Am I a "L"iberal?

It’s happened again. I have been castigated with that most horrific of accusations, an insufficiency of conservatism. What, of course, my interlocutor meant with the question, “Or is she too conservative for you?” was, “You liberal patsy.”

I choose the word patsy because the context of that “debate” is such that I am being accused of not being enough of a realist to see what needs to be done (and the context of this is such that I shan’t go into detail about that conversation; suffice it to say most of those who read me frequently would find the argument painful, on a number of levels, but mostly for the substitution of jingoism for historical fact, and righteousness [and exceptionalism] for practical thinking).

Which got me to thinking, am I a “L”iberal?

I published a manifesto about my thoughts on this administration. I still think those things, and more besides, as the events of the day have played out since then.

But I don’t think anyone who reads that with an open mind can look at that and say it makes me a “L”liberal. (unless the real definition of “liberal is anyone who disagrees with Bush).

Am I a “C”onservative? No. The way in which those who espouse the doctrines of that particular faith are anathema to me. I really don’t have a philosophical problem with those who believe in, “fuck you, I got mine,” as political philosophy. Moral problems, you betcha. Political problems too, because I neither want me, nor mine, to live through “The Terror” of a Revolution led by the Have Nots against the Haves (and that may be part of why our Revolution was as peaceably settled as it was, a bunch of Haves rose up because a different bunch were saying they should have less. Less money, but more importantly less freedom. There’s some interesting stuff on that in 1491 which is about the Americas, before Columbus, but; you guessed it, I digress).

What I do object to, philosophically is the hypocrisy with which they’ve done it. They aren’t above board about it (and they never have been), which speaks volumes to me. It means they don’t think the American People will stand for their schemes if those people knew what they really were. Instead they co-opt, “values,” and imply that those who don’t go along with them on one thing (which they really don’t care about, personally, be it homosexuals getting married, abortion, mind altering substances, the right to die, name your crusade) and say that those issues are tied up, hand in glove with tax the poor, feed the rich; and the Devil take the hindmost; which is at the root of their social policies.

I have both conservative traits, and liberal ones. I joined the Army, in the guise of the National Guard, because there was something I wanted to conserve. I believe in the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution, enough that I was willing to risk, as the first of these said, “My life, my fortune, and my Sacred Honor,” to defend them. Being in the Guard that fortune part is more true than not as well. Guys who have businesses often lose them (or see them founder for years) if they get deployed. The Active Component often pisses me off when they say, “they knew what they were signing up for,” because it’s not true. World War 3 is what they signed up for, in that context, and that hasn’t happened, again I’m digressing.

So what do I want to conserve? A nation of laws, and a people who are equal under them. The right to be left alone (The Ninth amendment is probably the most significant one in the lot, fond as I am of the First, the Second, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Tenth. The Third isn’t really relevant, at the moment, and the Seventh has been; for good reason, put aside; sort of).

I believe no man is above the laws. We don’t have kings, or emperors, nor yet do we establish Tyrants to rule us in time of war. We elect a President, and a set of Counsels to him (in the Form of the Senate and the House) who are to advise him, and keep him to the better track. They approve his appointments, and ratify his budgets. They make the laws, which he is both limited by; and enjoined to enforce. He is, at most; and but for a term of years, primus inter pares. We have lost sight of that (Grant used to take supper in an hotel in D.C amd it used to be anyone could pull up to the White House and ring the bell. Try that today and the least one can expect it to be turned away. Make any insistence and a 48 hour psych eval is getting off lucky.

I believe the job of Gov’t is to look after the Nation. To mend the roads, mind the borders, defend the polity. I think there are things it can do better than the private sector; that among those are education, healthcare and evenhanded help for the poor. I think we shall always have the poor among us, but that we can level that field a bit. I think control of corporations (of which Adam Smith said we could be certain that were two businessmen meet in secret they are plotting some harm to the people) must be done by the Gov’t, because they alone have the means to peek into the dark corners and chase the roaches out with the light.

I think that having such controls, and a more level playing field is in the best interests of all, because it makes the American Dream possible. Where the field is too greatly tilted no one new can ascend the slope. A gap between the haves and the have-nots will always exists, but it need not be an institutional gap of 50/500/5,000 per cent. And it’s not unjust, nor immoral to make that the way the laws work.

We did that once. We had strong unions. We had a progressive tax structure which made it less desireable to reward the bosses with nine-figure salaries (they got perks; but when everything past a couple of million dollars in the paycheck was really a 90 percent gift to the Gov’t, well the companies found other things to do with the money, like pay workers more, invest in things like pensions, healthcare, new factories, R&D, charities). We spent money on education (the GI Bill, Pell Grants, Stafford Loans). We created programs to help keep the poor from being ground to death in their despair, and to ease the burdens of the elderly.

I believe we need to look at the ways we spend our public monies, so that the benefits go forward. Social Security did that, does that, and (unless we let them gut it) will do that; so long as we have the will to defend it

Social Security made the Sixties possible. Money that used to be spent to keep one’s parents out of the grave could now be spent to send one’s children to college. That made the kids of the fifties into the guys who went into “plastics” in the early Sixties. Who put men on the moon, gave us microwave ovens, transistor radios, pacemakers, cell-phones and Tang.

And we had those things (high taxes; sort of, strong unions, progressive policies) under Eisenhower, a republican, and we prospered.

I believe one should pay as one goes (that would be called “tax and spend” by those who oppose it) rather than mortgaging ourselves, and our posterity, with the costs of pointless borrowing from tomorrow to pay for the needs of today (that would be the present policy of, “spend and borrow") because either the things that are good will have to be abandoned (with all sorts of second, and third order effects) or a greater tax will have to be levied to pay the interest on the debt.

I think excessive borrowing compromises our ability to act independently, because there are foreign powers who hold our paper. The effects of that will be known only when they call in their chits (and for those who think they won’t, the word for the day is, Venezuela, whom we lent money too, and then dictated policy for. The result of that is Hugo Chavez. Whatever one may think of him, he is our creation; in that reaction to the second and third order effects of our impositions (via the IMF) is what put him in power).

I think freedoms beget freedom. That free people are willing to take risks. That those who are willing to take risks, because of freedom (instead of desperation ) will do great things. I believe that speaking out in dissent is noble; even when wrong. That no idea is so foul it cannot be heard, because in the end, when weighed, one against the other, the Truth will out.

I believe limiting freedoms, be those limits ever so small, makes men base and fearful. I believe that base and fearful people do base and loathsome things, because those who are oppressed think themselves mean creatures, and so not really capable of noble deeds.

I believe we have done more good than ill in the world (though the last fifty years have tried my faith) and that, if we can reclaim what we were; adding to that what we wish to be (for no age is truly as golden as it looks when the light is cast back upon it) we can do more good still.

But we have to hold onto what we believe.

If that makes me a “L”iberal, fine. I’ll wear that badge, and proudly. Because the company of men such as Jefferson, Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Truman, Eisenhower, the Kings (Martin Luther, Jr. and Coretta) Rosa Parks, and all those who marched with them, those are people I can point to with pride, Americans, one and all, my Equals, in the law, and my moral betters, whom I can only aspire to be remembered in comparison with.

If I can live for those ideals, then I can expect to hear, someday (though not while life and breath remain), “Rest, thou good and faithful servant."