble alternative). Liberals stand for freedom- to believe what you want, say what you want, and do what you want in life. It's about damn time we stop being ashamed of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment