Conservative
Republican
Democrat
The next time you hear someone say or write one of these four words try and get them to explain what they mean. If you can't do that try and figure it out on your own given the context in which the word is used.
I think you will find that these words are usually used in lieu of saying "them" as in "they are not us" or "us vs. them".
Take the word liberal as an example. I was reading Flags of Our Fathers (2006) - User Reviews - Yahoo! Movies and noticed several reviews that used the word liberal, generally in a phrase like "typical liberal propaganda" or "whiny liberal". It's of some interest to note that the overall rating of the movie is a B+. It has many A ratings and some F ratings (many of which seem to use the word without meaning - "liberal").
I think what's going on here is that people who throw around "liberal" are using it as a polarizing tool. It allows them to think that things are black and white - liberals are bad and whatever they are is good. Things are simpler that way, we are freed from the work of thinking and the uncomfortable notion that we don't know, that things might be ambiguous, that we may have to hold opposing or contradictory ideas in tension - for a greater good.
I wanted to dig a little deeper to see if, given the context the term "liberal" was being used in, it fit i.e. does it make sense to say "a liberal view of war." My first stop was the article Liberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Yikes! that article is long and the discussion page shows that thinking people are working hard to get it right, or at least close to right. It's a complicated topic...almost so complicated to be meaningless. Having read the pages I have to say I'm still not at a point where I could say this or that is liberal and here's why.
Saying Flags of our Fathers presents a "typical liberal anti-war propaganda message" is lazy at best and mean spirited and stupid at worst. There are many reasons why that is, but here's an obvious one - Franklin D Roosevelt.
He was a card carrying liberal, he was also the president for almost all of WW-II. Harry Truman was of course his successor and although not considered a liberal like FDR was at least a Democrat (which in some fuzzy minded folks way of thinking is synonymous to being a liberal).
So a liberal's anti-war stand ala FDR would be to send hundreds of thousands of Americans to fight and die in Europe and Asia? Or perhaps in Harry Truman's case, to drop atomic bombs on Hirsohima and Nagasaki?
I'm not trying to make a judgement call on whether those were the right or wrong things to do, although I have to believe they were the right decisions given the circumstances, as unfortunate as that was. My point is that a liberal Democrat and a Democrat brought us to war and provided us with the means to win (or at least end) those wars. If you wanted to you might contrast the American experience in WW-II under liberal Democrat leadership to what a conservative Republican has given us in Iraq (only if you want to of course).
You can fast forward to the Vietnam war and Lyndon Baines Johnson, another liberal Democrat who was the instigator of many social government programs...and the president who escalated the Vietnam War to a major battle.
Saying liberals and democrats have some sort of natural anti-war philosophy is just not right. You might be able to argue that social liberals prefer to settle disputes without going to war - but that sounds like something anyone would prefer unless they've been watching too many John Wayne movies or fixating on Fox News.
My next stop on the road to figuring out what someone might mean when they say "liberal" was good old Websters Dictionary. My guess is that some sloppy talkers and thinkers use the archaic obsolete definition of liberal which is, "lacking moral restraint". Bad liberals...immoral liberals.
"How do we keep our balance?" he asks. "That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!"The last definition in Websters is the one that would be appropriate for people who want to use the word liberal in a political context. That definition of liberal is - "of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism: of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism;"
Here's the problem with that definition though...
It brings you back to that messy, long, well-researched, well-written, Wikipedia article on what "liberalism" might mean. This snip from the article shows that the thinking people who wrote it are well aware of the difficulty in defining the term -
"As in many debates, opposite sides use different words for the same beliefs, and sometimes use identical words for different beliefs. For the purposes of this article, we will use "political liberalism" for the support of (liberal) democracy (either in a republic or a constitutional monarchy), over absolute monarchy or dictatorship; "cultural liberalism" for the support of individual liberty over laws limiting liberty for patriotic or religious reasons; "economic liberalism" for the support of private property, over government regulation; and "social liberalism" for the support of equality, over inequalities of opportunity. By "modern liberalism" we mean the mixture of these forms of liberalism found in most First World countries today, rather than any one of the pure forms listed above."
_______________________________
It's getting late and thinking about liberals, conservatives, Republicans and Democrats is a lot of work especially considering I need time to watch Deal or No Deal, Project Runway, Heroes, The Amazing Race or any other of a zillion tasty TV shows, not to mention setting aside time to watch NSFW videos on the web such as the classic South Park - 1008 - World of Warcraft - Google Video or the many Borat Videos on YouTube. Not to mention aimless web surfing, email reading, sleeping, napping...staring at stuff etc. etc. etc.
I'm just too darn busy to figure this stuff out. You'll have to do it on your own - assuming you want to bandy those 4 words around. For my money's worth I'll just continue to keep them out of my conversation and writing as much as possible. We actually would probably be better served watching something funny, having a sense of humor, playing a game, looking for what connects us - anything other than trying to divide the world up into us and them...
Peace to you and yours.
