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05/17/2005 To those on the radical right the word liberal has become a symbol of all that is evil. Republican politicians refer to liberals as stupid or wrong headed or unpatriotic, while Rush Limbaugh and his clones routinely demean liberalism and ridicule those who in their minds best represent the liberal viewpoint (i.e. John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and of course Hillary Clinton). Some tell liberals to leave the country, others (Sean Hannity) put liberalism in the same category with "despotism" and "terrorism," still others (Michael Savage) insist liberalism is a "mental disease." This certainly doesn't add to the civility that should characterize our political discourse nor does it help us solve our national problems. Millions of ordinary voters, in the meantime, accept this criticism with no critical examination. If their senator or representative, their pastor, or their favorite talk show host calls liberals unpatriotic or evil, they simply agree without ever having met a liberal or talked things over with a liberal or given themselves a chance to learn that liberals eat and sleep and breathe and work hard and fall in love and raise children and join the military and love America as much as they do. If asked their views on policies, they may actually agree with many ideas that liberals promote, as will be outlined below, but they call themselves "conservative" because it sounds so much better and because someone they listen to regularly says liberals are bad. (Some demonize liberalism because many liberals are pro-choice and don't condemn gays, but those are separate issues I will address below.) Who can argue with being conservative? It has such a nice ring to it. It sounds so civilized, so proper, so tame, so rational. The word liberal, on the other hand, has been associated, by people who either do not know history or are deliberately propagandizing for political reasons, with things like communism (which liberalism is not), or socialism (which liberalism is not), or "Hollywood" (even though conservatives love to go to movies), or sexual promiscuity (which has been quite conspicuous of late in conservative circles), or big government (which has certainly gotten bigger under a "conservative" administration), or fiscal irresponsibility (anybody looked at the deficit lately?). For purely political reasons, that is in order to attain power, those influential Americans who call themselves conservatives have trashed a perfectly good word that represents an honorable tradition in this country. It's really time for both liberals, who are on the defensive over their political philosophy, and conservatives, who are on the attack, to be reminded of just what liberals have accomplished over the years. It is liberal legislation that is responsible for ending child labor, creating a minimum wage, a 40 hour work week and the concept of overtime pay, and protecting the rights and safety of workers. It was liberal legislation that created the progressive income tax. Liberals proposed and supported the interstate highway system, a huge government project that has not only made it easier for us to drive across the country to visit relatives and friends, but has been a boon to interstate commerce. Wal-Mart could never have been as successful without the interstate highway system. Liberals are responsible for environmental legislation that has reduced smog, cleaned up rivers and lakes and protected forests. Liberals created Social Security, Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, which allow the elderly and the poor to live in dignity and to have their basic health needs met. Liberalism is responsible for the civil rights movement and civil rights legislation (yes, some democrats from the south opposed civil rights legislation, but while democrats in name, they were definitely not liberals.) Liberals also gave women the right to vote. Liberals are also proponents of the public school system, scientific research funded by the government, and legislation to regulate businesses that can affect the public health or well being (eg. electricity and food production). The list goes on and on. Whenever there was a conflict between the demands of corporations and the good of the citizens, liberals were on the side of the citizens. Whenever "small government" conservatives wanted to stop a government program that helped the unfortunate, liberals fought against them. That is not socialism or communism or treason or a mental disease; that is kindness and common sense. That is looking after the common good, which is what leaders ought to do in a democracy. And these policies of liberals have created a civil and prosperous society and served us well for many decades. Not only that, but I believe that most ordinary Americans who call themselves conservative or republican, and who think of liberals as somehow dangerous, would themselves embrace all of the above legislation if they had a chance to vote on it. Yet they have been convinced that to be conservative is to be somehow better, more patriotic, more sensible, more godly. So let's look at what conservatives stand for as well as what they have accomplished in recent years as they gained ascendancy in the political arena. Conservatives, intellectually at least, stand for small government, low taxes, privatization of nearly everything, and deregulation and protection of business. Increasingly, they have also been anxious to exert military power around the globe and withdraw from treaties supported by the rest of the world. They would dismantle many government programs, including public education, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and what's left of welfare. They have the philosophy of rugged individualism and believe every man or woman should take care of himself or herself. The inability to take care of self is seen by the secular conservatives as a sign of laziness or weakness and by the religious conservatives as a sign of sinfulness or disfavor with God. This latter group justifies the enormous wealth of some as a reward from God for their hard work (even though most of the fabulously wealthy inherited their wealth or earned it through investments rather than hard work). As for policies, in just the past four years the conservatives in Congress and the White House have accomplished the following: Conservatives in power