What is a liberal

By Geoffrey R. Stone. Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Published October 10, 2006


For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling.

In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.

Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.)

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)

9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty."

Consider this an invitation. Are these propositions meaningful? Are they helpful? Are they simply wrong? As a liberal, how would you change them or modify the list? As a conservative, how would you draft a similar list for conservatives?"

(I thought this was interesting and am only posing the authors questions for discussion... no question of my own.)

And I'm sure a conservative can come up with a list of stellar accomplishments too. Problem is, these theoretical overgeneralizations are not borne out in real life. Liberals screw up. Conservatives screw up. What they both have in common is that they are convinced that the government holds sway over the individual, whether it be with his wallet or his bedroom. I really am not impressed by either side.

I used to define a liberal, in economic terms, as "someone who wants everybody else to pay for the things he likes."

That definition now fits just about everyone in the United States Congress, perhaps giving more credence to JR's suggestion that "they are convinced that the government holds sway over the individual."

A government of, by and for the people would be nice for a change.

quote:

I used to define a liberal, in economic terms, as "someone who wants everybody else to pay for the things he likes."

Sounds like a good definition to me.

I have no quarrel with these 10 propositions. I think they are more or less like the 10 commandments. Those who are pleased to call ourselves "liberal", like those who think of themselves as christians, Aspire to approach the ideals represented by either or both sets of "generalizations". I suspect that I would be slightly more tepid toward the conservative equivalent, but I'll try to withhold judgement until they appear.

quote:

Originally posted by Scotty:

quote:

I used to define a liberal, in economic terms, as "someone who wants everybody else to pay for the things he likes."

Sounds like a good definition to me.

Yes it would, but as CF points out, both the liberals and conservatives are doing the same thing. The pet projects may be different: a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, handouts to people who won't work. Point is, the money goes from the producers to the spenders. And there are no overseers no people to say no. Perhaps the populace should fill that role, but we have said no to that.

quote:

Yes it would, but as CF points out, both the liberals and conservatives are doing the same thing. The pet projects may be different: a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, handouts to people who won't work. Point is, the money goes from the producers to the spenders. And there are no overseers no people to say no. Perhaps the populace should fill that role, but we have said no to that

I have to agree with that, Juan.

Provisos
1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others.
But liberals don't have to doubt their truths. And they don't have to be open-minded to conservatives.

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.
As long as that difference is nothing more than superficial outwardly appearances. Any actual difference in thought, philosophy or political viewpoint is to immediately be deemed "hate speech" on a priori grounds and not subject to that pesky First Amendment.

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.
Unless you disagree with the person, in which case you are legitimately allowed to attack them, or otherwise suppress their attempt at speaking.

4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.
Except when it comes to educating children, when both parent and child should be subjects of the government so they can't be allowed to do it themselves in the private sector. Oh, and also when it comes to medical care, and saving for retirement, contracts between employers and employees, and things like that. In those cases, the people should be subjects of the government and not allowed to govern their own affairs.

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual.
Unless that individual is a straight, white, male, in which case they must be demonized.

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.
As long as the helping is being done with somebody else's tax money, it should apply to everybody else, but not to liberals.

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith.
Except the faith that government always knows best and will always act in the best interest of the Citizens or that Social Security will always be there. Those things must be taken on faith and never questioned.

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties.
Except, of course, for when it comes to the liberties mentioned in the Second Amendment, in which case the "people" mentioned in the Constitution are not individuals at all, but are, instead, subjects of the government (see #4 above.)

9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible.
Except when any potential danger or threat comes from Islamofascism, in which case the danger must be ignored, denied or even aided via PC-required inaction.

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values.
Until those Constitutional values get in the way of our liberal progressive causes that the uneducated, unsophisticated, commoner, dolts that live in flyover country or those horrible "Red States" dare to question, just because they don't realize that what we are trying to do for them is for their own good! How dare they think they are free to live their lives and spend their money as they see fit?! We liberals can spend their money better than they can! They'd just waste the money on another banjo to pluck on their dilapidated front porch while they drink their moonshine. The next thing you know they'll want the brutish sub-humans of the nazi-like U.S. Military to be allowed to vote! We can't have that!

