An Aside: Why I'm Liberal #1a

The difference between liberals and conservatives, inherent in the words themselves, is that conservatives stand to preserve the good that exists; liberals stand to make things better. Conservatism is by nature reactive; liberalism is proactive. Both have a place in the political order, and both are important in reaching a positive political outcome in most cases. Liberals have a tendency to overreach, to toss the good with the bad in their zeal for improvement, while conservatives tend to cling to social conditions that cause great damage in their zeal to preserve the positive conditions.

The interplay between these forces can, at its best, synthesize unforeseen solutions through respectful, compassionate communication. Such discourse generates new ideas as each side listens to the other. The liberal points out the need for improvement, or the damage the current conditions cause; the conservative then resists this presentation, pointing out how damage will result from the proposed change, or how positive conditions will be lost. In the continuing dialogue, the social needs that are or are not being met become clear, and, from that clarity, new solutions that can meet the needs of society present themselves – often with amazing ease.

It’s rather like a football team, with conservatives playing defense and liberals offense. With the shared goal of creating and maintaining the best society we can be, conservatives and liberals would play different roles on the same team, with respectful dialogue chasing positive solutions down the field.

Unfortunately, I rarely see this in our political discourse. Mostly I see people pushing their particular strategy for social preservation or reform, and when resistance comes from the other side, rather than listening and clarifying those needs that are/aren’t met, and the damage/good because of it, each side starts digging trenches and lobbing missiles. We play on opposite teams, and the goal becomes defeating the opposing team and winning the game. The chosen strategy becomes the need, rather than the means to meet the need. As the attacks escalate, each side grows more determined in promoting their chosen strategy, and the possibility of finding solutions that meet everyone’s needs go unexplored.

A case in point is marriage equality/defense of marriage. The presentation of allowing gays to marry as a solution to the problems of social inequity is resisted by people who value the concept of marriage as it has traditionally been applied through the Protestant establishment of our nation’s laws. I believe that a solution that both reduces or eliminates that social inequity, and strengthens families and communities (including “traditional” marriage), can be found. However, I have almost given up on finding it. The discourse has become so violent, and each side has become so defensive of their own position, that alienation becomes inevitable, and force becomes the means to end to the debate. When I hear conservatives suggest that we address the inequities through other means than changing marriage, it rings hollow; I have not heard them actually listen to us, and I have not seen any sign from any one of them that they would actually support any social action that may improve the lives of LGBT people. Every aspect, even our own natures, is opposed. How then do I find common ground?

To communicate, both sides must be willing to listen, and to respect, believe, and recognize the sincerity of the other side. Both sides must recognize that the other is not trying to destroy society, but to make it better – whether we realize it or not, our ultimate goals are the same. Only then will the possibility of conservatives and liberals working together to create the best society that we can be, be realized.

*Standard note: I value dissenting opinions as crucial to the maintenance of freedom and democracy. While I would like to write convincingly, to influence opinion and sway the balance of power my way, I also consider the conservative viewpoint to be important and meaningful. I do, however, believe that political discourse does not have to be nasty and vicious. I prefer to listen to and respect my political opponents. I ask the same from them.

A Journey of Reason and Discovery: Why I’m a Liberal #1

This is the first installment in a series inspired by someone who calls himself Euripedes, who wrote his own series on why he's a conservative. (Ironically, his sixth installment was to explain that he's a conservative because he agrees with Edmund Burke when he said self-interest should be put aside in the selection (election) of leaders, and that they should be chosen for integrity and for the good of all. In principle, I would guess this to be nearly universal to any viable democratic political philosophy. In practice, I think conservatives consistently perform worse on this than liberals, voting for narrow self-interest or to benefit one economic class over all others almost all the time, as opposed to liberals, who frequently vote to benefit society as a whole.)

Anyway, the place to start this series seems to be the beginning – the journey I've traveled to achieve liberalhood, and the sources I've explored on the way.

My father was a Goldwater conservative, a rancher in Wyoming who once ran for county commissioner as a Republican. Politics frequented our dinnertime conversation, and dominated during elections. All my neighbors were Republicans, so far as I know. In the school elections in 1972, I was the only person in my 5^th & 6^th grade class to vote for McGovern; everyone else voted for Nixon. But that vote was an anomaly, perhaps a sign of the distant future, and probably a symptom of the fact that I didn't fit in with the cisgendered kids. I went on to start my political life voting for Reagan – twice. (Since then, I've tried not to repeat my mistakes.) At that time, I hadn't really thought much about politics or economics, nor learned much about them.

