Maintaining
Liberal Consistency and Unity
We are
clear about our liberal values which define us: In cooperation with others,
enhancing and protecting freedoms and opportunities for all of us and using our
freedoms and opportunities competently to care for ourselves and others with
fewer freedoms and opportunities. We
thus sustain the American Dream of increasing freedom and prosperity
(spiritually and materially).
Consistent and Inconsistent
Liberals
We apply
our values to many issues: personal, political and social rights; environment;
organization of government and private enterprise; taxes and expenditures; family
life; health; education, jobs; income, retirement; immigrants; etc. We can imagine a bar chart with these along
the horizontal axis, a bar above each one indicating the extent to which our
position is liberal.
Some
people speak of extreme and moderate Liberals.
Extreme Liberals would be people who are consistently Liberal concerning
the many issues on our bar chart. Moderate Liberals would be people who are Conservative
on various issues on our bar chart. But
there would be major differences among moderate Liberals concerning the issues
toward which they are Liberal or Conservative.
Instead
of speaking of extreme and moderate Liberals, it is more precise to speak of
consistent and inconsistent Liberals. And
then to specify the issues concerning which a Liberal is conservative.
Some
people like Jesse Ventura describe themselves as social Liberals but fiscal
moderates or Conservatives. But Liberals
believe money should be spent competently and believe that assistance to less
fortunate people should be a supplement and not a substitute to their
competently caring for themselves. This
is Liberal, not moderate or Conservatives. Liberals also believe that families,
voluntary organizations and private enterprises can conduct many very important
activities more competently than government, but government often needs to
regulate abuses by these groups and can conduct some activities most
competently.
Liberals
may disagree concerning many boundaries and details. They may disagree concerning political
strategy. For example, concerning
various issues, is it better to pass Liberal legislation even though mainstream
opinion opposes it? Or is it better to
work to change public opinion before passing the legislation. But these differences don’t define how
Liberal various people are. We should
not say that people who want unpopular legislation are more Liberal than those
who want to first change public opinion.
If we
speak of extreme and moderate Liberals, we divide ourselves which is what our
Conservative opponents want us to do.
Better to speak of consistent Liberals and those who are inconsistent. We can then focus upon changing the
inconsistent opinions.
Compromising with Conservatives
Won’t Work
Some
pundits describe how our legislators have become more partisan. They claim that our mainstream Americans are
unhappy with the partisan legislative struggles that produce little
progress. They suggest that Democrats
need to compromise with Republicans to produce bipartisan solutions.
But it
takes two to compromise. Conservatives
strongly oppose our Liberal agenda, seek to obstruct it even when it is
supported by the majority of Americans and refuse to compromise. Under these circumstances, there is nothing
to be gained from compromising. The
answer is to continually confront the Republicans with the choice of voting to
please their Conservative supporters or voting to please mainstream
Americans. The answer is to defeat the Republicans
electorially until we have a strong Democratic majority which can pass
mainstream Liberal legislation.
I agree
that much partisan activity is simply oriented to winning, with little regard
for solving problems. But I disagree
strongly that compromising Liberal and Conservative values will produce
solutions. On major issues such as the
struggle against terrorists, the Iraq War, government taxation and spending,
providing Medicare for all, protecting civil liberties, and many others, Liberals
have workable solutions and Conservatives don’t.
Liberals
have workable proposals to achieve:
·
Fair
Clean Elections and Open Government
·
Fair
Taxes and Competent Spending
·
Investment
for Productivity
·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income and Retirement
·
Environmental
Protection and Energy
·
Personal
Security and Equal Rights
·
Justice
and Peace Everywhere
·
International
Leadership and Cooperation
These
proposals are opposed by Conservatives who are now wrecking our American Dream
of Security, Peace and Prosperity. To
compromise with them as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and Unity08
propose would not produce workable proposals.
An example was the
Liberals Need to Consistently
Support our Agenda
Liberals,
including Democrats need to reduce the amount of partisan posturing oriented to
wining votes in the short term and stand on principle on important issues to
win votes in both the short and long term.
Liberals and Democrats need the guts to express their mainstream views
and attack the Conservative attacks on our mainstream values. We should recognize that Conservatives are
only a noisy minority.