"Liberal" Is Not a Dirty Word [View all]

[Left Turn Only]

Of the many colorful words that come to my mind when thinking of conservatives, dumb is usually not one of them. In fact, the way in which the rhetoric of the political right targets the mainstream's thoughts and slips away without anyone seeing a source to shoot back at is a constant source of amazement to me. A good example of this is how so few Americans in a recent poll knew next to nothing about the Affordable Care Act except the lies promulgated by the Republican think tanks; this stealth rhetoric is responsible for qualifiers such as "tax and spend" and "bleeding heart" that are on the lips of most Americans when the word "liberal" is brought up. While everyone knows that President Obama has increased the national debt more than anyone before him, few people seem to know that President Reagan, the conservatives father figure, increased the national debt more than all the previous administrations combined by initiating the largest military build up the country has ever seen in times of peace. And, while we were at war during the Bush years (and we won't even get into the efficacy of those decisions), cutting taxes while spending those prodigious amounts of money, which doubled the debt once again, was a strange form of economics, to say the least, but the American people castigate Obama for wanting to raise taxes back to levels before the Bush fiasco. The point of all this is that no one is calling the Republicans "spend and spend" conservatives, and only liberals get a derogative name tag.

The adroit verbal maneuverings of conservatives have to be admired even beyond the economic arenas with the "bleeding heart" label, which elicits feelings of disgust toward those on the left. Notice how it is a bad thing to take an active interest in the disadvantaged in our society but a good thing to say "I've got mine, now, you get your own." In today's political climate, candidates have no qualms saying they are conservatives, while others are bending over back-wards to prove they are not liberals. And, while the cut-throat politics of capitalism have to be as far from the the teachings of Christ as a Satanic ritual, even most Christian groups are proud to call themselves conservatives.

The main difference between conservatives and liberals in not how much money each spends, but what the money is spent on. Should we cut money on Welfare and Social Security programs while we spend billions on corporate welfare? The true strength of a country comes from within, and I do not believe the market place can or will solve our deepest social inequities, but please forgive me -- I'm a liberal.