I feel like the squarest liberal in America...

Pat Buchanan once told his conservative compatriots that while they won the political war, they lost the cultural one (I'm paraphrasing).

The thing of it is, I would have gladly exchanged the two. Unlike most progressives at my college, I'm not a liberal because I'm open-minded about matters such as sex. Actually, I'm not. I look at the sex and drugs culture of young adults in the late 60's and 70's and I wince. Coincidentally, I'm not too thrilled when I attend progressive club meetings and find out that the other students are there just to wax nostalgic over keg parties of the past. I feel like I'm out of my element when I'm around these people. I've been told I have the demeanor of Jimmy Stewart. Many students are astounded that a person who attends church regularly, and doesn't use profanity, could be a liberal. And it angers me that these students associate liberalism with a life style more than with an ethos.

I tell them that I'm a liberal because I don't want people to suffer. I received my values from the Gospels, and the tenet I live by is for life to be preserved (as opposed to those unfortunate "Left Behind" fundamentalists who are fixated on death and apocalypse). I am against the death penalty and could never have any part an abortion procedure (although I think it is a necessary evil in society). I believe in de-militarization, universal health care, and a social contract between government and its people. I am ashamed that the most affluent country in the history of the world has citizens who are homeless.

My heroes are Eleanor Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and George McGovern. Accordingly, I don't have a kind word to say about the Clintons and the other centrist Democrats (who haven't done a thing for the people of this country). And I donate to one candidate and one candidate only--Dennis Kucinich.

I guess I'm feeling a little isolated right now. Are there any other liberals--or socialists (heck, I might be one in another year)--that feel a little out of step with other leftists?

is the squarest....

You're a liberal. None of us agrees on each and every point. Don't sweat it. :-)


:dem:

the neoliberal "counter-revolution", we face in all developped countries, is an attempt to correct this. Many progressive people don't really understand this. The right-wingers simply noticed that all through the sixties and seventies somehow the more left-wing forces, although they never had the majority on their side, dominated all the issues. The major issues, the terms, the words origined from their discourses.
And as right-wingers always do, they believe in power. For them it's not a question of engagement, it's a question of power.
It's really interesting to follow this development all over Europe. The italian marxist Gramsci did origine the theory of "hegemony", stating that it's more important to dominate culture than it is to win an election. It's in a vulgarized version, one of the main issues of the far right and even Nazis in Europe today.
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

To look at my life, one would think I'm a Republican, I guess. I probably look like a Republican. I have a ranch home and a van, own my own business, I decorate my house up to the max for Christmas because I like all the gaudiness of it all. I watch Survivor on teevee, because I like it, and sometimes I eat Velvetta.

My daughter does swear..she's a drummer... but she is 19 and has never had a drink. She doesn't want to. She is pretty, but doesn't date, says it's too much trouble right now. But she is very much a liberal and is very active in the Unitarian Church.

Anyway I know what it is like to be a "square" liberal. It's okay, because I like how I am, and I hope you do too.

Here are but a few of them:

1. Because of my working-class upbringing, I always had more of a "rough edge" than most of the other liberals I've known. Some of them have expressed out-and-out shock and horror when they heard me swear. It's like being around religious conservatives, fer crying out loud!

2. Musically, my tastes lean heavily toward African-American sounds, while most of the white liberals I've known gravitate toward classical music, folk, and (shudder!) progressive rock. Motown and jazz is about as black as they like their music to be.

3. I've never been much of a drinker or a druggie. In fact, when I'm at a party and somebody pulls out a joint, I immediately walk away. It's not that I object to marijuana per se, but I find the smell repugnant, and that stuff often turns mature, intelligent people into cackling morons.

So, to answer your question: yes, I do often feel out of step with other leftists!

fun to watch "mature, intelligent people turn into cackling morons", lol! And it's also fun to feel glad it isn't you! Actually, I think alcohol does that more than pot, although I don't do either of those (I may drink socially once in a great while), and never wanted to, either.

And there's nothing wrong with socialism. I bet there's more people that lean that way here than toward libertarianism.

While most liberals share some traits, we come from such a broad spectrum of humanity and at the very core of it all there is one thing we as liberals understand: we are all in this together. Who wants the cookie-cutter "everyone must act exactly like me in order to be a decent person"? I don't. There is a place at my table for those liberals who are deeply spiritual and those liberals who are atheists and those liberals who are comfortable with conformity and those liberals who deeply resent a society trying to force them into a single mold. Whether we are are more conformist or totally radical we share something inside of us: a deep understanding of that the world around us isn't a fair place and we owe it to ourselves and others to do what we can to make the world a better place by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and allowing people of different lifestyles to co-exist peacefully and equally.

There is nothing to feel out of step about. You are no more a less a liberal than those who want to experience a difference culture or feel constrained by the shackles of a culture they didn't choose but were just born into. Some are angry, some are pacifists, some are pure middle of the road and vanilla.

But that isn't what makes you a liberal. Keg parties, and sexual freedom, counter-culture, are beside the point. Those are merely differences of lifestyles and cultures. They are window-dressing.

I think being liberal means you share an inherent empathy with the world and the people who inhabit it and you feel a desire to make it better, to help those less fortunate and bring a sense of social equality and justice to what I see as a great community. And if it means tossing the things that don't work and trying new and untried methods to help make the world a better place, you are willing to explore it.

