Here’s what a liberal really thinks
What’s a Liberal?
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I once tried thinking conservative thoughts, but I got a headache.
That’s why I’m a liberal.
I used to believe that all of America’s playing fields were even. I now know they aren’t. That, too, is why I’m a liberal – and I’m proud of that.
I don’t feel like my marriage (or the institution of that particular art form) is crumbling whenever I see gay marriage rights being accorded to people I don’t even know.
The liberal in me doesn’t mind that two people (a man and a woman; a woman and a woman; or a man and a man) seek to find happiness. In fact, I’m heartened by that.
I’m not heartened by abortion. But I am in full support of a woman’s right to choose one.
The legal right to make that decision, and those people who seek to exercise that right, are none of my business – and I’d like to keep it that way.
I don’t walk around complaining about the people in today’s America who are supposedly “too lazy to work.”
Look at my picture above. If it wasn’t for a few wealthy landowners who were too lazy to do their own work, chances are I would’ve been born in Liberia.
Hail laziness – I guess.
I don’t froth at the mouth when I hear that some people willfully accept the government’s largess. I’m more concerned about the people who’ve been furloughed for a long time, and who’re facing the desperation their curtailed unemployment benefits might cause.
I’ve never complained about “the size of government.” Don’t tell anybody, but I happen to like government. The more the merrier.
That is, the more police officers and firein my neighborhood, street crews, garbage collectors, postal workers, and military and disaster relief personnel- the better.
I’m not a crusader for “shrinking the size of government” if that means fewer services for our older citizens, or fewer educational opportunities for our younger ones.
I’m no cynic when it comes to the personal motives of our elected leaders.
If you approach me claiming that most people who’ve waged a campaign to become a public servant only for the prospects of personal gain – I’ll walk away.
I don’t like wars. I don’t like them anymore under the Obama administration, than I did under George W. Bush.
I do firmly believe in national security, but not to the detriment of this country’s long-stated values.
I don’t feel that waterboarding can be considered anything else but torture. And that torture is a mechanism the leaders of countries less civilized than ours prefer.
I don’t go to bed at night hoping my town won’t be overrun by people who come to this country illegally.
A liberal may feel that close-mindedness might be more of a threat to this country’s heritage, than open borders.
In fact, I celebrate this country’s diversity. We’re only transients in the life of this country, anyway. We really only own what we own, and live where we live for a short time in the overall scheme of things.
Even conservatives have a place here. In short, I do not live in dread fear of people who aren’t just like me.
I don’t spend much time trying to uncover the evidence that “man-made” climate change is a scientific reality.
Nor, do I feel obliged to challenge those people who think it’s all a lot of hooey.
A liberal doesn’t necessarily want to “take your guns away.” Most of the liberals I know just can’t see the need to be able to buy them without regard to the potential consequences.
Liberals, I’ve learned over the years, aren’t as anxious to “penalize the rich,” with sky high taxes as our conservative brethren and sistren claim we do.
We can easily, however, question the ability of our wealthiest citizens to avoid paying their “fair-share” of taxes.
“Greed (in the words of Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko) for the lack of a better word, is good.”
But it’s only good for the greedy.
Gordon Gekko, I’ll add, probably wasn’t a liberal.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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