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To
Our Conservative Friends
The
first question on your mind probably is this: "Why would
anyone support liberal causes in the first place?
To answer this, let's start by looking
at the word liberal, a term first adopted by Franklin Roosevelt.
No doubt it conjures bad things in your mind. If you look it up in the
dictionary, you'll find it means something quite positive and American
at its roots:
Liberal—open-minded;
tolerant. Favoring civil and political liberties, democratic reforms,
and protection from arbitrary authority.
Which
part of this definition do you disagree with? Probably none of it. Yet
think-tanks and political strategies have somehow managed to malign this
word to the point that its meaning is scarcely recognizable.
Now, lets look at the word conservative:
Conservative—favoring
traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. Traditional
in style.
When
you compare the definitions side-by-side, they don't look so contentious,
do they?
And why should they? Think back on the
beginnings of our nation. Our democracy was formed on open-minded, tolerant
ideas respecting freedom and human rights. These ideas have become
our traditional views and values! When we oppose them, we are
not opposing change. We are rejecting the very foundation that our nation
was built on!
Of course, politics has redefined things
somewhat. Liberals are said to spend tax money more freely, while conservatives
want to constrain spending and reduce taxes. This difference, while still
touted by conservatives, simply does not reflect the facts. Spending has
risen dramatically under recent conservative administrations. Although
they can claim to have reduced taxes, who are the beneficiaries of these
reductions? Mostly the rich, who have at least indirectly, made their
wealth on the vast labor of all of us. The results? A huge national debt
that each of us, along with our children and grandchildren, are responsible
to pay back. This is not fiscal responsibility.
The following list represents issues that
liberals advocated, and conservatives opposed:
- equal
rights
- workplace
safety
- child
labor laws
- living
wages
- 40
hour work week and overtime wages
- labor
union rights
- food
and water regulations
- protecting
all elderly citizens (and widows and the disabled) with Social Security
and Medicare
- protecting
the air and environment we live in
These
are benefits we all enjoy, and we take many for granted. In recent years,
political leaders who call themselves conservative have made efforts to
dismantle many of these protections, including Social Security. Is this
what you really want?
When it comes to spending, conservatives
and liberals have very different ideas on how to spend money. Conservatives
focus on the health of large businesses, saying that these are the leading
forces of our economy. In many ways they are right. However, in idealizing
the free market, conservatives have failed to take steps to reduce the
ever growing gap between rich and poor, and the erosion of the middle
class. Instead, they reduce taxes in favor of the super-wealthy.
Liberals spend money as well, but with
a focus on the good of the American people, all of us. We feel that real
patriotism is about supporting the people who comprise this nation,
all of them, making sure that the environment they live
in sustains healthy living, encouraging responsible living, supporting
families through affordable health insurance, making America all that
it can be as monument to human decency.
Neo-conservatives have joined
forces with the religious right as part of the systematic dismantling
of liberal causes. They claim that liberals, in respecting the separation
of church and state (a term coined by Thomas Jefferson), presents
a threat to fundamentalist religious ideology. This is not the case. By
keeping church and state separate, religions are protected from government
interference. All religions can flourish freely in such environment. What
the religious right objects to is that they are unable to imose their
own specific religious views on Americans who do not believe in them.
The majority of religious people in this
country are socially progressive in their concern for the poor and well-being
of our nation. Unfortunately, because they believe in the separation of
church and state, they have remained quiet as the religious right advanced
politically. This is changing. We encourage the religious left to challenge
the right, with integrity and determination and a concern, not for power,
but for the good of all people.
We could go on and on about the differences.
Our purpose is to point out that the animosity between liberals and most
conservatives just isn't necessary. Our society needs the balance of both
ideologies. We invite and welcome conservative thought and dialog with
open-minds, and hope to learn from you. Let's find out just how similar
we are after all.
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