What it Means to Be a Liberal – The Dependency of Democracy on Liberalism

[Time for change]

As the American oligarchy has progressively taken over our communications media over the past few decades, they denigrated the term “liberal” to the point where few politicians dare to publicly apply it to themselves. Some have turned to the term “progressive”, which means essentially the same thing as liberal but hasn’t yet been thoroughly denigrated by our corporate-owned media. Far worse than that, many others have adopted right wing talking points and ideas, which have done great harm to our country.

At the heart of what it means to be a liberal – from a political standpoint – is what we see as the role of government in the national life of its citizens. To explain the liberal view on this issue, it is probably easiest to first start with its opposite – the right wing view of so-called “Big Government”


The right wing view of so-called “Big Government”

It was Ronald Reagan who most successfully perpetrated the toxic myth – that still plagues our country today – that “big government” is inherently bad. In his First Inaugural Address (1981), Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Reagan also said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.’”

These Reagan statements about government are stupid beyond belief, and yet he sold that ideology to millions of Americans, rode it to victory in two presidential elections, and helped turn American politics sharply to the right for years to come. Those statements are stupid because, in a democracy the government is the people of the nation. The government is the entity that embodies the collective will of a nation’s people. It is the vehicle by which a nation’s people arrange to serve their needs. Without government we have anarchy and the rule of the jungle, as opposed to the rule of law.

Right wingers have a very good reason for demonizing so-called “big government” as inherently bad. That is an ideology perpetrated by wealthy elites for the purpose of abolishing government regulations that hold them accountable for their actions. The abolishment of environmental regulations allows corporations to pollute our air, water and soil and leave the American citizen to pick up the tab. The abolishment of regulations on the communications industry, such as was done with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowed wealthy elites to monopolize our communications industry. The abolishment of financial regulations allowed elite financial institutions to ruin our nation’s economy, stick the American taxpayer with the obligation to bail them out, and elude any accountability for their actions. When liberals or anyone else complain about this state of affairs, they’re accused by the American oligarchy of trying to impinge on their “freedom” or, alternatively they are accused of “class warfare” when they deign to suggest that corporations be held financially accountable for their destructive actions.

“I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud” – Alan Greenspan
Perhaps the absurdity of this ideology, and a crystal clear example of how it is meant to serve the interests of the American oligarchy, is best exemplified by Alan Greenspan, the radical right wing economist and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose ideas did so much to create our current financial crisis. Greenspan, so highly respected by our corporate-owned communications media for so many years, actually had the nerve to say “I don’t think there is any need for a law against fraud”. This would have been no big deal except for the fact that Greenspan and his fellow like-minded Wall Street moguls had the power to make that philosophy the predominant economic policy of the United States of America over the years leading up to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Greenspan’s antipathy to laws against fraud was also evident in his testimony to Congress, as when he argued against the need to regulate “over the counter derivatives” (OTCs), an extremely complex ‘financial instrument’, in the public interest:

Risks in financial markets, including derivatives markets, are being regulated by private parties. There is nothing involved in federal regulation per se which makes it superior to market regulation.

No, of course there is no need for a law against fraud. It is the wealthy, with their control over the financial institutions that impact so greatly on our economy, who have the opportunity to commit fraud on a grand scale. Poor people hardly have the opportunity to commit fraud. By getting “big government” out of the picture, by arguing that there is no need for them to exercise authority over corporate fraud, the road is paved for financial institutions to amass great quantities of wealth at the expense of the American people.


The liberal view of freedom – and government

Benjamin Barber, in an article titled “Toward a Fighting Liberalism”, explains the difference between the right wing and the liberal view of freedom:

The difference is that for liberals, liberty is public. Liberals believe that while private individuals enjoy a right to freedom, only citizens realize freedom by making laws for themselves. Humans are social by nature and live in relationships – families, neighborhoods and communities. We must legitimate our dependent relationships and render them interdependent through democratic institutions and government. It is citizens who are truly free. Consequently, government cannot be deemed an anonymous “them” or bureaucratic “it” that oppresses individuals. For in a democracy, citizens are government. Democracy is not opposed to but is the condition of our liberty. It enables citizens to be autonomous as well as to live under the moral and civic restraints imposed by self-legislation – the rule of law.

