Some thoughts on the word "liberal"
(I just know this going to alienate one or both of my readers.)
I was at a camp retreat over the New Year celebration time frame, and one of the persons there recommended to me the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, suggesting that it gives a good idea of who Che Guevara is. Knowing the movie's adulatory nature, I was a little surprised, and I thought "This person must be a liberal." Then, as I thought about the term, it seemed odd that it would be applied to an admirer of someone who put so many in prison (or killed them) for advocating liberty.
Recently, liberals have been objecting to the term "liberal," and some leading conservatives have tried to force them to keep it. That's bizarre. That's like forcing homosexuals to live with the term "gay" when they don't want to. I'd just as soon have the word back, and let homosexuals be called "homosexuals." As it is, I think we should take the word "liberal" back, and make a run for it before liberals realize what happened. Libertarians could save two syllables with the more etymologically correct word, and conservatives can enjoy the verbal acknowledgment their liberal economic policies and liberal views of gun control deserve. What's the downside?
Those conservatives who want to force liberals to remain known as "liberals" recognize that years of oxymoronic (and just plain moronic) liberal economic policy and illiberal "liberal" federal courts forcing states to be liberal have made the word "liberal" an insult in the American lexicon. Most of all, "liberals" have spent all their PR capital supporting Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Castro, all of whom are (or were) rather short on true liberalism, and on rapport with the American public. (The only reason Che is so popular with mainstream America is that they don't know who he is, except that he rode a motorcycle, wrote poetry, was a rebel, and above all, was just so darn cute! He's like a Latin-American James Dean plus poetry.) By uniting such foul policies and foul people with the word "liberal," American leftists have ruined the word. Like apes that consume all the food in a region and have to move on and let the land recover from their careless consumption, they have to allow the word "liberal" and its various forms recover before they can use it again. On to the word "progressive!"
SRS
Note: this blog entry used to be found at Backlog Bob's Blog. It no longer appears there.
I was at a camp retreat over the New Year celebration time frame, and one of the persons there recommended to me the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, suggesting that it gives a good idea of who Che Guevara is. Knowing the movie's adulatory nature, I was a little surprised, and I thought "This person must be a liberal." Then, as I thought about the term, it seemed odd that it would be applied to an admirer of someone who put so many in prison (or killed them) for advocating liberty.
Recently, liberals have been objecting to the term "liberal," and some leading conservatives have tried to force them to keep it. That's bizarre. That's like forcing homosexuals to live with the term "gay" when they don't want to. I'd just as soon have the word back, and let homosexuals be called "homosexuals." As it is, I think we should take the word "liberal" back, and make a run for it before liberals realize what happened. Libertarians could save two syllables with the more etymologically correct word, and conservatives can enjoy the verbal acknowledgment their liberal economic policies and liberal views of gun control deserve. What's the downside?
Those conservatives who want to force liberals to remain known as "liberals" recognize that years of oxymoronic (and just plain moronic) liberal economic policy and illiberal "liberal" federal courts forcing states to be liberal have made the word "liberal" an insult in the American lexicon. Most of all, "liberals" have spent all their PR capital supporting Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Castro, all of whom are (or were) rather short on true liberalism, and on rapport with the American public. (The only reason Che is so popular with mainstream America is that they don't know who he is, except that he rode a motorcycle, wrote poetry, was a rebel, and above all, was just so darn cute! He's like a Latin-American James Dean plus poetry.) By uniting such foul policies and foul people with the word "liberal," American leftists have ruined the word. Like apes that consume all the food in a region and have to move on and let the land recover from their careless consumption, they have to allow the word "liberal" and its various forms recover before they can use it again. On to the word "progressive!"
SRS
Note: this blog entry used to be found at Backlog Bob's Blog. It no longer appears there.
posted by weblogbob83 at 4:51 PM
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