I wouldn't call you square. I'd call you a human being and embrace that humanity around me because I think deep down inside where it counts we understand that we are more alike than different and that when push comes to shove, we are our brother's keeper.

get the job done, and done solidly. It is also the people of quiet committment, dedication, and perseverance who continue the fight when the situation has grown dark and difficult enough to become an inconvenience to the good-time party crowd.

I consider myself part of that old-school 30s-early 60s liberalism, the liberalism of FDR and Kennedy and in some ways Johnson. I believe that the conservatives have created this idea in the mind of many Americans (and many liberals) that ALL liberals are pot-smoking groupsex hippies. That's nonsense. They're not. I am in college, but I do not drink or smoke or do drugs or, for lack of a better term, try to f*** anything that moves. I cannot relate to that sort of mentality. Nor am I some uptight intellectual, who spends every waking minute with his nose in a book and never allows himself any fun. I opt for a third way. I have fun talking to people. I have fun playing guitar. I have fun watching TV. I don't need any vices. I have enough problems as it is.

I guess you could say my societal politics are very liberal, but my "personal politics" are conservative. I believe a person has a right to do what they want, but I choose not to, because they conflict with my values. My parents and friends think I'm a seventy year old soul trapped in a nineteen year old body. Which is probably true, if you equate age with wisdom.

So don't worry. You don't have to engage in self-destructive behavior just because you're a liberal.

in some ways. In fact, I even agree with many conservatives' tenets on matters of morality and values (when I say "conservative" I mean the sane ones, not the FReepy kooks). I think probably this is true of the vast majority of progressives (based on my own limited experience). I've always strongly believed the personal values of progressives are much more authentic and true than those professed by Republicans and rightwingers, and I think that shows clearly in our everyday lives.

Hip To Be Square
Huey Lewis and the News

I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down
Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care
Because I can tell what's going on
It's hip to be square

I like my bands in business suits, I watch them on TV
I'm working out 'most everyday and watching what I eat
They tell me that it's good for me, but I don't even care
I know that it's crazy
I know that it's nowhere
But tehre is no denying that
It's hip to be square

It's not too hard to figure out, you see it everyday
And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way
You see them on the freeway, It don't look like a lot of fun
But don't you try to fight it; "An idea who's time has come."

Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere
Take it from me
It's hip to be square

People consider my views to be ultra-liberal, but I live a very conservative lifestyle. I'm sure more than a few liberals could say the same. I never did drugs, except for a brief (meaning less than a handful of times) experimentation a few years ago with a couple of natural substances. I was reading a lot of stuff on evolution of consciousness, mysticism, Leary and NDE's at the time and was curious. I don't do them now because they're too intense for my psyche.

I am not the type to engage in casual sex, and am pretty old-fashioned about it on a personal level, though I'm able to speak openly to my teenaged daughter about it. My view is, too many people make a big deal about other's sexual 'morality' when it is the most natural thing in the world for human beings to engage in.

I'm against abortion, but feel that it is a personal decision that should be made by the one who's reproductive system is involved, not by the government, or anyone else.

I detest guns, but see that we aren't going to be successful in prying them out of the hand's of people who feel they must have them. America is steeped in gun culture, and has been since its inception. One day this will change, but that day is a ways off yet. The culture of fear that breeds the culture of guns has to be disappated, first.

I've modeled a lot of my values after the Gospels, too, because this Jesus guy really made an impression on me, which is ironic since I'm an atheist. You are not alone.

I am an atheist who follows Buddhist tenets, and I agree with you on just about everything except the abortion part. My suggestion? Don't worry about what others think so much -- just continue to be the good example. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and never got into the drug/sex culture either, and there were plenty more like me. And we were all still liberal.

Hmmm... I wonder where that idea came from... I have a pretty tame existence... married with kid for many years. Rarely drink. Main vice these days is chocolate and loud punk/post-punk music. I think being liberal is in how you think and how you put that thought into action in a constructive way. By voting, being politically active, or just talking to others and respecting them. I'm not conservative, just middle-aged and somewhat mellow. As a midlifer, I have to conserve energy. :)

I've been married for 18 years btw...I mean to the same person, ha! How fabulously square that is!

Well let's see when you look at the sex thing, lemme tell ya -- it's not like there aren't any conservative people getting a bit on the side....or more! Or like Michael Huffington, are anti-gay and GAY AT THE SAME TIME!

Of course no conservative would ever mess with drugs (Rush Limbaugh) or alcohol (Charleton Heston.)

It's all a big O'Reilly type spin that they are so moral and "pro-family" and we are not. Bull shit! Like what my priest says (yep, I go every week) it's EASY to love your family and friends and children and care about their future. It's caring about the ones who are not your own -- immigrants, poor, homeless, Iraqis, whatever, that is the hard thing but that is what is required of us.

I believe that and not just in a religious sense, in a common sense way; a great society can be judged by how they take care of the most vulnerable. The GOP-ers, their UTOPIA of no/low taxes or social spending and big military, it's called PERU! HAITI! GO CHECK IT OUT!

but not since I came here. Nowadays my way of life is indistinguishable from my conservative compatriots--I'm a 40-year-old married stay-at-home mother of one. Of course, the nose ring and Howard Dean bumper sticker give me away...

You're not out of step with anyone. The values you enumerate are the heart and soul of liberalism.