Taxation

Intimately connected to their antipathy to “Big government” is the right wing hatred and demonization of government taxation. To them, progressive taxation is primarily a way to steal their money and perpetrate class warfare against the rich. They would have a government that provides almost no social services, so as to preclude the need for the wealthy to pay taxes. They disguise their antipathy to social services by claiming to be primarily against government debt, which they claim is ruining our country. But they are not against debt at all. Whenever it comes to a choice between raising the national debt or taxing the wealthy, they choose raising the national debt every time.

In their eagerness to demonize any social services that would raise their tax burden, they not only raise the spectre of “big government”, but they question its constitutionality. They conveniently forget that the justification for a role of government in providing essential goods and services to the American people was established more than 200 years ago, in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which cites “to promote the general welfare” as one of the main reasons for our existence as a nation. Closely related to that purpose is the need to establish justice, secure the blessings of liberty and defend against crime (“ensure domestic tranquility”).

Barber elaborates more on the liberal view of taxation as a means for accomplishing our national purposes:

Taxation, far from being a bureaucratic scam to steal our hard-won earnings by some alien “them” or “it,” is the way citizens pool resources to do public things together they can’t do alone. Attacking the power to tax is attacking the power of the people to spend their money in concert to achieve important public goals, whether national defense, public education or social justice. The anti-tax ideologues pretend to protect us, but in truth they disempower us.

President John F. Kennedy’s statement on liberalism

President John F. Kennedy, who stood up to the military industrial complex as no other president before or since, made a great speech on the connection between liberalism, human dignity, and a democratic government’s role in helping its people to achieve their national purpose:

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas….

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate… I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others…. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it… And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them…

The liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them…

Kennedy then went on to explain how his political opponents attempted to denigrate liberal ideology. And then he summarizes what liberalism means to liberals:

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties – someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Conclusion – Liberalism as the equivalent of democracy

Benjamin Barber explains how the demonization against so-called “Big Government” has been used to perpetrate a class war (though he doesn’t use that term) of the rich against the rest of us, obstruct our national purpose, and destroy our democracy:

Here at home, the poor are being rendered invisible by endless rhetoric… that seems aimed at denying that real poverty exists; the banks that got us into our economic mess go unregulated, not even being required to lend out the enormous government handouts they received. The right-wing “no taxes” mantra is being tolerated rather than opposed by the president. And global warming? It’s so totally off the table that Al Gore has become one of Obama’s fiercest critics. It’s hard to turn people on to government when politics and plutocracy seem like synonyms, and harder still to sell democracy to Americans, whether liberal or conservative, when politics feels so fraudulent. When money talks, democracy goes silent….

And then he clarifies the equivalency between liberalism and democracy:

So to be a liberal today means to fight for more democracy, to fight against the corruption of politics by money and plutocratic special interests that delegitimize it in the eyes of wary citizens. But it also means fighting against that insidious “war on government” being waged by conservatives. Because that war is really a war against “we the people,” against all we share, and hence against democracy itself. Conservatives claim that democracy is ailing, and they are right. Yet as Jefferson said, the remedy for the ills of democracy is more democracy, while those who assail government are opting for less democracy, opting to suspend the social contract that undergirds our democratic civilization.

[LongTomH]

1. Brilliant as always!

And, once again you've given us some links that turn out to be great resources! Much thx!

[Time for change]

5. Thank you

[OHdem10]

2. Excellent, Hope many people read this.

When Republicans yip, this is not a Democracy, rather
it is a Republic, get very scared. While it is true
this is a Republic--it is all in the defining of what
is a Republic.

[defendandprotect]

3. Lovely -- and democracy is a liberal concept - from the left -- always fought by the elites ---

As some author put it, even at the time of the Constitution, elites underestood

that they had time to fight democracy -- they already had essential control of

government and its wealth and natural resources -- property.


And we have had regulat periods of RW/elite political violence when things weren't

going the way the elites/rw wanted them to go -- the establishment struck back.

In our own period of history we've had more than 50 years of RW political violence --

it's the only way they can rise -- assassinations, stolen elections and the wealth to

buy cover up their deeds.

[Time for change]

22. "assassinations, stolen elections and the wealth to cover up their deeds"

Absolutely -- and don't forget near monopoly control of most communications media.

[markpkessinger]

4. Great post! Regarding the "taxes are theft" meme...

... you might be interested in this article, titled "Tax can never be theft," which I came across a few weeks ago. Although it is written in the context of the UK, the principles of the argument apply equally well to the U.S.

[Time for change]

31. Thanks - Nice article

Right wingers ask for the impossible. They want government to do everything for THEM -- conduct its wars, bail the out of trouble when they're irresponsible, etc. But they don't think they should have to pay for it.

[Demeter]

6. Excellent Summary of the Economic/Political Box We Are Trapped Within

Now, how to get out?

[Time for change]

29. Benjamin Barber's partial answer to that is that

we have to be far less concerned about what the radical right thinks of us, and we should be very assertive in speaking out for what we believe in.

[Overseas]

7. K&R. Seems like national health insurance has been killed by the anti-tax dogma.

Even though having the government pay for health insurance would help the bottom line of so many businesses, so I'd expect them to support it, the larger motivation of demonizing taxes and government seems to have been more important than our national health security and basic compassion.

They know that if our taxes paid for something as important as free or very low cost medical care, we wouldn't mind paying taxes as much, and might come to understand that sometimes government can do things more efficiently than the profit-driven private sector.

Even the clear facts of Medicare's 3 to 5% overhead vs. privatized healthcare's 25% after the Bush Crash had bankrupted so many people wasn't enough to overcome the corporate cash that had kept Americans from getting national health insurance for decades after most other industrialized nations had done it.

[Time for change]

30. You're thinking a lot like Paul Krugman

This is what he said in his book, "Conscience of a Liberal":

The principal reason to reform American health care is simply that it would improve the quality of life for most Americans…

There is, however, another important reason for health care reform. It’s the same reasons movement conservatives were so anxious to kill Clinton’s plan. That plan’s success, said William Kristol, “would signal the rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy” – by which he really meant that universal health care would give new life to the New Deal idea that society should help its less fortunate members. Indeed it would – and that’s a big argument in its favor…

Getting universal care should be the key domestic priority for modern liberals. Once they succeed there, they can turn to the broader, more difficult task of reining in American inequality.

[Overseas]

35. Medicare for All as the Democratic people's bailout in response to the Bush bailout of Big Finance

way back in 2009 would have been a great way to seize the mandate for change that voters had given our president.

Even if Democrats knew it wouldn't pass, it sure would have been great to see it fought for much more vigorously back then.

Democrats knew way back then that the Republicans' primary objective would be to defeat all their best ideas.

Sad that campaign cash was already more important than democratic values and they needed to do the demoralizing bipartisan posturing to try to obscure that reality.

[Octafish]

8. End of the Fairness Doctrine and the Rise of the Right

With the end of the Fairness Doctrine, Corporate McPravda was free to dump Flushbo down America's ears 24/7/365(6).

----------------

ABC and the rise of Rush Limbaugh

EXCERPT...

Capital Cities was born in 1954, and rapidly prospered. Many of its founders had previously worked in the U.S. intelligence community and had a great amount of wealth, social contacts and influence in government. Yet they opted to keep the company's actions out of the public eye -- they did not flaunt their wealth with private planes and lavish offices the way so many successful companies do. Just exactly how well-connected Capital Cities was to the CIA is unknown, but it is clear that the CIA concerned itself with the company at various times. The fact that the CIA has often used private businessmen, journalists and even entire companies as fronts for covert operations is not only well-known by historians, but legendary. (Recall Howard Hughes and Trans-World Airlines...)

One of Capital City's early founders was William Casey, who would later become Ronald Reagan's Director of the CIA. At the time of Casey's nomination, the press expressed surprise that Reagan would hire a businessman whose last-known intelligence experience was limited to OSS operations in World War II. The fact is, however, that Casey had never left intelligence. Throughout the Cold War he kept a foot in both worlds, in private business as well as the CIA. A history of Casey's business dealings reveals that he was an aggressive player who saw nothing wrong with bending the law to further his own conservative agenda. When he became implicated as a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, many Washington insiders considered it a predictable continuation of a very shady career.

Another Capital Cities founder, Lowell Thomas, was a close friend and business contact with Allen Dulles, Eisenhower's CIA Director, and John Dulles, the Secretary of State. Thomas always denied being a spy, but he was frequently seen at events involving intelligence operations. Another founder was Thomas Dewey, whom the CIA had given millions to create other front companies for covert operations.

Capital Cities prospered from the start; its specialty was to buy media organizations that were in trouble. Upon acquisition, it would improve management and eliminate waste until the company started turning a profit. This no-nonsense, no-frills approach, as well as its refusal to become side-tracked with other ventures, made it one of the most successful media conglomerates of the 60s and 70s. Of course, the journalistic slant of its companies was decidedly conservative and anticommunist. To anyone who believes that the government should not control the press, the possibility that the CIA created a media company to dispense conservative and Cold War propaganda should be alarming. Rush Limbaugh himself calls freedom of the press "the sweetest -- and most American -- words you will ever find." (2) Apparently, he is unaware of the history of his own employers.

By the 1980s, Capital Cities had grown powerful enough that it was now poised to hunt truly big game: a major television network. A vulnerable target appeared in the form of ABC, whose poor management in the early 80s was driving both its profits and stocks into oblivion. Back then, ABC's journalistic slant was indeed liberal; its criticism of the Reagan Administration had drawn the wrath of conservatives everywhere, from Wall Street to Washington. This was in marked contrast to the rest of the White House press corps, which was, in Bagdikian's words, "stunningly uncritical" of Reagan. Behind the scenes, Reagan was deregulating the FCC and eliminating anti-monopoly laws for the media, a fact the media appreciated and rewarded. The only exception was ABC. Sam Donaldson's penetrating questions during press conferences were so embarrassing to Reagan that his handlers scheduled the fewest Presidential press conferences in modern history.

CONTINUED...

-------------

Most importantly: Thank you for an outstanding essay, Time for change! Your work makes a difference -- from the information we hold to the future we'll live in.

[Time for change]

32. Very interesting, Octafish

Pointing out once again how there are so many things we don't know about that have vast influence over our country and our lives.

I wish I could live to see it all unravel, for everyone to see.

[kctim]

9. Collective will does not trump individual rights

Which is why our founders created a representative government rather than a direct government like you are promoting.

[Time for change]

11. It trumps the kind of rights that our corporatocracy is promoting

For instance: the right to destroy our planet for their profit; the right to monopolize our natural resources and our communications media; the right to defraud the American people and not be held accountable for it; or, the right to receive subsidies from government and not have to pay taxes.

[kctim]

14. To a point, yes

But the problem liberalism has with the majority of people is with the rights of the individual, not the "rights" of some kind of "corporatocracy" that MUST use government to promote what you say.

[Time for change]

15. I strongly disagree that liberalism has a problem with individual rights

Liberals are much more concerned about protecting individual rights than are right wingers. Liberals are more concerned about protecting our Constitutional and civil rights, whereas right wingers seem to have little problem with such things as our rights to be free of warantless searches and seizures, the rights of American citizens to have a fair trial in liu of being assassinated by our government for suspected terrorism, etc.

