The Meaning of Liberalism

Originally posted at Liberal Values--see original post for links.

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=1625

The Meaning of Liberalism

During the past few years there was considerable unity among those of us with a wide variety of beliefs in opposing the reactionary policies of the Republican Party. Labels of liberal and conservative have become partially redefined by where one stands on the Iraq War and a handful of social issues, with economics, which used to be a primary distinction, no longer being as significant. Patricia Cohen tackles the question of what liberalism now means in The New York Times.

Political labels are necessary in political discussion but have many faults. They frequently lump people together who have quite disparate beliefs, and can even separate those who are in agreement on many issues. The right has become particularly skilled at using labels as weapons, as they redefine liberalism to be something derogatory and define conservativism to mean something quite different from what has been practiced when conservatives have been in power.

Recently I’ve discussed more what liberals are not than what they are. In April I wrote that the characteristics of liberals described by John Hawkins has no relationship to my actual views. I dismissed George Will’s description of liberals more recently.

Cohen’s attempts to find a definition for liberalism is complicated by the fact that attempts to divide most opinions outside of the extremes as liberal or conservative will lump many people together with diverse views. While I can define what liberalism means to me, there may be others who define their views in a very different manner.

Liberalism stems from liberty, and above all else liberalism stands for individual liberty. Therefore liberals are united in opposing the violations of civil liberties seen under the Republicans who believe that the Bill of Rights is limited to the Second Amendment and see the American Civil Liberties Union as their enemy.

Liberals are concerned about fundamental liberties including freedom of speech, the press, and religion. There is no uniform position with regards to the right to own guns, with many liberals supporting reasonable precautions as opposed to abolition. Liberals understand, as did the founding father and religious leaders of the past, that freedom of religion is only possible with strict separation of church and state. This is not an anti-religion viewpoint as the propagandists of the right would claim.

Liberals support a free market economy, but this leaves room for a variety of interpretations ranging from classical liberals supporting laissez-fair capitalism to those supporting increased government action. Liberals oppose both socialism and the system of government/corporate collusion promoted by conservatives, and I see neither as capitalist system. If not for the many other negative connotations of the word, fascism would be a far more accurate description of the economic policies being promoted by many Republicans, but using this would denote an extremism which even the Bush administration has not reached.

Conservative propagandists would define liberalism based upon the most extreme advocates of big government, but I see this as more of an aberration in liberal belief. My position is sometimes referred to as socially liberal and economically conservative, but this label has failings too as I might agree with conservatives on some economic issues and disagree on others.

In reality there is considerable pragmatism as opposed to ideology on economic issues among liberals. Liberals do not necessarily desire higher taxes as conservatives would argue, but neither would liberals accept a Grover Norquist pledge against raising taxes regardless of the situation. While Cohen considers a support for proactive government to be a fundamental belief of liberals, this is more a matter of pragmatism. Liberals will utilize government where necessary, while also maintaining a healthy skepticism about government. Liberals neither must advocate bigger government in all cases as conservative propagandists would claim, or oppose government in virtually all situations as many conservatives do. Liberals can support the necessary social safety net for those who need it without supporting a net so big that it strangles us all.

This pragmatism comes as liberalism is largely a way in which problems are viewed as opposed to holding a strict set of unchangeable beliefs. Liberals have a reality-based viewpoint, where conservatives view the world biased by ideology and their religious beliefs. Liberals accept the findings of science on evolution and climate change, where conservatives believe they can ignore scientific evidence which conflicts with their beliefs.

This failure to accept a reality-based outlook also intrudes upon politics, with many conservatives continuing to claim that Saddam threatened us with WMD and had ties to 9/11. These views are largely fed by conservatives obtaining their information from propaganda outfits of the right, leading them to see anything which presents facts conflicting with their imaginary world view as liberal bias. In this context, Stephen Colbert was right about reality having “a well-known liberal bias.”

Views on foreign policy are harder to divide based upon the liberal versus conservative spectrum. Liberals are fairly united in opposing the current war, but I would differ with Cohen’s quotes of some anti-war liberals that “dislike of the Bush administration colored their judgment of the war and affirm that ‘we are not realists.’” While this may be true of some, for many of us it was the realization that the war was such a tremendous blunder which led to our dislike and distrust of George Bush. As time has gone on, the facts have only strengthened the case that opposition to the war was the correct position for those of us who are realists.

Viewing past wars makes the distinctions between liberals and conservatives less clear. Vietnam was escalated by Lyndon Johnson and other liberals, but many claim that John Kennedy would have never done this. Ultimately the war was opposed by most liberals and backed by most conservatives. Therefore the Vietnam war cannot easily be used to differentiate liberals from conservatives but might demonstrate another important difference. While some liberals may have supported the war initially, many learned from this mistake. Conservatives attack “flip-flopping” as a great evil, while liberals will change their policies as new information is available and conditions change. The desire to “stay the course,” even when clear that the course is wrong, far too often defines conservative thought.

Cohen refers to many additional works on the meaning of liberalism which will sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with my definition. This diversity of thought is yet another important element of liberalism.