With the United States more and more divided between political leanings between the right and the left, it seems important for a loyal American to take a stand on whichever side he or she resides.
My stand is as a liberal in the truest sense of the word. There are good and historical reasons I embrace liberalism.
The main reason I am liberal is because every political position I hold has a solid base in the United States Constitution. It should be remembered by all that this nation was founded by freethinking, progressive, intellectuals (i.e. liberals), who were formed by 18th-century Enlightenment, and the nation continues to reflect liberal ideology in its Constitution.
The Revolutionary War to gain freedom from Great Britain was the product of liberalism; conservatives of the day ~ then known as Tories ~ opposed the Revolution, even going as far as abandoning America to take sides with Great Britain. Some even served in the British military during that war. The most-famous Revolutionary-era American Tory or Tory sympathizer whose name is remembered today is Gen. Benedict Arnold.
Conservatives opposed the US Constitution when it was written, many at the Constitutional Convention refused to sign the document before it was submitted to the people for ratification. After ratification, many conservatives then opposed the Bill of Rights. Liberals supported both.
Conservatives tried to divide the nation, starting the Civil War to preserve slavery in the South. Liberals saved the union.
Conservatives opposed labor rights in the 20th Century just as they have opposed civil and equal rights, voting rights for all, privacy rights. Liberals championed all those rights.
Conservatives should be resisted because they want:
* Government to regulate reproduction through abortion laws; and when those laws fail in court, right-wingers try other laws to regulate the speech of pregnant women, their care providers and advisors. (Regulation of reproduction is found mainly in Communist China and the Mideast; it is not a feature of Western civilization.)
* To regulate other persons' speech, especially of homeless persons publicly begging for handouts, just as they regulated political speech during the anti-communism hysteria of the Cold War.
* Regulation of matters of thought with silly anti-communism laws and actions that punished people for thinking differently from the majority (i. e. the McCarthy era and its resultant Blacklists).
* To regulate associations or gatherings, as they did during the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s ~ even going so far as implying the Constitution's provision for equal rights is communistic.
* Government in the spiritual lives of Americans by using public schools to conduct religious services. (The political right constantly argues that public schools are incapable of delivering a decent education to children, but then wants the same schools to provide spiritual guidance.)
* Governmental control of some Americans' love lives through regulation of sexual preference ~ most Righties want government to punish homosexuals for demonstrating love for each other. Right-wing politicians regulated personal relationships in the past by outlawing the marriages of blacks to whites (mostly in the South), Caucasians to Asians (mostly on the West Coast) or other mixed-race unions.
* To regulate how we die. Examples are the widespread approval by Righties of Michigan's imprisonment of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who became famous assisting people who decide for themselves they want to die, and the never-ending quest of the right to overturn Oregon's Death With Dignity Act that allows physician-assisted dying for terminally ill Oregonians, and which was repeatedly put into place by the people themselves. (The state government's power to control medicine may be restricted to regulation of commerce, so it is questionable if it has jurisdiction in noncommercial matters such as suicide, assisted or otherwise.)
In 1993, a Righty politician in Oregon claimed she wanted to fight crime by having government compel all Oregonians to have a gun and ammunition in the home, just as Kennesaw, Ga., did 12 years earlier, even though governments usually do not have powers to force citizens to take such actions. The right supported sheriffs in some Western localities in 1996 when those law-enforcement officers challenged the Brady Law's requirement that sheriffs conduct background checks for criminal records of would-be gun buyers but have argued for years that local school administrators enforce federal immigration policies by denying education to children of illegal immigrants, even if the children are United States citizens by birth, and such action would subvert the Constitution's principle of equal protection of the laws for all persons that the Fourteenth Amendment requires of all governments below the federal level.
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Thomas Bonsell is a former newspaper editor (in Oregon, New York and Colorado) United States Air Force cryptanalyst and National Security Agency intelligence agent. He became one of American journalism's leading constitutional experts through years of study at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., and tries (without much success) to be patient with people who argue endlessly on subjects they have never studied. He is the author of "The Un-Americans: Trashing of the United States Constitution in the American Press", a critique of the mainstream media for ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of self-government. He left newspaper work years ago, disgusted at the direction the Fourth Estate ~ under the mismanagement of ineffectual, out-of-touch, can't-do executives ~ was taking away from honest responsible journalism and the observation that there was no place in the mainstream media for a progressive, or liberal, constitutional "expert". Bonsell is an honors graduate of Woodbury College (Los Angeles, California) with a bachelor of business administration degree. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America. (Self-portrait, above, was handled to make author/artist appear prettier than he actually is.)
Personal motto: Have brain; will use.
You started out great, and your conclusion was good. But in the middle you fell to the trap that too many of us do. You stated a dozen things you are against in the opposition party.
I am a confirmed centrist. There are things I like about both parties. And there are things about each party that I despise.
I believe in individual responsibility and in a government's responsibility to protect the weak. Persons should not be punished for who they love nor be punished for achieving success.
