In a comment Ephraim asked, “What is the basic principle behind your ‘liberalness’.”
As best I can say it, that principle is, “We’re all in this life together.” Or, as others have put it:
“[T]thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Leviticus 19-18
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7-12
“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Luke 6-31
“Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.” Muhammad, The Farewell Sermon
“One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.” Brihaspati, Mahabharata
“Tse-kung asked, ‘Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?’ Confucius replied, ‘It is the word ‘shu’ — reciprocity. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.'” Analects XV.24
“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien
“The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.” Shinto
“Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not.” Baha’u’llah
“All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.” Black Elk
“The inherent worth and dignity of every person. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.” Unitarian Universalist Principles
I’m enjoying your thoughts on liberalism. I’ve been pondering the same question the past few days, wondering about the essence of my outlook on the world. You’ve done a good job of expressing a lot of it.
I think curiosity is important, as well as an urge towards compassion rather than revenge.
Ken, I think you nailed the defining characteristic. I always describe liberalism as “having an overabundance of empathy,” and I know I fall short of the mark too often.
Muddy, you hit on a good point there getting to the main difference between a lot of liberal and conservative thinking, re: compassion vs. revenge.
I think of a joke which (for my sardonic self) illustrates the difference:
There’s a pint glass containing a half pint of beer.
The liberal sees the glass as half full and is glad there’s some left to share with his friends.
The conservative says, “Who the hell drank half my beer?!”
But seriously, liberal and conservative are somewhat confining labels.
On some issues (gun control, separation of church and state, national healthcare, progressive taxation), I’m a flaming socialist, and on some issues, I tend toward traditional conservative views (fiscal conservative, for the most part, and I firmly believe in compulsory national service for everyone).
I think the real problem is that the conservative movement was hijacked – for lack of a better term – by fundamentalist Christians, which is why we have idiots like Michelle Bachman and (in my fair state of Florida) Ronda Storms.
I believe in the dialectic, and I’d like to see rational discourse on real issues. Both sides are guilty of choosing politics over the public good, but I’d argue that in the last forty years, the conservatives have been the worst offenders, stifling dissent with God and country.
Still, to get back to the topic of this post, I grew up poor, I saw my father suffer through the healthcare system, and I’ve been around enough people of privilege (and enough people in poverty) to know that empathy tends to decrease in direct proportion to affluence.
The more some people have, the less they want to share, even when they have more than they can ever use.