Am I a closet liberal?
Someone commented on my "Dinosaur" post that I was a liberal and I got two emails - one praising me for being a "compassionate conservative" and another cursing me for being a "liberal" RINO.
It says there right on my profile that I regard myself as a classical Lockean liberal. But it also says that I can't call myself a "liberal" anymore because commies have stolen the word in order to pretend that they aren't Marxist/socialists.
Just before Christmas I went to a party at my born again Christian neighbor's house. The joint was crawling with evangelicals who would have had a fit if they had read my "Dinosaur" post. To understand my neighbors, you have to realize that most of them are farmers, hunters, fishermen and generally "good ol' boys."
The sheriff is also the leader of the Mens' Prayer Breakfast Group at the local happy-clapping Community Church and claims that he has reduced crime in our community through prayer. The thing is that I agree with him. Prayer is the most powerful force in the universe. Of course prayer can reduce crime. It can reduce all misery.
I got into a conversation with one of the local volunteer firemen who are treated like royalty out here in the boonies. He was sounding me out to see where I stood on politics. I told him I was a "liberal." Of course I knew that he would take that to mean that I was a commie but I just felt like teasing him a bit. And of course he had a bit of a fit and demanded that I explain myself.
So I told him that I hated communism, socialism, nazism or any damn ism invented by nosy-parking busybody nannies; that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are my Holy Scriptures; that I believed (like Locke) that government was there simply to protect private property; that I believed (like Paine) that government was a necessary evil which should be limited; that I believed (like Reagan) that any government powerful enough to give you everything was also powerful enough to take it all away and that I believed that the First Amendment had no teeth without the Second Amendment. But that my pet peeve was group-identity politics with it's emphasis on special rights and preferential treatment for certain classes who are supposedly victims of discrimination. And that the most important thing that distinguished Americans from all others was our philosophy of individual sovereignty and self-sufficiency.
He spluttered a bit and spat some egg-nog on my shirt which didn't bother me much because I hadn't had time to change before the party and my shirt was already covered in dog hair and chicken shit. "You're not a godammed liberal," he said; "you're a conservative."
"No, I'm not," I said; "I'm a liberal. I'm easy-going and live-and-let-live. I don't like telling anyone else what to think or do and I don't like anyone else telling me what to think or do. I didn't come to America so someone could boss me around. I came here to be my own boss. I'm a liberal because I don't give a flying fornication through a rolling doughnut what anyone else does as long as it doesn't corrupt our kids or scare the horses."
Then he saw the twinkle in my eye.
But I do worry sometimes that I'm a closet case. Am I a closet liberal?
It says there right on my profile that I regard myself as a classical Lockean liberal. But it also says that I can't call myself a "liberal" anymore because commies have stolen the word in order to pretend that they aren't Marxist/socialists.
Just before Christmas I went to a party at my born again Christian neighbor's house. The joint was crawling with evangelicals who would have had a fit if they had read my "Dinosaur" post. To understand my neighbors, you have to realize that most of them are farmers, hunters, fishermen and generally "good ol' boys."
The sheriff is also the leader of the Mens' Prayer Breakfast Group at the local happy-clapping Community Church and claims that he has reduced crime in our community through prayer. The thing is that I agree with him. Prayer is the most powerful force in the universe. Of course prayer can reduce crime. It can reduce all misery.
I got into a conversation with one of the local volunteer firemen who are treated like royalty out here in the boonies. He was sounding me out to see where I stood on politics. I told him I was a "liberal." Of course I knew that he would take that to mean that I was a commie but I just felt like teasing him a bit. And of course he had a bit of a fit and demanded that I explain myself.
So I told him that I hated communism, socialism, nazism or any damn ism invented by nosy-parking busybody nannies; that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are my Holy Scriptures; that I believed (like Locke) that government was there simply to protect private property; that I believed (like Paine) that government was a necessary evil which should be limited; that I believed (like Reagan) that any government powerful enough to give you everything was also powerful enough to take it all away and that I believed that the First Amendment had no teeth without the Second Amendment. But that my pet peeve was group-identity politics with it's emphasis on special rights and preferential treatment for certain classes who are supposedly victims of discrimination. And that the most important thing that distinguished Americans from all others was our philosophy of individual sovereignty and self-sufficiency.
He spluttered a bit and spat some egg-nog on my shirt which didn't bother me much because I hadn't had time to change before the party and my shirt was already covered in dog hair and chicken shit. "You're not a godammed liberal," he said; "you're a conservative."
"No, I'm not," I said; "I'm a liberal. I'm easy-going and live-and-let-live. I don't like telling anyone else what to think or do and I don't like anyone else telling me what to think or do. I didn't come to America so someone could boss me around. I came here to be my own boss. I'm a liberal because I don't give a flying fornication through a rolling doughnut what anyone else does as long as it doesn't corrupt our kids or scare the horses."
Then he saw the twinkle in my eye.
But I do worry sometimes that I'm a closet case. Am I a closet liberal?
posted by Joubert at 7:48 AM
The Alliance
<< Home