2.02.2008

Liberal is a Dirty Word

I caught this editorial today, very good you should read it, By Tom Teepen

Here is the snippet that caught my attention:

If you have been paying any attention at all to conservative rhetoric over the last, oh, three or so decades, you know that liberals are evil and the source of all of America's problems. Liberal is such a dirty word that many, just like Rush Limbaugh, have to spit it out instead of simply saying it.

The liberal horrors began right there in 1776, when that lefty gang of Washington, Jefferson and the rest started a revolution. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be trying to sing the unsingable "Star Spangled Banner" and instead would be happily giving hearty voice to "God Save the Queen."


Go read the rest of it, I found it amusing.

The fact of the matter is that we as a nation were born out of a fiery, (relatively) Liberal battle waged by what we call Freedom Fighters and Patriots of the highest order, and what England no doubt called enemy combatants, traitors, and terrorists.

And yet we have become what we once fought against, and are using the same tactics against others, including our own citizens, that our founding fathers fought to eradicate.

Traitors? I think not, the American citizens who are fighting to improve this country and let the rest of the world breath a little, and those who are dissenting and forming serious grievances are confronting the government without backing down are not traitors. They are following the Grand American Tradition of bucking a system that doesn't work.

So there.

7 comments:

jmsjoin said...

Anok
Weren't we by definition founded as a liberal practice as you want Religious Nation where everyone was treated equal? Not this nazi crap! It's funny, I was listening to Coulter bad mouth Mccain and that he was not a Conservative. She said she would endorse Hillary if he was nominated. Woa!

Anok said...

She said she would endorse Hillary if he was nominated.

Hey, That's a might fine Freudian slip Jim! Maybe she's thinking it will certainly be a "Billary" campaign for president, and is looking forward to another eight years of Billy boy in the white house!

I really can't figure it out though. Either Hillary really will be that bad (or, a vote for the republican party - same difference really)

OR she's trying to confuse people by saying she'll vote for Hillary, then th rest of us will think, well if she's voting for her, she must be worse than him....so we'll vote for him...

and Wham! Another repug in the Whitehouse!

Anon-Paranoid said...

We have all become enemy combatants.

God Bless.

jmsjoin said...

Anok!
Sounds like a Freudian slip but she indeed did say she would campaign for Hillary against McCain. She hates him that much. I read a few different articles on it on CNN and a ass hole Hannity interview. Coulter's endorsement to a Dem would be a death knell. Maybe that is the intention!
It's funny and bears thought in light of what you said that way back Bushie endorsed Hillary because he said Repugs would defeat her. Right after that he released the attack dog Cheney!

Dave Dubya said...

One thing is certain. Coulter would sell more books and make more money under Hillery than McCain. Gee, she wouldn't be that selfish, right?

Remember when we opposed the fascist war hysteria, the radical right would stupidly and arrogantly ask us, "Why do you hate America?"

We need to always ask these other questions. Why are conservatives AFRAID of equality and freedom? And why do authoritarians HATE equality and freedom?

Anonymous said...

Interesting post. When you think about it, the "radical republicans" of the 1860's were rather liberal, and the old democratic party rather conservative.

Folks just love to label people all sorts of things for shock value. The key is to turn it into something positive. It's only a put-down if someone let's it put them down. If they are proud of it, the put-down's effect is nullified.

Anonymous said...

That liberals were the original opponents of divine right monarchy two centuries ago seems to have been forgotten. Of course, those European liberals would look pretty conservative to us these days. For one thing, they liked constitutional monarchy and didn't trust the uneducated common man enough to support universal manhood suffrage.

Some of the anti-liberal rhetoric these days also sounds about as hollow as the anti-Social Democratic rhetoric of Imperial Germany in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany. It sounds as undemocratic as much of that too, insofar as it seeks to delegitimize legitimate political opposition and plausible and constitutional policy stances.

Ugh.