On the whole, you post confirms what Juanruiz posted at the top, "Problem is, these theoretical overgeneralizations are not borne out in real life. Liberals screw up. Conservatives screw up."

The last link does not suggest that anyone was questioning the military's right to vote, but only, quite sensibly, the security of an e-mail voting system. The "comparison to Nazis" of the second-last link was this:

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview
rooms to find a detainee chained hand
and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with
no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated
or defecated on themselves, and had
been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On
one occasion, the air conditioning had been
turned down so far and the temperature was
so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee
was shaking with cold. . . . On another
occasion, the [air conditioner] had
been turned off, making the temperature in
the unventilated room well over 100 degrees.
The detainee was almost unconscious on the
floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had
apparently been literally pulling his hair out
throughout the night. On another occasion,
not only was the temperature unbearably
hot, but extremely loud rap music was being
played in the room, and had been since the
day before, with the detainee chained hand
and foot in the fetal position on the tile
floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners." frwebgate.access.gpo.gov

If you're going to torture prisoners, you're going to have to put up with comparison to torturers. I don't think 'liberal' or 'conservative' enters into it - just common sense and humanity.

The third-last link has a point, although at least Cliton was talking only about 'taking away' money in the form of taxes, not basic rights like habeus corpus, for the common good.

Every country in the world runs as a mixed economy - some things, like roads, sewage, law and the military are most practically financed centrally (and most countries also have centrally financed health-care systems), and on the other hand, history has shown that private enterprise cannot be abolished, being necessary to a healthy economy. State control of an economy just can't work, while the ideal of everyone paying for their own stuff and nobody else's, no shares-ies, is just childish. Maybe a difference between liberal and conservative would be where on the spectrum of a mixed economy (from loopy libertarianism to grim Stalinism) they'd prefer to be. In real life, in the US, it seems, both Democrats and Republicans hands out billions from taxes in 'corporate welfare' when in power.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: newnickname,

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:
The last link does not suggest that anyone was questioning the military's right to vote, but only, quite sensibly, the security of an e-mail voting system.

If you honestly believe that a democratic politician actually cares about members of the U.S. Military and their privacy, I have a bridge to sell you. Liberal democrats' animosity towards the U.S. Military is widely documented and undeniable (except by moonbats):

Bill Clinton's infamous letter explaining his loathing of the Military

Hillary Clinton's dictate that Military Uniforms not be worn in the White House

John Kerry's thowing away of his medals (or whatever it was he threw away.)

Al Gore's attempt at disenfranchising hundreds – if not thousands – of Military Votes

The Daily Kos' (and democratic strategist) Markos Moulitsos Zuniga saying of four American civilian contractors killed in Fallujah, all of them veterans with distinguished records and three of them fathers, "...I feel nothing over the death of merceneries...Screw them!"

Military Recruiters Evicted From UCSC Job Fair, time and time again!

Liberals attack an ROTC facility in North Carolina

Liberals attack an Army Recruiting station in Minnesota

And there are pictures like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one that clearly show liberals' downright hatred and even death wishes for members of the U.S. Military.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:
"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview
rooms to find a detainee chained hand
and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with
no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated
or defecated on themselves, and had
been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On
one occasion, the air conditioning had been
turned down so far and the temperature was
so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee
was shaking with cold. . . . On another
occasion, the [air conditioner] had
been turned off, making the temperature in
the unventilated room well over 100 degrees.
The detainee was almost unconscious on the
floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had
apparently been literally pulling his hair out
throughout the night. On another occasion,
not only was the temperature unbearably
hot, but extremely loud rap music was being
played in the room, and had been since the
day before, with the detainee chained hand
and foot in the fetal position on the tile
floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Actually, no , I wouldn't believe this must have been done by nazis. Since I know a bit more about history than does Turbin Durbin, I know what the nazis did. And since I am not a liberal like Durbin, I don't reflexively use the terms "nazi" or "fascist" to identify someone I disagree with unless the term actually fits – and in the case of the Islamofascists it clearly fits.

Oh no! The room was sometimes hot and sometimes cold?! Oh the humanity! And loud music was going all through the night? No it doesn't sound like what the nazis did, but I can assure Durbin that some of it does describe long stretches of my time in college when the rooms were cold in the winter and sweltering hot in the summer and all around me music was blaring until all hours of the night! And I had to pay for the privilege! And if I wanted 3 squares a day (which I often didn't get!) I had to pay for those too! Like most liberals, Durbin doesn't comprehend the difference between harsh treatment and torture. Typical liberal. If a convicted murderer is not given a tax-payer provided big screen TV with 100 channels of cable, liberals scream "human rights abuse!"

On your first point; nevertheless, the link you provided was about someone quite sensibly questioning the security of an e-mail voting system - not whether soldiers should vote.

On your second point; numerous right-wing commentators have tried to minimise or laugh off the torture techniques employed by the US lately. I'm sure torturers through the ages have come up with nice new names for what they do - "coercive interrogation","harsh treatment" or whatever. There have, however, been deaths in US custody - with at least twelve people 'tortured to death'.

Is that "infamous letter" of Bill's this one?

'..From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited, parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which, in any case, does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the nation.

The draft was justified in World War II because the life of the people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to fight, if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their way of life. Vietnam is no such case. Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, certain military action was justified but the draft was not, for the reasons stated above.

Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong....'

I don't see how you get "explaining his loathing out of the military" out of that letter. Is there another?

In any case, no matter what Bill said about the army in the sixties or later, as Commander-in-Chief he wasn't reckless enough to get thousands of soldiers killed or maimed for no good reason. Should actions maybe count more than words?

And at least Kerry had some medals (or ribbons) to throw. His action was a protest against the Vietnam War, and not a sign that he didn't care about his fellow soldiers, wasn't it?

Wild statements by some individuals, and vandalism by others of recruiting stations, don't help us to define 'liberal'. It's already been pointed out at the top of the page that there are screw-ups in every kind of political opinion. We could compare the fanatic fringes endlessly, without ever really defining the philosophy.

In practice, who actually cares more about the military - liberal or conservative politicians? Conservatives certainly talk more about it, but that's mainly because xenophobia and big guns play well with conservative voters.

The conservatives of the current administration have shown a complete lack of care for the military - throwing them into a pointless and unjustified war which had not been adequately planned.

'"A year from now," said Perle, "I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." Perle also noted once that, "If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now."' The Rat Pack

When it comes to actual fighting, 'we', of course, means 'you guys'; '...these men, ultimately, are nothing more or less than the worst form of coward to be found in this country. They talk tough about global domination while sending other people's children off to die, and then run like rabbits when the scab is ripped off their festering ideology...'

However, there is the question of whether or not the current administration is itself part of the 'fanatic fringe'. Also, Bush's main foreign ally in his military misadventure has been Blair, who is nominally a socialist (eek!) - off the US political map.

When it comes to caring about the military, maybe it's not a question of left or right, but of age and power; the old story of evil old men sending younger ones off to fight.

On Al Gore - didn't he concede the election? And those military votes...

'...The bulk of these disqualifications [of overseas military votes], however, were not due to supposed technicalities, but to gross irregularities such as voting in the wrong county, voting while unregistered, voting more than once (many overseas absentees in Florida were sent two ballots and returned them both, but only one was counted) or the absence of a signature attesting to the voter's identity. After the Bush campaign filed a blizzard of lawsuits and most counties rechecked the overseas ballots, only a few hundred votes were restored out of the over 1,500 disqualified.

Even these votes included major irregularities, such as votes postmarked or witnessed after Election Day, ballots which arrived after the November 17 deadline, and even ballots that were faxed in. One county election supervisor admitted that, in response to Republican protests, she had done exactly what the Republicans claimed to oppose: “It changed from following strict adherence to statutory law to a more general interpretation based on new information, basically,'' said Stephanie Thomas, assistant supervisor of elections in Clay County.' www.wsws.org

'Though the GOP hopes that exempting military men and women from postmark rules could give it a big boost, USA Today reports that even with this exception, many overseas ballots could be tossed overboard. Of the 1,527 overseas ballots that were rejected, only 11 percent lacked a postmark, while 24 percent were discarded because they were postmarked after Election Day. An additional 5 percent of the discarded ballots aren't being counted because of improper signatures, and 49 percent were thrown out for assorted other violations.'
archive.salon.com

Gore's questioning of those ballots was not paricularly a sign of not caring about the military, but part of the legal shennanigans carried out by both parties in a vote that was too close to count.

JG quotes Bill Sammon's "At any cost" as "showing" how Al Gore was anti the military.

Just to give you some idea of Sammon's writing compare the following:

Sammon:
"Gore sat down and drew them a picture. Literally. On an easel of butcher paper in the dining room of this residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, Gore drew four concentric circles to represent his priorities. He and Lieberman occupied the innermost circle. The next circle was reserved for big supporters like CIO president John Sweeney, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, and abortion advocate Kate Michelman. The Democratic Party was third in Gore’s circle of priorities. Finally, in the very last circle, Gore placed the country. The man who was seeking to lead the United States of America into the new millenium placed the national interest not first, not second, not even third. In Al Gore’s hierarchy of priorities, the nation came dead last."

It sounded bad—real bad. But just in case readers couldn’t figure that out, Sammon threw in some high irony:

SAMMON (continuing directly): Americans, alas, are a corny lot. They still like to think that their presidents place the national interest above their own. They would find it difficult to imagine men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan drawing four concentric circles and explaining that their own hides were more important than the national interest. But Al Gore wasn’t like those other leaders. He was looking out for Number One, plain and simple.


What the Washington Post actually said about the meeting:

"VON DREHLE/NAKASHIMA/SCHMIDT/CONNOLLY(the four reporters): The meeting was in the dining room. Gore’s wife, Tipper, snapped pictures and offered food. Gore occupied a central chair, beside two easels that held giant pads of paper.

At one point, he drew a series of concentric circles to remind everyone of his circles of responsibility. At his innermost circle, he had responsibilities to himself and to Lieberman, then he moved outward through his closest supporters, Democrats as a whole and, in the largest circle, the country. He could not make critical decisions, he explained, without considering the larger context."


Puts a different slant to the condemnation. If Sammon twists facts like that, one tends not to believe any other "facts" he states.

There seems to be some doubt about Clinton's 'dictate' on military uniforms. She says she didn't. Others say she did - one spring. Ecxept for the guy with the 'nuclear football'. Except on Fridays. Except for junior officers at formal functions. Except... Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a photo of generals attending Clinton in business suits, which might prove it.

But, even if she did, why not? Doesn't it show some concern for the image and position of the miltary in a mature democracy? What kind of leaders are always getting photographed surrounded by crowds of top brass in full military rig? Monarchs and dictators.

The US army, like other Western militaries, has a proud tradition of not interfering in or commenting on civilian government. It's something we take for granted (although the catastrophic blunder in Iraq is putting a strain on the idea in the US).

So who shows more understanding of the military - someone who might just be concerned that the President not appear like a tin-pot generalissimo surrounded by his cronies, or someone who pulls stunts in military planes, in his GI Joe costume, to make fatuous announcements about 'mission accomplished'?

(And what's with the compulsion of just about every right-wing leader to be photographed, at some point during their time in office, sticking out of a tank, smirking uncomfortably, in a camouflage jacket? It's as if left-wing politicians all wanted to be pictured in overalls, carrying a hammer in a dramatic pose, as if in a 'Hero of the Workers' poster.)

The rise of liberalism in the US really began when women were finally allowed to vote, and 50% of the vote became the softer, female voice of America.

Before this, liberalism was completely different and ruled by the male gender for all intents and purposes.

(Liberalism also arises from cosmopolitan cities with diverse ethnic makeup. Liberalism in these cities evolved the concepts of diversity, ethnic sensitivities, and just getting along with others.)

Liberalism of the last few decades has been bastardized--it's not true liberalism. Liberals have never until recent years embraced harrassing the majority to foist the opinions of minorities upon them, such as we do with homosexuality, feminism, minority rights, and environmentalism.

The foundation of many liberal views are valid and valuable. I take no liberals seriously because liberals don't believe their own views, they usually only use them as weapons to brow-beat people.

We liberals are indeed fortunate to have conservatives tell us what we are and how we think.