Name some classic Liberals!

I'm not up on your Founding Fathers, so I'd like to hear which ones were more progressive.

Here are some classic liberals/social reformers I like:

Mark Twain
Bernard Shaw
Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC
FDR
JFK
Kurt Vonnegut
Pierre Trudeau
Alan Sutcliffe
Hegel
Emma Goldman
I've heard mixed things about Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln, but some of the things I've heard about each sound like they were pretty liberal in some ways.

i mean, he re-wrote the Bible, taking out any part of the supernatural and focused on Jesus' ethics. (called the Jefferson Bible)

he wrote numerous letters to his friends condemning christianity in a very intellectual fashion.

he wrote the declaration of independence, which could be considered librul.

LBJ

My grandfather. uh... running out of names...

My faves!

That's about as liberal as it gets.

It's not just a matter of socialism (and Marx) being "as liberal as it gets."

Argh, school makes me think to much and drain the fun out of things, I think, ahha.

He was against oppression in many different forms.

Though socialism is more than just economics, it'd be too damn nitpicky to get into it for such a trivial thing, haha. (Plus I'm way too lazy to sort through notes on the differences between socialism and liberalism, haha.)

on the right side is facism, which is what capitalism becomes when it is corrupted

on the left is communism, whihc is what socialism becomes when it is corrupted

take the middle path, and catch a fly in your chopsticks!

:shrug:

Communism is simply a form of socialism based on revolution rather than evolution (the belief by "democratic socialists" that the ruing classes will not resist the election of a socialist government), coupled with a completely centrally planned economy and gradual abolition of the state. Any corruption lies in people, not ideology. Any ideology can experience corruption.

With Fascism, there was a rejection of both Communism and laissez-faire capitalism. There was heavy state intervention in the economy, but not for the purposes of redistribution as with socialism. This was coupled with strong nationalism.

Corruption doesn't tend to lie in ideologies. Ideologies are just ways of organizing society based on a particular world view. The initial intent of an ideology, whether you agree with it or not, is generally benevolent. The malevolence and/or selfishness of certain people is what results in corruption.

The distinction between liberalism and socialism depends on which type of liberalism we're talking about. With classical liberalism, the difference is quite distinct. You would have somewhat of a point about the sliding scale for reform liberalism (what we generally refer to as liberalism in modern discourse), though. A key difference however, even between reform liberalism and socialism, is in the individualist versus collectivist (the community as a whole) ideas.

Alright, I hope that makes sense. Trying to make the distinctions without writing a damn essay is tough, haha. </boring ultra-condensed poli-sci lecture>

Well I'll take that back. He was kind of a prick.

Isn't Vonnegut a socialist? And Emma Goldman was an anarchist, not a liberal.

And what you're failing to recognize is the distinction between what we consider to be a liberal today (reform liberalism) and classical liberalism, which would describe most of the founding fathers, John Locke, people of that nature.

But I won't bore you with a political science lecture.

The Greatest Canadian..

I really must be Canadian now..

eventually ;)

Or to be specific, Brecksville....

Man, it would have so nice to hang w/ you and Johnnie especially; we could have had a great jam session, that's for sure..

I know he was a Republican but you gotta admit that the Emancipation Proclamation was one of the most liberal acts in the history of this country.

Party membership doesn't mean anything.

go ahead an read the Age of Reason, if you want a scathing review of religion. It's quite funny, considering it was from 200 years ago.

If you wanna talk about his liberalism, talk about Rights of Man.

I mean, dude was a deist.

Galileo
Voltaire

In my opinion at least.

:)

Classic.

Yes, the same Adam Smith that the Right has perverted into their super hero. If you read The Wealth of Nations though you see that he was concerned with the well being of the poor. He saw the free market as a way to free the oppressed from imperial mercantilism. He was also opposed to slavery.

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable” - Adam Smith

If he had won the VP position in Roosevelts last term...things would have been MUCH different. No cold war, no Military Industrial Complex, Civil Rights Legislation 20 years earlier.....

SIGH

She was a social activist, helping the poor. She also advocated for the US to join the League of Nations in the 20s, and founded Hull House in Chicago as a place to help the poor.

I would have addedher to my list of liberal women if you hadn't posted this before I got here. :hi:

In a letter to his friend, Joshua Speed, written August 24, 1855, Lincoln stated:

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

Many neocons credit the Gettysburg Address as the birthplace of Big Government... Of course they never mention that throughout the Civil War, the Confederate government set the value of its currency as well as determining all wages and prices.

Abigail Adams
Mother Jones
Harriet Tubman
Susan B. Anthony
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Clara Barton
Shirley Chisholm
Barbara Boxer
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Cindy Sheehan
Julia Butterfly Hill
Helen Caldicott
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Naomi Klein

Mother Teresa
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Carolyn Forche
Carol P. Christ
Starhawk
Thandeka

Scientist, humanitarian, pacifist, activist, advocate. Closest thing to a hero I have.

As well as
Albert Einstein
Noam Chomsky
Abbie Hoffman
Ralf Nader
H.L. Mencken
Susan B. Anthony

No, wait, that's a liberal classic.



Rosie