have made the federal government larger, both by creating the Department of Homeland Security and the new position of Intelligence Chief. These have added to the bureaucracy and the cost of government although it is doubtful they are doing any more to keep us safe than the other intelligence agencies already do. One thinks of the proverbial rearranging of deck chairs, or perhaps we could say painting and decorating the deck chairs on the Titanic. As a result of their wars and increased spending, conservatives have increased the federal deficit to its highest level in history, ensuring that our children and grandchildren will be impoverished by the taxes they will incur to repay it. Conservatives, with the help of a few duped democrats, have passed the No Child Left Behind Law, which gives the federal government more control over schools by basing federal aid on children's test scores. Because the government has failed to fund the law, schools are actually spending money just to get money, but there is no evidence that children are actually learning anything other than how to score well on a test. Conservatives have passed a new Medicare prescription drug bill, which is so complex most seniors will have a hard time understanding it, and may not even benefit from it. Because it prohibits the government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug costs, it is largely a giveaway to the drug companies. While it greatly adds to the deficit, it isn't really helping those it claims to help. Conservatives have lowered taxes in minimal amounts for the middle class and the poor but have reduced them in huge amounts for corporations and the wealthy. Consequently, the poor and middle class are actually worse off as they must pay higher fees for many services, have lost other services, and are assessed higher state and local taxes to make up the federal shortfall. These taxes have made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and thus the gap much wider between rich and poor. Conservatives have also passed a bankruptcy bill which will make it much harder for those who fall on hard times because of divorce or catastrophic medical problems to file bankruptcy and get a fresh start. This is a windfall for the banks and credit card companies who routinely hand out credit cards to anyone who has a pulse, and to some who don't (because of their solicitation practices, banks routinely offer credit card accounts to people who are deceased). Now credit card companies who irresponsibly and greedily offer credit cards to anyone and everyone, will be able to squeeze every last dime from even the dying and the destitute. Conservatives have presided over media consolidation which makes it more and more difficult to learn the truth about anything other than Michael Jackson's sexual habits, and are hell-bent on presiding over the privatization of Social Security, which if successful will eventually mean the end of financial security for the elderly, the disabled and the widowed. Our conservative president has dismantled environmental protections, opened forests up to commercial ventures, and dissed foreign governments even as he plans to increase the nuclear arsenal. He even insisted on a little preemptive war against a country that was no threat to us and has largely ignored the large numbers of dead and wounded even as he continues to ask for more money and more bodies to continue to mop up the mess he created. We could go on and on showing how conservative policies are pro-business (big business) and anti-citizen, and how they harm the common good. But ultimately we come back to the Bill Frist filibuster two-step. Frist, who wants to run for president in 2008, knows that he must keep the Christian conservatives happy. And we all know that what makes them unhappy are the two issues of gay marriage and abortion. They want to see judges appointed who will overturn Roe V. Wade and ban gay marriage in a constitutional amendment. Since Frist cannot get those judges confirmed unless he overturns the ability of the democrats in Congress to stop them from sitting on the bench (by using the filibuster), he will simply break the rules (there is a rule that requires a 2/3 vote to change a rule of the Senate) to change the rules. Frist is supported by many on the extreme right, including the Christian right, who want to see abortion made illegal and gays prohibited from marrying. It is, of course, legitimate to have strong opinions about these issues. Like many liberals, I have never approved of the practice of abortion, especially when it is done for what seem like selfish reasons. But at the same time I do not believe outlawing it will help us as a people. Women will still have abortions, only illegally and more dangerously, while others will suffer terrible health problems and possibly even die from the pregnancy itself. Outlawing abortion will not solve any of the problems that lead to unwanted pregnancy: teenage sexual behavior, rape, incest, molestation, lack of access to birth control, lack of information, poverty, addiction, and relationships in which women have no say regarding their own sexuality. In addition, the animosity and argument will not end, especially if one or the other party use power tactics to get their own way. There are valid differences of opinion with respect to the legality of abortion and somehow we must come together, have more respectful discussions, and find solutions we can all live with. As for gay marriage, the psychological complexities of people's attitudes towards homosexuality are beyond the scope of this essay. I will reserve a discussion of that for a later time. But for now I will simply ask this of those ordinary Americans who call themselves conservatives. Is it really worth losing Social Security and perhaps Medicare, is it really worth paying more in fees and local taxes because of tax cuts for the rich, is it really worth destroying the environment and losing media diversity, is it really worth enslaving your children with debt, is it really worth destroying our public schools, is it really worth sending your sons and daughters to die in foreign lands..... just because you can't stand the thought of two men or two women falling in love and you want to make certain they never have the legal status of marriage that you have? Is it really worth all of that? -Ellen Terich All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com |