What does "Liberal" mean to you?

[Tennessee Gal]

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

[Scuba]

1. It means hate America and steal from working people to give to the lazy...

...I know this because the mainstream media has been telling me every day for 30 years.

[Lorien]

4. Yes, we're supposed to "hate America" while loving "big government"

while the teabaggers want to do away with government altogether. So if our system of government is what defines our Nation, then THEY are the ones who hate America.

[Romulox]

2. "Free trade" with South Korea! nt

[Odin2005]

3. Social Democracy and Civil Liberties.

[Karmadillo]

5. Cuts to Social Security and Medicare! Patent reform! Illegal wars!

nt

[patrice]

6. Inclusive as opposed to Exclusive. e.g. "welcomes NEW ideas without rigid reactions", "cares about

the welfare of the people" and, thus, INCLUDING the Real Value that ALL of the people, even the poor, bring to our mutual endeavors; "someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us" because they INCLUDE in their assumptions about those situations elemental factors that fundamentally mitigate against stasis.

Liberals are inclusive because they are elementally FREE enough to be capable of that conceptually and empirically.

Conservatives are exclusive because they are elementally ENSLAVED so much as to be incapable conceptually and empirically of doing otherwise.

[patrice]

10. Thus, Liberalism implicity INCLUDES Conservatism and Conservatism explicitly EXCLUDES Liberalism.

[Tennessee Gal]

7. Liberals are advocates

of civil rights, public education, tolerance of differences, a social safety net, employees' rights, environmental protection, strong families, personal responsibility, free enterprise, the rule of law, and progress. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy by being strongly supportive of moral, economic, and social progress to benefit all humanity.

Liberalism is not "big government," which is the Conservative's preferred negative label for Liberals. This inaccurate sound bite is based on the misconception that proponents of social programs to help the needy are more responsible for the size of government than those who advocate corporate welfare and religious indoctrination.

Liberals stand for individual control over our own lives. Liberals perceive the role of government as providing the framework for individuals to develop and contribute to society.

[Populist_Prole]

8. I've been thinking about that. I am one now, never thought I'd be

Up till a few years ago, I guess I was center/right secular economic populist. I always had an unconcsious bias about the term...a stigma. To me it meant a nanny-state "it's for your own good" do-gooder type.

Now that the right has shifted thousand fold even further right, especially economically, and I haven't changed my view through it all, I guess that would make me a liberal now. I'm fine with that. The GOP has not a single redeeming quality and I don't give a fiddler's fuck what they think of me, or others like me.

[Romulox]

9. Barack Obama would've been a "Liberal Republican" a generation ago...

In many ways, the party came to you.

[William769]

11. Never having to say your sorry. NT

[panzerfaust]

12. Liberal: Generous, Fair, Thoughtful, Progressive, Tolerant ...

I would go on, but there is no point.


Liberals are on the brink of extinction.
But they are not alone.

[WinkyDink]

13. The New Deal and the Great Society.