[kctim]

19. You strongly disagree because you only look at rights YOU are concerned with

IF you really wish to end the "toxic myth that still plagues our country today," you MUST also take into account the rights that others are concerned about.
You cannot have a government that truely caters to the "will of the people" if you dismiss the rights of individuals in favor of a perceived fear of desire of society. There will ALWAYS be those who value the rights being infringed upon.
This is why liberals have such a hard time gaining support from the majority on issues such as universal health care, the 2nd Amendment, religion, abortion, wealth distribution, excessive taxes, social programs etc...

Even when the majority agrees a liberal goal sounds good, they are not always willing to give up what it would take to reach that goal.

BTW: I fully realize the far-right is just as guilty, which is why they are also the minority of their own party, but your OP was on liberalism and I am keeping on topic.

[Time for change]

20. Then what individual rights do you believe that liberals are unconcerned about?

[kctim]

23. The most obvious to moderate Dems

are freedom of choice and the 2nd Amendment. I could break them down if need be, but these two things are the biggest thorns in the liberals side.

[Time for change]

24. Why do you consider them thorns?

Liberals have no intrinsic desire to prevent people from owning guns, and there are very few who believe that most people shouldn't have the right to own guns. It is a matter of controlling that right in a manner that balances the rights of people to own guns vs. the rights of other people to live in a safe environment without undue risk of getting killed.

In the case of "freedom of choice", it is also a matter of balancing one set of rights against another -- the rights of the mother vs. the rights of the fetus. In fact, the decision in Roe v. Wade (which was written by a conservative US Supreme Court justice) specifically speaks of that balancing of rights.

[kctim]

26. I consider them thorns

because liberals have not yet figured out how to form an inclusive solution that is accepted by the majority. The reason being that they feel they have to "control that right" and they use fear to further infringe on that right. The majority of people do not believe you take away the right for all, in order to give the few a false sense of security.

I was actually speaking of freedom of choice on ALL things, not just abortion. I apologize for not being clearer.

[Time for change]

28. I still don't understand you

Liberals do NOT believe that people don't have the right to own guns. They simply believe that that right has to be balanced by common sense safety measures, such as attempts to keep guns out of the hands of people with a record of violence. I don't know of any issue for which liberals as a group are against individual rights.

[kctim]

34. Almost EVERYBODY favors keeping them from getting in the hands

of people with a record of violence. The problem, as usual with liberalism, is the solution, not the goal. For example, registration, background checks made to discourage ownership and outright bans on handguns, have all been suggested by liberals at one point or another.
Elections have shown that the American people reject liberal infringement on their 2nd Amendment rights.
IMO, liberals could make the 2nd Amendment a moot issue if they would just acknowledge that Small Town USA is nothing like Big City USA.

The liberal solution to health care is universal government coverage, which would be against the individuals right of freedom of choice. Liberals support high, some would even say excessive, taxes, in order for government to provide rather than promote. This also is an infringement on individual rights. Should I go into their anti-smoking or food crusades?

I'm not saying liberals are evil or have some kind of silly plot to rule the world. Or that they are bad people. I am only pointing out that they place the desires of society before the rights of the individual and THAT is why they are the minority wing of the Democratic Party, and the country.

[SparkyOR]

10. the challenge before us

seems that getting this kind of opinion into the not-too-receptive-to-change public eye, is daunting. It doesn't do much good that it stays on the back streets of DU, it needs to be present in political debate.

[Zorra]

12. Wow! "the remedy for the ills of democracy is more democracy"

:wow:
That's a keeper! Great post!
OWS:bounce:OWS

[Time for change]

33. Thank you.

Anti-democracy people use the "Big Government" meme to justify their power grabs and other elitist actions.

