Why I'm a Liberal

WHY I’M LIBERAL

                It must have been over a year ago when we all met after band practice at Steve and Setsuko’s lovely home on Hidden Valley Road for a potluck.  Sets is an excellent cook, and Steve’s tequila oysters were the highlight of the day.   This is what is considered the good life---where you can share your hospitality with good friends.   Steve is a retired Army Sergeant who played in the Army Band.

                We were warming up in the sun together, sharing stories of bands and bad entrances, when the conversation turned political.  There was only one other person of liberal persuasion in the crowd, so I girded myself.  Steve’s comment was that he thought Fox News was fair and balanced.  This comment made my neural pathways flare up, though I wisely didn’t jump into the conversation.   When I was asked specifically who my favorite newscaster was, I answered “Rachel Maddow”.  Nobody knew who she was, so I knew they didn’t watch MSNBC.  I did manage to voice my distrust for FN, but didn’t make a big show of it.

                Shortly after that, Steve sent out a mass email encouraging those of “us” who were dissatisfied with the government to consider what was going on with the Tea Party.  I’d already heard of it.  In fact, I’d just viewed a rap video of the black kid who was co-opted to rally for them.  My cynical reaction to that was “how much did they pay him?”  I’d already decided that the Tea Party wasn’t my cup, so I sent Steve a long email about why I was a liberal.  I was rooting for Barak Hussein Obama in a big way.  His had to be the hardest job on the planet, but I had faith in him.  This was shortly after the Reverend Wright controversy, I believe, and I strongly admired his speech in reply to those accusations.  Why weren’t people giving his policies a chance?  It started to look like a conspiracy to me, based on the “Birther” and the “Deather” arguments, which I thought would go away of their own accord, due to their lameness.  In addition, if the opposition were able to halt the policies before the results were in, they would render those policies ineffective.  Then, since they didn’t work, they could handily blame the President.

                I believe there are good points to be made for both liberal and conservative persuasions, and conversely, there are negative aspects to both.  If I were defending conservatism, I would point out the danger of overspending, and it would be hard to argue unless you could make an airtight case for a good return on your investment.  I would also argue that I earned it, so I should decide how to disperse it.  I can still be a giving, loving person who is full of charity, but it should be my call.  Entitlements are a drain on the system.  Corporations employ the masses, so the healthier they are, the better for the people who need jobs. 

                The point to be made for liberalism is that in order for human beings as a species to survive, they have to create societies that give mutual support.  We don’t have sharp claws or teeth, so we have to use our brains, and we have to work as a group.  We have to keep monitoring these pesky animal instincts that keep threatening to thwart the whole project of becoming human.  The unfortunate thing is that there are many representatives of the human race, both liberal and conservative, whose brains are their tool for aggression.  They lack compassion.  So there is a need to monitor, or “regulate’, to use the “R” word.  I see what is scary about regulation.  It impinges on freedom.  It can lead to fascism. 

                It isn’t all black and white, though.  Ideally, there should be a balance.  In reality it just keeps going back and forth (read Hegel—the part about his dialectic) like a pendulum.  If you have too much freedom, the balance tilts toward animalism, which is how I see Wall Street, Madison Avenue, and especially, the banks.  That can go that way for the weakest, as well, which would be your welfare scammers, etc. 

                So the point is to keep working on it until maybe one day we can find a balance.  Maybe someday we can figure out how to combine freedom with responsibility.  Or maybe that’s what Heaven is—where we all live together freely, and in balance.  Ideally, we could all be totally free, if everybody had a moral compass, but to make matters more complicated, most of us think we have a moral compass, when really we’re just justifying our own behavior.  This is called “self-righteousness”, and has been a terrible force over the ages.  I admit I fit into that category myself.  So, even being moral has to be monitored, as with separation of church and state. 

                For me, it boils down to this:  which is more of a threat to society, the welfare scammer, or Citibank?  I vote for Citibank, and their ilk.  So I depend on a responsible electorate and a system that keeps these ideals in mind.  Don’t know if that’s possible.  Liberals seem to come closer though.