Why I'm Still a Liberal

[dweller]

by Clay Evans

I am, in most things, liberal because to my mushy eyes, the American "welfare state" has been (mostly) a success.
Not a big fan of government, but a believer that some things are best done together, rather than individually.

History is quite clear about what happens when the "haves" don't bother to take care of the "have nots," or even the
"have somes": Rule by the rich, the few, who will, eventually, lose control, often violently.

But as diehard conservatives insist we move from America's New Deal ethic into Ayn Rand Adventure Land —
minimal taxes; everyone out for themselves — I can't imagine why they think our (far from perfect) system has been
so awful.

After all, since Roosevelt, the United States has won the only war that really mattered, blasted into the economic
stratosphere, raised standards of living, cultivated the middle class (that powerful antidote to pluto-oligarchy),
become a technological Godzilla, and built the most dominant (if excessive) military in history.

Gee, what a trainwreck.

dp

[Goblinmonger]

1. I think I am still a liberal

because I would have to shoot myself if I was a conservative prick.

[carnie_sf]

4. If you didn't

I would have to shoot you.

[Goblinmonger]

6. I've put that in my living will

Make sure you carry out my request.

[Tux]

2. I'm still liberal

Because of the sociocultural and environmental advances liberals had made.
Multiculturalism.
Clean water and air.
Public transportation and public broadcasting.
U.S. Consitution
Bill of Rights
Public education
Fair trade
and the list goes on.

[zbdent]

3. Remember, it takes only one person receiving welfare who isn't qualified

to make it a failure and should be destroyed.

Yet numerous failures, errors, and downright lies led us to this war/pResidency, and the same people who would abolish any social help will defend W and Company to the death (of someone else) . . .

[OneBlueSky]

5. and for a contrasting viewpoint . . . "Leaving the Left" . . .

Leaving the left: I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity
by Keith Thompson
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, May 22, 2005

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/22/INGUNCQHKJ1.DTL

Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/22/INGUNCQHKJ1.DTL