What it REALLY Means to be a Liberal

Geoffry Stone has a column in the Chicago Tribune on What It Means to be a Liberal. This is a combination of wishful thinking and nostalgia. Here's my take on what liberals actually believe.

1. Liberals believe that they have a monopoly on the truth. Conservatives are exhorted to listen to them but they refuse to allow conservatives to speak. John Stossel, for example, has trouble getting his book reviewed even though he is an anchor of a major new show and his books are best-sellers. Universities have protests over conservative speakers and, when they are invited, try to shout them down. Al Gore refers to critics as "digital brownshirts" (Nazis) and has called for the suppression of further debate on Global Warming.

2. Liberals celebrate the fringe over the norm. If you are a minority or ethnic in some exotic way then you are superior to middle-class America. This often leads to protected classes and attempts to legislate "hate speech" come close to thought police. A member of a minority group who does not subscribe to the approved (liberal) norm is derided as a turncoat.

3. Liberals also believe in activists. If you make a noise about an acceptable cause then action must be taken. Relationships to reality often take a back seat over the need to do something.

4. The right to abortion is absolute. Any woman who considers having an abortion or who is college age and might go to college must have an abortion. Any group that a pregnant woman contacts for advice must council her to have an abortion. This is often obscured with code words about reproductive freedom and privacy.

5. It's not enough to make reasonable, good-faith efforts to respect rights. Look at the flap last year over Justice Alito. A "questionable
 ruling allowed that a police officer who had asked for a warrant covering all occupants of a building was justified in searching all occupants, even though the description on the warrant was abbreviated for lack of space. Liberals believe that any articulate minority member in jail must have been framed and should be freed.

6.The poor are good and the rich are bad. It is the government's job to flatten society by penalizing the rich and supporting the poor. It does not matter if programs to help the poor are too expensive, if they cause long-term social problems, or if they have failed in other countries. They are sacrosanct and will never be reevaluated. Liberals believe in the rights of the group over individual rights.

7. Liberals reject any notion of morality as sectarian faith. Christianity is evil and should be suppressed. Liberals are against any public acknowledgement of Christianity including the very word Christmas. Even having a cross where it can be viewed from a public waterway is considered too much. Liberals are willing to allow Christians to practice their faith in private although they don't like having Christians gathered in large numbers. Look at the reaction to the mega-churches. Liberals encourage other faiths. Moslem's are allowed to broadcast prayers over loud speakers but Christians are not.

8. Liberals believe in invented rights. The Right to Privacy is not in the constitution. Ohio's courts interpreted the state constitution to read that the state's main duty is to run the schools and all other functions are secondary. Last year the liberal wing of the Supreme Court ruled that property could be seized and given to developers in order to increase tax revenue.

9. Liberals oppose any actions taken by conservatives to secure the country from external threat. They deliberately misrepresent actions and intention. They are sure that the enemy at home is worse than the enemy abroad.

10. Liberals assume that anyone held by the government must be innocent and demand American trials for prisoners who are not citizens and have never been on American soil. Even the military tribunals called for by the Geneva Convention are insufficient.