Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us.
–Dan Quayle
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I don’t know why I used the quote above from Dan Quayle except that it made me laugh when I stumbled across it. This has been a particularly long and tough political season and Quayle’s clueless words made me step back from it a bit. Though I consider myself an independent, I am definitely liberal in my political leanings and always have been . There have been points in my life, especially now in the time of the ideologues, when liberalism has been portrayed as some sort of anarchistic/atheistic/communist movement with the word liberal being thrown about as an insult. That bothers me because I have always been proud of the accomplishments of those people who came before me who carried the banner of progressive thought with honor.
They were extraordinarily brave people who spoke out against the outrages of the day that stood in direct contradiction to the liberal belief in equality and liberty for all. They were the abolitionists of the 1800’s fighting the heavily moneyed institution of slavery. They were the suffragettes who fought so that women might have voting equality and the union organizers of the early 1900’s who fought for safer working conditions and fair pay and against child labor. They were the people who stood against the Fascists in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They were the ones who marched and died so that civil rights were for everyone.
They were the people who sought to clean the stains of these inequalities from our flag and in every case they came up against conservative opposition. There was always a group who tried to maintain the status quo, to protect against what they felt was an attack on their America, even though their America was one based on injustice and inequality. Can you imagine an America without these ideals that Liberalism has championed, a world where the conservative thought of the day had somehow persevered ? Sure, it’s easy to say that slavery would have ended or that women would have received the vote anyhow on their own but there was no guarantee. Just the fact that it took until the 1960’s that a hard won Civil Rights Act was enacted is proof of that.
Think how your own life might be different without liberal thought and action. I can guarantee you that it would not be a better life or a better world.
Damn right, I’m a Liberal.
Redtree Times 