Liberal is NOT a Dirty Word?

Well, I went to the University of Chicago business school, not the law school, and I went at night, holding down a job during the day. Here is Professor Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago in an op-ed piece in the Tribune, on "What it means to be a liberal". Also via RCP. Well, this is what liberal means to me:

1. Liberals are consumed by political correctness. They put a straightjacket on independent thinking. They are thin-skinned receptacles of the conventional wisdom, and their intellectual laziness is exceeded only by their intolerance for other points of view. Take a look at the universities, where liberal professors dominate, conservative speakers are regularly shouted down, independent-thinking newspapers are trashed, and students have been forced to press for a bill of rights for their own academic freedom.

2. Liberals judge people by the color of their skin, not the contect of their character, turning Martin Luther King's remark on its head. Liberals, in extolling multiculturalism, exacerbate and exploit racial and cultural differences and demand that the law set up racial quotas, codifying racial discrimination. Liberals seek to redefine marriage as a right, rather than a privilege and a responsibility based on the protection of children. At a time when America needs most to unify all its people from diverse backgrounds, and bring us all together in pursuit and defense of the American dream, self-absorbed liberals seek to divide us for petty, partisan purposes.

3. Liberals gerrymander just like everyone else, when they can. Look at Illinois' congressional districts from the last go round. Liberals give lip-service to participatory democracy and town meetings, but make a joke of representative democracy. Small New Trier Township, for example, has been split north-south and then again east-west, fracturing people's sense of community and diluting their vote. And their idea of campaign finance reform empowers millionaires, movie stars and corrupt union bosses to create their own special interest groups to influence elections, while suppressing the free speech of individuals and parties. Liberals claim to be concerned about one person-one vote, but most election fraud is found in urban liberal voting districts, where we have seen instances of more people voting than the census shows residents.

4. Liberals do not believe in "we the people", but rather "we the liberals". Liberals know better than anyone else how to run your lives, and love big government to force their ideas on everyone else. Liberals think non-liberals are stupid and don't trust them to know what is best for themselves and their families. The liberal MSM has supported liberal big government for years with its biased reporting. It is only now, with the rise of independent media and bloggers through the internet, that we even realize the extent of their lies and misinformation. The only time liberals mention freedom is reproductive "freedom". Funny that child in the womb doesn't get a choice. I'll grant the professor that liberals and conservative libertarians are in agreement on protecting individuals from overbearing government intrusion from a national security standpoint, but that shouldn't mean a suicide pact giving terrorists the freedom to take advantage of our open society. And it doesn't stop liberals from encroaching on our liberties every day by legislating nanny-state laws banning smoking, guns, foie gras, trans-fat and probably lawnmowers and barbecues next. Liberals want to be the local busybody.

5. This is getting a bit repetitive-- but liberals believe some people's rights are more important than others. And they jettison their "principles" when it is politically expedient. Remember Bill Clinton's sexual harassment of Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and rape of Juannita Broaddrick. The feminazis are liberals, first and foremost.

6. Liberals always like to talk about problems, but they never want to solve them. They would rather keep people down and in thrall to big goverment. All their ideas boil down to raising taxes and making life more expensive for individuals, families and small business who are trying to move up in the world, harming some of the very people they claim to want to help. The teachers' unions have locked poor kids in failing schools for decades, Social Security is an empty promise, especially for women and minorities, and health care would be more affordable if we had more free-market choices.

7. Liberals claim to be faith-free. But they have their own secular religion, which they foist on the rest of us and on our children in school. Liberals want morality by government fiat, and have contempt for the views of religious people. Liberal orthodoxy on abortion and stem cells denies proper scientific and ethical debate on deeply important moral issues which will determine what it means to be human and a civilized society.

8. All I would say on this is KELO. Liberal justices think it OK for local government allied with crony developers to rob little old ladies and mom and pop businesses of their property to make more tax revenue.

9. Yeah, right, liberals will protect us. Let's remember. And how many liberals have saved Darfur? Come on, you guys handle this one. And where were they on Israel?

10. Liberals run roughshod over the constitution all the time---they take an expansive view on their issues. But they scoff at the concerns of ordinary Americans that terrorists not be allowed to run roughshod over all of us. They can't even recognize it when they see it. Instead, they view their neighbors and fellow Americans with suspicion.




Prove it.