I suppose it isn't so smart to write this given the fact that I'm competing for something called "best liberal blog" at the Weblog awards, but in all honesty, I sometimes struggle with whether I am, in fact, much of a liberal (let alone a "liberal blogger...) To be sure I side with liberals on most things -- issues of poverty, anti-discrimination, economic and wage fairness, more rights for workers vs. the managers and CEOs who so often use and discard them, etc. But on other things, I find myself often out of doctrinal compliance.
For example, I fail to see the heroism in radical socialism of the kind practiced by Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro (with whom some extreme liberals sympathise -- trust me, I've gotten the e-mail lectures slamming me for speaking of such leaders in a negative light...). And while I know many terrific gay men (I haven't been so lucky with the lesbian women in the friendship arena...) I share the right's misgivings about deconstructing marriage (and the implications I often hear from gay marriage & adoption supporters that men and women are both interchangeable and dispensible in the lives of children) ... as well as the military's concern about privacy if "don't ask, don't tell" were to be abolished.
I grew up in the shadow of Lowry Air Force base in a town where it seemed like one in two kids paricipated in ROTC, and perhaps because of that, I'm reflexively pro-military (in fact, I think military service is in the finest tradition of Democrats, who tend to serve (JFK, George McGovern, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, "Jack" Murtha, Gen. Wesley Clark and others) where the Republicans simply run off at the mouth and sound the war bells (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Feith, GWBush...) I even think military recruiters should be given equal access to college, law school and other campuses, with some restrictions to the kind of recruiting that can be directed at minors... I just don't like the way our military is being used by the current civilian leadership. I don't believe in "regime change," democracy experiments, benign hegemony or any of the other Wilsonian nonsense spouted by the neocons, who really should be called "neo-Trotskyites" because they share more in commen with Bolshevik revolutionaries than with actual conservatives...
And while I vehemently oppose the Iraq war on those grounds, and on the grounds that the war did not do a damned thing to enhance America's security (and therefore in my opinion, was extra-Constitutional in the sense that the American president has no authority to "spread freedom and democracy around the world,") even as it helped to destroy America's hard-won international reputation, I find the extreme left wing of my political party -- the ANSWER crowd, with their seemingly anti-military, not just anti-war, message -- irritating to say the least.
At the same time, I could never, ever be a Republican. I find them callous and selfish, greedy and Dickensian-Orwellian in the worst sense of those words. The utter disdain for the struggling, the naked craving for absolute economic loot and political power (and their clear willingness to manipulate people of few means and people of faith) that I see in that party's leadership is enough to keep me a Democrat for life. There is something rotten -- even wicked -- at work in the GOP, despite the presence of the odd good man like Chuck Hagel. ... And yet... I ran into Bob Kunst, the Hillary Now! guy at the Democratic Party convention in Orlando last weekend, and walked away shaking my head. If he and others in his camp really think Democrats can only win by tracking to the extreme left on social and other issues, he's in lala land just like our Mr. Bubble president.
Anyway, a friend emailed me the following definition of a liberal, which I thought was as good a definition as any I've seen:
"lib-er-al (lbr-l, lbrl) adj. 1). Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. 2) Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded." I hope that describes me. If it doesn't, I'll work on it.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