I became disaffected with conservatism and Republicans shortly after Reagan began his second term. I noticed the neglect and damage his policies created for the environment. He replaced the "tax and spend" policies of Democrats with a "borrow and spend" mentality that was clearly unsustainable way back then, and has only grown worse to the present (ironically, reaching its apex – so far – under a Democrat who considers himself at least somewhat liberal). Iran-Contra blew up, exposing the corruption that ran deep throughout his administration. Still laden with a prejudice that made me unable to stomach Democrats, I abandoned the GOP and adopted third-party affiliations and candidates.

For the next 15 years, until 2000, I never voted for a Republican or a Democrat for president, and rarely for anything else. I explored Libertariansim, and read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal." I compared it to "The Communist Manifesto," and to the actual economic conditions in our own nation and others. I briefly worked to help establish a Green Party in Missoula, Montana. I read John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," and Thoreau's "Walden Pond" and "Civil Disobedience." I met Kristin, and my inability to satisfactorily answer her questions led me to question my own assumptions, and to think and explore further. I went to the University, and, though my field of study was architecture, I learned much more, including how to question and find answers. In the evening job I held to work through school (I was a janitor), I listened to talk radio. I listened to Rush Limbaugh, found him lying again and again, and his vicious rhetoric turned me off. Dr. Laura, Michael Savage, Shawn Hannity – none of them stood the test of truth and compassion. Then, when Air America took off, I listened to liberal radio. I found that some hosts - Thom Hartmann in particular - seemed to get their facts straight all or most of the time. Others, like Randy Rhodes, disappointed, with judgmental rants and lies that seemed to be no different from their conservative counterparts, just from the other side of the aisle.

Then, in 2000, a momentous event occurred, which irrevocably changed my life. My son was born. Within three months, I was his primary caretaker, and it soon became clear that the only way I could get him to fall asleep for his afternoon nap was to put him in the car and go for a drive. Since we lived in a house on a hillside, significantly above street level, I couldn't leave him in the car alone to go and do stuff, so each day for almost two years I had two to three uninterrupted hours in which to do nothing but read and think. Following is a brief list of some of the books I read during that time:

American Empire, by Andrew Bacevich

The Twilight of American Culture, by Morris Berman

Freedom in Chains, by James Bovard

America's Future, by William Boyer

Whole Life Economics, by Barbara Brandt

The Iron Triangle: Inside the Carlyle Group, by Dan Briody

The End of Economic Man, by George Brockway

Clueless at the Top, by Harriet and Charlotte Childress

The Growth Illusion, by Richard Douthwaite

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto

Mobilizing Resentment, by Jean Hardisty

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight; Unequal Protection; and What Would Jefferson Do?: a Return to Democracy, by Thom Hartmann

Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken et al

The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek

Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt

Instead of Education, by John Holt

The Death of Common Sense, by Phillip Howard

Bushwhacked, by Molly Ivins et al

Blowback: the Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson

Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn

The Teenage Liberation Handbook, by Grace Llewellyn

What It Means to Be a Libertarian, by Charles Murray

Butterfly Economics, by Paul Omerod

How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, by Christina Page

Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn

Bionomics, by Michael Rothschild

Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Fundamentalist Islam, and the Future of America, by Michael Scheuer

Corporate Warriors: the Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, by P. W. Singer

When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone

The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss & Neil Howe

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

The Poverty of Affluence, by Paul Wachtel

and more.

This doesn't count the magazines, articles, and political and economic columns I read, nor my obsessive reading of the news following the 2000 election and 9/11. I did not, however, rely on TV for any information, and still don't. The manipulation of images and events is so blatant in TV that I think you become less informed the more you watch it (and, in fact, a study following 9/11 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq did show that people who watched Fox (Faux) News regularly were less informed than people who didn't pay any attention to the news at all.)

In sum, I sought out many different viewpoints, compared them to my observations and to the most reliable news reporting I could conveniently find (mostly Newsweek and our local newspaper), and reflected on what I read, heard, experienced, and observed. I accepted the ideas that made sense and that were verified by situations, events, and history, and rejected those that did not, regardless of the source – and many of the ideas I've embraced come from conservative sources. Yet from that grew a deepening liberalism – because ultimately, that is where the best arguments lie.

*Standard note: I value dissenting opinions as crucial to the maintenance of freedom and democracy. While I would like to write convincingly, to influence opinion and sway the balance of power my way, I also consider the conservative viewpoint to be important and meaningful. I do, however, believe that political discourse does not have to be nasty and vicious. I prefer to listen to and respect my political opponents. I ask the same from them.

Original Sin Redux

Yesterday I quoted John Taylor Gatto: “What constitutes a good life is clearly spelled out: self-knowledge, duty, responsibility, compassion, acceptance of loss, preparation for death.” Continuing my discussion from that post, I find it interesting that although Gatto writes in a conservative context when he talks about what constitutes the “good life,” I would call these liberal values. Conservatives feed on television and mindless religion, while liberals meditate and do yoga and dig deep for the Truth. Conservatives drive Hummers and Sequoias and buy slave-labor-made clothes at Walmart, liberals drive Priuses and bicycles and buy from local, independent stores. Conservatives contribute to libertarian think tanks that justify and promote the deregulation that unleashes corporate greed that hurts everyone, liberals contribute to food banks and the homeless. I see lots of old hippies wearing grey hair and wrinkles with pride, and Republican women coloring their hair and trying to look young. On and on.

It’s even worse at the social level. Republicans still refuse to take responsibility for torture, the invasion of Iraq, and the unregulated greed of the CEO’s (who are almost all Republican). They expressed their contempt for life and death by trying to keep Terry Schiavo’s body alive long after her brain had died. They refuse to accept the loss of our place in the world, and our duty to dismantle our empire.

And then I think that that assessment is simplistic – and that in practice, plenty of liberals share the same foibles. Really bad laws, like “No Child Left Behind” and the Patriot Act and the authorization to invade Iraq, received bipartisan support with the “liberal” side fully as enthusiastic as the conservative. It was the “liberal” justices who sided with the big corporation in saying that a private company could claim “eminent domain” and seize other private property from small owners – a travesty of justice in which it was actually Thomas and Scalia who dissented. Despite the actions and policies of Republicans and the consequences of their personal choices, conservatives do frequently claim those values – and sometimes live them. And liberals often do not live them.

Further, though I find the terms “good” and “evil” to be vague, evaluative, and more harmful than constructive, the basis on which Gatto speaks of them makes sense and translates into more useful and clear terms, such as “harmful” and “constructive.”

So I think the line between liberal and conservative is actually not narrow and clear, but wide and fuzzy – a vast grey area with personal choices that end up the same from either side. The reasoning and motivation may be different, but the values are often identical. The seeming wide gulf between us is a construct of the corporate media, which finds great value in keeping the American people divided, our energy wasted in battling against our neighbors rather than in working together to reestablish social equity and make sure our “leaders” are held accountable.

Perhaps one lesson is that integrity is the same, no matter what the religious or political philosophy behind it. Liberals and conservatives are the same: they either express integrity, wisdom, and compassion in each circumstance, or they don’t. And nobody gets it right – or wrong – every time.

The Nine Most Welcome Words in the English Language

Ronald Reagan once famously said, “The nine scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

But I never felt more grateful, or more relief from fear, than at 11:30 p.m. on 4/3/2003, when, less than three minutes after I called 911, a firefighter jumped out of his truck and said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” So many treasures were saved, smoke-damaged but salvageable, because of his quick action.

And I felt fine when my car broke down on a lonely highway, and a highway patrolman pulled up behind me and said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

I liked it, too, when I was researching something unfamiliar, and a librarian approached me and said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

When I was wondering whether the electrician wired my house correctly, or whether I’d have to worry about another fire, I felt relieved when a building inspector showed up and said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

And when the tornado swept through my town, and the FEMA inspector showed up and said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” what a relief that was! (Obviously, that was prior to 2001.)

When I wanted to know if the plans I had drawn up for my new house were structurally sound, I took them to a plans examiner, who said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

When I took my kids to the municipal pool, the lifeguard said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

When I needed a better job, I went to the public university (which I could almost afford, way back then), and every instructor said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

When I got laid off, the unemployment caseworker said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” and I got assistance in finding a new job and enough money to survive on while I searched.

Again and again, when I need information, or assistance, or education, or relief, I turn to the government. Park rangers. Clean water. Roads. Schools. None of them wanted to sell me anything. They just wanted to provide a service, and make my life a little bit more wonderful.

And I wonder: How can I get so many services, of such great value, for so little? Certainly not from the private sector. Less than 20% of my income goes to provide all this. Others, who make more, pay more. I’m grateful to them. I would so much rather have someone from the government, than a handout.

I think Mr. Reagan got it wrong. They're not the scariest words. Perhap, though, they are the nine most welcome.