[swilton]

13. Benjamin Barber

professor at the University of Maryland whom I had met but unfortunately did not have the luxury of taking his classes - I did stop him in the hall one day and told him I was a fan....Two other of his books that are edifying and illustrate the predicament of the collapse of our democracy are: JIHAD vs. MCWORLD, and CONSUMED.

[CanSocDem]

16. Excellent essay.

"...the way citizens pool resources to do public things together they can’t do alone."

The secret.

.

[DeSwiss]

17. K&R n/t

[bertman]

18. REC. Combine the power of mass manipulation by the corporate media with Americans'

seeming willingness to be spoon-fed lies and propaganda and you have a recipe for disaster of epic proportions. We are the victims of a diabolically efficient and effective process of turning the TeeVee-addicted masses of Americans into knee-jerk nationalistic, military-worshipping lemmings similar to the German population prior to WWII. It is no accident that this has occurred. It's the direct result of the implementation of techniques utilized by the Nazi propaganda specialists who were captured at the war's end and turned over to American and British intelligence forces. Those individuals helped our OSS, now CIA, begin developing propaganda techniques that were even more sophisticated than those used by the Nazis. With the advent of TeeVee and its hypnotic effect on the 'viewing public' and its eventual presence in every home, the propaganda specialists further honed their techniques and continued to subtly and not-so-subtly engendered in us Americans the "Greatest Nation on Earth" superiority complex that allows us to blithely destroy nations, peoples, the natural world, and our own sustaining environment without a serious thought as to the possibility that we might be on the wrong track. Is it any wonder that so many businesses and workplaces routinely have their TeeVees turned to the Fox Propaganda channel?

Thank Dog that many of us are now off of our daily TeeVee medication and are seeing the world as it is. That is the beauty of the Occupy Wall Street movements that are sprouting up across our nation and the world.

As many of us long-time liberals are realizing, our dedication to party politics has allowed us to be shepherded by leaders who do not share our ideals or our vision for this nation.

Our elected representatives have been co-opted/bought by the corporations that now control the airwaves of TeeVee and Radio so effectively. Because of this dire situation, our only hope is to become aware of this and to act accordingly and in tandem with the millions of Americans who are just beginning to realize that it is NOT a liberal or socialist concept to believe that our government should be there to help us and to protect us when we need it. It is a basic concept of human decency and THE REASON for governments to exist.

Whether you are fully behind the Occupy Wall Street movement or still trying to decide whether to support it, I urge you to go out to the nearest occupy site and ENGAGE with the people there. You will find that there are as many ideas as there are occupiers and that many of us are on opposite ends of the so-called political spectrum, yet we all see that our government has been taken from us and that neither Liberals nor fiscal Conservatives are being represented by our elected officials. Only CORPORATIONS are being represented.

The only way out of this mess is for the mass of Americans to take to the streets and demand the Change that we Hoped for in 2008. Typing out your frustrations on a keyboard or yelling at the boob tube will change nothing. Going out and joining the occupiers, even if it's only for a few hours a day or a week, will strengthen this movement and help turn us back toward the "liberal" government we need.

[hfojvt]

21. I like the word progressive

but not if it is coopted by the DLC. I think of progressives as being to the left of liberals.

But that's just the way I think of it, not what it means to the public.

As a word, progressive has a long history though. It's not something that was created in 1990 because the RWNM made liberal a dirty word, especially after consecutive shellacking of the liberals Mondale and Dukakis in Presidential elections. Progressive magazine just celebrated its 100 year anniversary. Progressuves like Teddy Roosevelt and Taft, and especially fighting Bob LaFollete, have a proud history of positive social and legislative changes and efforts in that regard that some supposed liberals would do well to emulate.

There's only one problem in today's red-blue schism view - those progressives are all Republicans.

[Uncle Joe]

25. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Time for change.:thumbsup:

[Dystopian]

27. KandR Thank you.

Gifted writer ....
Bookmarked. Again.
You never cease to amaze....
Truth.


peace~