What Do Liberals Believe?
July 13th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics | 15 Comments »Glenn Beck the conservative radio talk show host who currently works for CNN recently wrote on his personal blog about why he will not vote for Senator Obama. In that post he lists some values that he believes defines conservatism, reading through some of those values I thought I might provide the opposite view or the values that some liberals like myself believe in:
A conservative believes that our inalienable rights do not include housing, healthcare or Hummers.
A liberal believes that every person should have a house to live in, healthcare regardless of our “inalienable” rights, policies must reflect the times we live in not the ones from the past. (Hummers are great but give me a BMW any day)
A conservative believes that our inalienable rights DO include the pursuit of happiness. That means it is guaranteed to no one.
A liberal believes that happiness is not guaranteed but it is the duty of every person and organization on this earth to ensure that every human on this planet is happy.
A conservative believes that those who pursue happiness and find it have a right to not be penalized for that success
A liberal believes that those who find happiness must give back to society in order so that other people in disadvantaged situations can attain that happiness.
A conservative believes that real compassion can’t be found in any government program
A liberal believes that the government is there to help those people whom society has forgotten or choose to conveniently ignore and social programs help people get back on their feet.
A conservative believes that people go to the movies to be entertained and to church to be preached to, not the other way around.
A liberal believes that the movie industry is the perfect medium to educate people hence we have the word “documentary.”
A conservative believes that a child’s education is the responsibility of the parents, not the government
A liberal believes that every child regardless of financial background has the right to a college education even if the government has to provide it.
A conservative believes that every human being has a right to life, from conception to death.
A liberal believes that a woman has the right to make any decisions regarding her own body. Furthermore the chance that someone might die that was wrongly convicted in the judicial system rules out the death penalty as a means for judicial punishment.
A conservative believes in the smallest government you can get without anarchy. We know our history: The larger a government gets, the harder it will fall
A liberal believes that a large government is not necessarily bad, society is increasingly complex and varied hence we need the same in our government.
These are not all of Mr. Beck’s views but I took the ones that I disagree with and stated my own opinions. Some liberals may not disagree with these views or the opinions expressed herein but please feel free to leave relevant comments and I might change the wording in this post. The one liberal view that is most important to me that Mr. Beck did not mention in his conservative ideology list is: A liberal believes in the racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of any nation, this diversity should be encouraged rather than demonized.
Other issues I did not mention because Mr. Beck did not include them in his list are the creationism/evolution debate, global warming and the interpretation of the constitution. As a liberal I believe that evolution belongs in the classroom and creationism in the church, global warming is already here and that the constitution should be interpreted in the context of the fabric of society as it exists today.
I hate just writing text because who wants to read a long paragraph on a Sunday night/afternoon, so I tried to find a conservative cartoon with Google Images. The problem was that with any combination of the term “liberal” or “conservative”, every single cartoon I found was anti-liberal within the first few pages. At the end of the day, I decided to go with a bastion of liberalism also known as The Simpsons:
