Last night, I had an interesting conversation with my boyfriend's dad and brother. My boyfriend's dad is a moderate democrat and the brother is just plain confused. When the dad asked his son to "define liberal" he stuttered himself into embarrassment.
I've noticed the word "liberal" is spit out by conservatives and other whiners on a regular basis, as if it is some sort of dirty word. So, I thought that I would spend some time today defining the word liberal and imparting some true meaning to the term.
Robert Reich, former labor secretary in the Clinton administration, wrote a book called, "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle For America." I bought it at a particularly depressing moment after George W. Bush's second election victory.
Reich defines liberalism as the original ideals that animated this country's founding fathers. First and foremost, it is the idea of improving the well-being of all people, not just the rich and priveleged. Liberalism stands for an economic system that betters the lives of average working people, and for a democracy that gives voice to the little guy. That liberal tradition animated American abolitionists of the nineteeth century who fought against slavery. It inspired suffragettes who demanded that women have the right to vote. And it motivated civil rights workers who put their lives on the lines for equal rights.
American liberalism has saved capitalism from its worst excessses, moving reformers to stand firm against monopolies and political corruption. Liberals have always stood in sharp opposition to fanaticism and violence, against religious bigotry, and national zealotry.
THIS IS THE KEY IDEA: This profound insistence that Americans are all in this together, this search for practical reforms to make democracy and the economy work better for average people, this bulwark against bigotry and fanaticism, this smart internationalism, this demand for decency and tolerance, THIS is the true, robust liberalism, not the current paranoid delusion of the sixties left.
That is true liberalism to me, and one reason that I am proud to call myself a liberal. My thanks to Robert Reich for allowing me to borrow his eloquent words to explain the concept.
I also want to point out that the absence of the liberal ideals and dialogue has skewed our country to the point that it is now. Run through the list above and see if you agree that we've gone down the wrong path in many ways.
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