I'd love to see how you would re write that without mentioning anything about the opposition party.
David Nelson
by
David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments)
on Friday, May 18, 2007 at 12:36:09 PM
I include the positions of political conservatives to draw a distinct comparison between the liberal and conservative beliefs. Sometimes that may not be necessary, but in the modern world we keep hearing people, who claim to be middle of the road or independent, say there is "no difference " between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
With the majority of hard-right conservatives grouped into the Republican Party and most liberals in the Democratic Party, there is a distinct difference between the two and I feel liberals ought to be out there shouting about the differences.
The hard-right arises every few decades to threaten our democratic republic and we are in the midst of the latest threat.
The far right threatened the union in the War of Independence, The Civil War, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights struggle and now in the Reagan-Bush-Bush realm. Liberals need to take the lead to push back against this latest threat, therefore I include a comparison of liberal and conservative for good reason.
by
tabonsell (29 articles, 0 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 249 comments)
on Friday, May 18, 2007 at 5:37:26 PM
David, my bet is that he cannot write a column that does not include irrational rage and criticism of "the other side". My bet is that he cannot write a column that does nothing but give the positive aspects of his beliefs and nature.
After quickly reading the column here, I find so many generalities and negative statements about "the other side" and yet nothing to back up his positions whatsoever.
I admit, I have not carefully read the entire column, but I will later tonight when I have the time and I will give my thoughts about it then. Because the way I see it, I'm not sure this guy really knows what a liberal and a conservative is today.
I will say this, and I feel safe coming to this conclusion even though I have not carefully read the column. Mr. Bonsell seems to be saying that the Founding Fathers were liberal and that they wrote that liberalism into our Constitution. Now, I would not try and say that some positions held by some who call themselves liberal are not supported by the Constitution, but to say those that wrote and signed the Constitution were liberal, as in modern day liberalism, is a stretch too far and has already broken.
I'll be back later to give my response and to back it up. Unlike Mr. Bonsell, I will give my opinion and back it up with the relevant facts. As a Conservative, I actually think, instead of being run around and dominated by my feelings.
I get the impression that the writer is not as proud of his liberalism as he is hateful of Conservatism. Which, again, is why he could not resist the temptation to delve into Conservative bashing when he started out trying to "take a stand on whichever side he or she resides."
Be back later.
by
Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Monday, May 21, 2007 at 12:18:13 PM
Anger and introspection not necessarily mutually exclusive
Thomas,
I agree that the hatred seems to be more prevalent on the left right now, but did you notice the hostility towards Clinton when he tried to allow gays to serve in the military?There were an awful lot of hateful right-wingers marching and screaming at him.That anger carried over until it spilled into the Lewinsky affair (pun intended).
I have marched in the streets for several issues and understand the feeling that drives people to chant angry slogans.I’ve been out there for the homeless, for AIDS research, for verifiable voting machines, for equality for gays and for the FairTax.In most of those cases, the anger is born from the fact that the people in charge (left or right or both) are either blatantly doing something to oppose our cause or just not listening.
My point in my first comment is that we need a combination of angry slogans and thoughtful consideration of one’s own positions.
David
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David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments)
on Friday, May 25, 2007 at 1:17:47 PM
David, another possible answer to your question...
“That people on the political Left have a certain set of opinions, just as people do in other parts of the ideological spectrum, is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the Left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred. Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the Left, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is a way of life. How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans? How often have conservative students on campus shouted down a visiting speaker or rioted to prevent the visitor from speaking at all? The source of the anger of liberals, ‘progressives,’ or radicals is by no means readily apparent. The targets of their anger have included people who are non-confrontational or even genial, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. It is hard to think of a time when Karl Rove or Dick Cheney has even raised his voice, but they are hated like the devil incarnate. There doesn’t even have to be any identifiable individual to arouse the ire of the Left... If it is hard to find a principle behind what angers the Left, it is not equally hard to find an attitude. Their greatest anger seems to be directed at people and things that thwart or undermine the social vision of the Left, the political melodrama starring the Left as saviors of the poor, the environment, and other busybody tasks that they have taken on. It seems to be the threat to their egos that they hate. And nothing is more of a threat to their desire to run other people’s lives than the free market and its defenders.” —Thomas Sowell
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Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Monday, May 21, 2007 at 12:35:35 PM
Perhaps you and Thomas Sowell have closed your eyes to reality far too long.
I remember the right gather in the streets and in front of school buildings to scream their heads off, launching racial slurs and death threats at little black children trying to attend public schools.
I remember the right using police forces and sheriff departments to assault and bludgeon civil-rights proponents for requesting that state governments obey the Constitution of the United States and honor the equal rights the Constitution had promised for a century to protect, just as they did when American workers sought decent pay for the wealth they created for the privileged.
I remember the political right murder numerous persons for seeking those rights for others.
Political righties have always hooted and hollered down those they disagree with.
Your claim that the left is the source of hatred and hostility is blatantly false. See:
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