What’s so right about Liberal Values?
This article is in a way a continuation of the previous one in that we focus on liberal values as we know them and as we have done before, let us start by visiting Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary: ‘Liberal‘ is defined among other things as being favorable to progress and reform, being broad-minded, unprejudiced, generous, beneficent, charitable, open-handed, munificent, unstinting and lavish.
Now you might ask ‘what’s not right about these values?’ and when defined as such, we cannot argue convincingly against them but we also believe that these Webster definitions are very generous in that they do not reflect reality in today’s world and especially America. Liberals have adopted ideologies that would be nothing but meaningless words on paper if it were not for their means of pursuit. Liberals want equality for all, they desire social justice for all (whatever that means) and they firmly believe that there are only a few vehicles to achieve such goals: Bigger government and higher taxes, dictates and life-style invasions! Anybody who is against their ideology and belief system is heartless and mean-spirited. And while they are not tolerant towards divergent or opposing viewpoints, liberals demand tolerance towards theirs from all others.
When sound rational or logical reasoning cannot defend their desired goals, they throw in emotion and fairness factors. Liberals have generally speaking a very difficult time arguing for their lofty objectives without relying on feelings and emotions: “It is not fair and something has to be done about it,” is their generic response when questioned about their agenda by others. Logic is not part of their intentions or arguments when advocating changes regardless in which field they believe such changes should be made. They believe in rehabilitation and extra doses of sympathy for law-breakers and other such violators of established rules and laws by way of supporting lenient sentences and paroles. Forgiveness is such a ‘wonderful thing’ for them. The same holds true in other areas of society, be it assistance to the needy, education, health care and the like.
Liberals think of themselves as the protectors of the underprivileged and unfortunate ones and they also believe that it is totally unfair that some individuals have wealth while many others have not and are therefore convinced that something should be done about it and that we should ‘level the playing field’. The only legal ways to do that is of course, taxation and passing new laws. “Let the rich pay more in taxes, they do not need all that much wealth and they should share more” is their mantra and liberals, individually or collectively will never miss an opportunity to shame the “rich” or even take it one step further by maligning them in referring to them as the “filthy rich”. One of their main objectives is to espouse and foster class-envy at any chance they get. Make sure the ‘poor’ masses remain envious of the ‘filthy rich’.
Each project or objective pursued by liberals has only one vehicle towards achievement: MONEY! But not their own money, oh no, mostly other people’s money and every failure at every undertaking is always blamed on the lack of money. The reason public education in America is below par (to state it mildly) is the lack of adequate funding, see Will there ever be enough money. And no matter how much extra money is thrown at problems, the best we can ever hope for are ‘slight improvements’. When called on it, liberals will always have as their first defense the following answer: “You don’t understand!” With that, they hope to end all discussions when questioned about differences between objectives and achievements. And when somebody tries to hold them accountable for failures, the sometimes vicious name-calling begins.
Liberals do not believe for instance in tough love or punishment. Their idea in teaching children in the early grades is to build self-esteem in the young ones. They, the liberals, firmly believe as factual that punishment will hurt any child for the rest of its life and will do irreparable harm. They, the liberals, think of themselves as the only compassionate people in this country and therefore should be admired for that and not criticized. Their intentions are superior to everything else and when the outcomes do not even closely meet their expectations, the answer is: ‘Well, we tried’, closely followed by ‘there was not enough money!’ Back to education for a moment, the very fact that not all children are alike and therefore comprehend and learn alike and need different forms of stimuli to achieve the basic education goals does not mean anything to liberals, they will always find excuses for failure, they will never have answers for how to achieve goals other than “Let’s try something else the next time!”
Liberals are fervent believers in the Constitution of the United States - yet only when it suits them and when it serves their agendas. While they adore the First Amendment - their freedom of speech, they have been trying for years to alter the Second Amendment - private ownership of guns. While they demand their civil rights and liberties, they are not willing to accept the means but criticize instead monies spent to maintain such liberties with a strong defense and military. Security and safety is to liberals a birthright and that it has a steep price tag in terms of human and monetary sacrifices is to them an unfortunate sideshow, a ‘necessary evil’ if you will! Liberals believe, in fact, they demand peace and freedom but are not quite ready to contribute strongly and willingly to the efforts to achieve such things.
We here at Common Sense Politics do not expect all readers to agree with our assessment as stated herein, but we like to ask the question once again: What’s so right about Liberal values? We invite all readers to respond to us and tell us what they think of our position. But please, do it with reason and logic and based on common sense and not with name-calling and stereotyping. That does not help the debate nor does it contribute to a better understanding of the differences between the diverse groups. In our next article, we will attempt to make direct comparisons between Conservative and Liberal Values, putting them next to each other in an effort to try to see the advantages of either one over the other.