I've been busy writing up the business plan for my website (www.netcultpolitics.com), and have come to a surprising conclusion:
I am not a Liberal.
during my research, I had to do answer some fundamental questions about the American political marketplace. And one of the questions I had to ask was, first of all, what is a Liberal? (And, more importantly, what is a Conservative?)
"Liberal" can mean many things. A liberal used to mean a Communist, back in the early part of the century. After World War II, however, that changed; American communism fell apart. After that, Liberals were people who agreed with the F.D.R. tradition, following the lead of the Great Society. But the Great Society had a rotten core because, while it supported domestic improvements for the common man, it also supported imperialism and war, implicit racism, and big business. This is where Liberalism shot itself in the foot. When the civil rights movement came, as it inevitably would, along with the (also inevitable) anti-war movement, Liberals fractured. And today, unfortunately, this legacy of Liberalism continues. This is why I say, I am not a Liberal. I am not a Lyndon Johnson Liberal, because I disagree with a) the Vietnam war and interventionism in general, b) selfish Capitalism, and c) racism.
When the Liberal movement failed, of course, conservatives immediately filled the vacuum. It was the same old story—racism, big business, and imperialism—but with the added feature of enhanced propaganda and an attitude of "screw the common man." (While I'm not a Johnsonian Liberal, I am certainly not a conservative.)
However, I think we are in the process of redefining what it means to be a Liberal. I, for one, do not fully associate Liberalism with Lyndon Johnson's tradition. I think Liberalism has more to do with being generous and letting people go their own way without interference. It's like Libertarianism, except with generosity—real, systematized generosity (i.e. welfare). In this sense, I definitely am a Liberal. I think we need this kind of politics. And its roots are everywhere. Our culture is filled with generosity. We have soup lines, food banks, the Salvation Army, the gospel, Buddhism—all kinds of generous potential. This potential has moral force. The conservatives may have political power, and economic power, and propaganda power, but Liberals in general have more moral power—at least, under my newer, updated definition of the word "Liberal."
So what does it mean to be a Conservative? Essentially, I think, it means that you are against regulation, but for laws. "Regulation" means laws that govern business. There are also other laws you do not support—laws regulating guns, and protecting the environment. Conservatism also means you support freedom from all kinds of interferences, but you think this freedom must be protected by military might. Finally, it means upholding traditions, especially the tradition of Democracy. I think a lot of these traits are admirable, and if we had people in office who lived up to these ideals, we wouldn't be so bad off. The problem is that Conservatives do not honor the rules. They follow the letter of the law, sometimes, but don't live up to its spirit. The purpose of Democracy is to preserve the freedom of individuals, which means they need deliberative freedom (i.e. freedom from propaganda) and political freedom (which entails representatives being held accountable to their public). On these two counts, the conservatives are lacking greatly.
Where do we go from here? Well, we have to stand for something. We have to uphold our true values as human beings. We have to capitalize on our potential for generosity. Liberalism, while under threat, will by no means die out, because things have changed enormously in history. Human beings have actualized their potential to be decent people to a great extent. With my values as my touchstone, I tend to think it is easier to redefine the word "Liberal" to reflect this than it is to redefine the word "Conservative," because of the damage done by the Heritage Foundation and all the others. That is why, in my own way, I truly am a Liberal.
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