By Edwin Cooney
Because I was once a conservative, some of my conservative
friends often regard me as a liberal. They
often accuse me of being a liberal as though it were a crime or at least a
misdemeanor…and despite the fact that I fall short of deserving that
designation again and again. I only wish
I had the stuff to be a liberal.
To be a liberal requires a high-mindedness that I probably
will never ever achieve. Even more, it
calls for an awareness of domestic social injustices and needs beyond my
comprehension. A liberal’s grasp of
environmental issues and outcomes staggers my capacity to comprehend.
In the field of international affairs, liberals assert that
their principles of understanding and tolerance are way too seldom applied.
Thus war, rather than peace, prevails all over the world. Liberals often stress human rights in both
domestic and international affairs. For
a liberal, human or civil rights dwarf political or legal rules and
obligations. Even more, liberals insist
that a law based merely on another law is a dead law, which is why
constitutional law is less important than human needs. For a liberal, law for the sake of a higher
law is dead law. The Constitution of the
United States to be real must have life and life is lithe and flexible. Hence, liberals possess a purity of
intentions matched by no other ideologue.
Additionally, liberals favor inclusion as opposed to
exclusivity or as the late great Governor of New York Al Smith used to put it,
“the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy!”
Perhaps the most astounding aspect of modern liberalism is
that it responds to the conservatives’ second most important goal. (Note: conservatism’s most important goal is
freedom.) The second most important goal,
especially to the Christian Right, is Jesus’s admonition to love thy neighbor
as thyself. To a liberal, we are our brother
and sister’s keeper.
Additionally, since our government was born “of the people,”
people are responsible for mastering government. Government as the tool of the people must
occasionally protect them from each other, thus the need for civil rights
legislation, gun control and safety requirements in the work place.
All of the above makes me long to be a liberal. Liberalism, like its conservative cousin,
possesses principle and rigidity. Like
conservatism, liberalism cherry picks the past and demands that you remember
some events. It insists that you de-emphasize the significance of other
historical events.
So, you might wonder, why don’t I declare myself a liberal
and let the devil take the hindmost? The
stumbling block for me is that liberalism is based more on hope than it is on
practicality. America’s insistence that
practicality is to be favored over idealism is probably the reason we haven’t
had a liberal president since Lyndon B. Johnson.
Hubert Humphrey’s liberalism was buried by his support of
LBJ’s war in Vietnam. RFK was
assassinated before he could apply his liberalism. Ted Kennedy’s liberal effectiveness died in
that tragic July automobile accident at Chappaquiddick. Neither Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton nor Barack
Obama have been true liberals. Liberals
spend too much time and receive too little credit for saving capitalism to
achieve their goals. That’s one of the
aspects that make them so admirable.
They are always helping somebody out rather than paying attention to their
own knitting.
To be a successful liberal requires tremendous energy. As FDR asserted in an April 1938 Fireside Chat:
“…The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to
maintain the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough
informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.”
Most important of
all, liberalism demands that its disciples work as much for others as they do
for themselves. That’s a pretty tall
order indeed.
To be a liberal, as Abraham Lincoln might put it, is to call
on the “better angels of my nature.” I’d
like to be able to do that, but sometimes the little kid in me demands that I
first take care of myself.
I try not to listen to that little kid because he’s the most
devoted conservative I’ve ever met.
Occasionally, he makes me long to be a conservative once again.
I’ll tell you more about that next week!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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