What Does a Liberal Believe?

(Excerpt below from here)

Sometimes it is really hard to tell. I thought they abhorred gay-bashing, but look at Mark Foley. Fortunately, the Chicago Tribune offered us Geoffrey Stone's proposed definition of "what it means to be a liberal" in a recent op-ed.... Here are his ten principles, most of which almost anybody would aspire to, and which in Stone's estimation are predominantly adhered to by liberals. My responses include reference to material from the op-ed that further elucidates what he means by his principles.

1. "Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others".

Does Stone have a clue about the current political climate on college campuses? The hostility towards critics of affirmative action, defenders of Israel, supporters of George Bush, proponents of gun control, opponents of identity politics and a host of liberal sacred cows is palpable. It may be true that if conservatives were in the majority in academia they would behave the same way. But there is no way to find out, since the few that are there have mostly closeted their views.

2. "Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference."

He claims that liberals, and by implication liberals alone, continue to support the civil rights movement and affirmative action. But the civil rights movement of the sixties was not dealing with the same issues. In fact its purpose is very well summarized by President Kennedy's speech of June 11, 1963 where he declared, in response to a month of pro-integration demonstrations in Birmingham, "race has no place in American life." There is no way that the civil rights movement that ended legally enforced segregation was aimed at anything less than ending the practice of defining people by race. Much of what falls under the name of affirmative action, multiculturalism or diversity is aimed at putting it back.

3. "Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who support the expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting, "one person one vote", limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign reform; and a more vibrant form of free speech".

This is a selective reading of recent events. Certainly liberals are championing the cause of felons voting, opposing the use of picture identification on voter registration cards and making it easier for aliens to vote. These represent groups of voters who they have identified as likely to support their candidates. But they have also opposed the counting of absentee ballots of soldiers when it was in their interest and have of course aimed their voter registration drives primarily at groups of voters from whom they expect support. As for gerrymandering, one of the favorite liberal projects was the creation of majority African American congressional districts. The creation of these districts did in fact increase the number of African American members of Congress but also created more racial polarization and resulted in a net gain for the Republicans in Congress, a reason why Republicans were only too happy to go along with the racial gerrymandering.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind."

One of the rights that he asserts are supported primarily by liberals is the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. While it may be true that liberals are more strongly pro-abortion, there are plenty of conservatives who support it as well. Furthermore, his statement begs the question at the center of the abortion debate, namely, at what point does a fetus become a life? Professor Stone has nothing to say about that point. And there is nothing in his implicit dismissal of the pro-life opinion that a fetus is a human being that indicates that liberals have a great deal of respect for the opinions of others.

5. "It is liberals who believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people."

Sure, unless of course the accused are College Republicans, Duke Lacrosse players, Scooter Libby, a conservative candidate for tenure or a college faculty member accused of insensitive speech. For liberals, DNA testing is conclusive if it voids the convictions of minority accused felons but irrelevant if it exonerates privileged white students from dubious accusations of rape made against them. Liberals are also the champions of speech codes that make rules taking sides in disputes that involve people of different genders, race, ethnicity, abledness, sexual orientation, etc. Such rules stake out a group of protected classes and leave it to the imagination to presume that the others are unprotected classes. What do such laws have to do with the "equal protection of all people"?

*************************

ELSEWHERE

Good U.S. economic news: "The federal deficit fell to a four-year low in the budget year that just ended, a result President Bush pointed to Wednesday in claiming Republicans are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats. The administration said the deficit dropped to $247.7 billion - welcome news for Republicans struggling to keep control of Congress. Bush boasted he had made good on a 2004 campaign promise to cut the deficit in half over five years. "These budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work," Bush said.... The administration credits its tax cuts for the improving economy, contending they helped the nation withstand the 2001 recession, the terrorist attacks and corporate accounting scandals. The deficit narrowed sharply because revenues climbed by 11.8%, outpacing a 7.4% increase in spending. Administration officials said the actual 2006 deficit is down to 1.9% of the gross domestic product. They said that is below the 40-year average deficit of about 2.3% of the GDP"

Those damn WAMs: "White American Males make up about 1.6% of the world's population, but they are 6 for 6 in the Nobels this year. They just keep coming up with lots of good ideas, undermining the self-esteem of everybody else. Don't they know how insensitive that is?"

Rushdie: Veils for Muslim women "suck": "British author Salman Rushdie Tuesday joined the delicate debate about face veils for Muslim women saying they 'suck' and weakened a woman's position. The writer, who was the subject of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran in the late 1980s over his novel, The Satanic Verses, said he regarded the veil as a way of taking power away from women. Speaking in a BBC interview, Rushdie supported the position of Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secreatry, who last week sparked controversy with his comment that the veil was a 'visible statement of difference and separation. ... He (Straw) was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck -- which they do,' the Indian-born author said."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************