Archive for January, 2004
Hip to be Liberal
4 January 2004I think it’s safe to say I’m a person with constant internal conflict. I always analyze things, so there are many subjects where I can’t settle on juse “one” single opinion, at least no simple opinions. That goes with most things: relationships, religion, philosophy, politics. But perhaps the last of those is the most baffling to me. WIth religion and philosophy, I can believe whatever I want to believe; so what if someone disagrees?
But with politics, it’s trickier. I suppose that’s because politics is a synthesized issue, something created, a means of labelling one’s philosophical and cultural beliefs into a simple name that rolls off the tongue. At least, that’s the impression one gets by referring to a “political party”. And what irks me is that, though I’m very much an issue-by-issue person and have very diverse opinions on each of them, in arguments and such I tend to gravitate towards the conservative side. I stick up for the Grand Old Party, for some odd reason. But why? Do I have any faith that trickle-down economics will somehow benefit me and not the billionaire executives who have access to the surplus money? Of course not. Do I want to take money out of education and put it into defense spending, so we can blow the shit out of the few countries left with worse educational systems than our own? Of course not. So why, despite my overall independent and moderate opinions, do I lean to the right?
Well, as I see it, how most people use it and how they umbrella themselves beneath it, liberalism is a total sham.
People bitch about injustices. They scream, “Respect the suspect’s rights!” while victims of rape and assualt walk home afraid of who may be standing there waiting for them. They blame immigration problems on “the system” but insist we can’t change it or else we might be “offending and discriminating” illegals. They use Bush and Fox News and religious fundamentalists as verbal pincushions, admittedly easy targets to sound righteous against. But with all the talk and all the whining and moaning, what the hell do they do? 99% of them, do they lift a finger to make things better in this world? Do they volunteer at the homeless shelter? Do they vote? Do they even pitch in cans of vegetables for the food drive? I don’t believe it. Not many of them, I don’t think, and I suspect especially not the more outspoken of them. Granted, not that I’ve voted to date (as I consider it a rather futile process), and I haven’t made much opportunity for volunteerism in the past few years. But you don’t see me bitching left and right on television, or in the student union or on the lawn or whatnot. You don’t see me making websites that go “Yay anarchy and everything cool!” and selling bumper stickers.
Do they really do anything? I don’t think so. I question that they even think for themselves. Really, most liberals I know are every bit as close-minded, set in their ways based on their political affiliations as conservatives are. Maybe the party issues make good points and are totally valid… Can you really believe in something if you don’t stop and think about it? It’s the same argument I make against most Christians, who blindly believe to such a point that simply “thinking” is equivocated as doubting and blasphemous. (And c’mon, isn’t “doubting Thomas” a little cliché?) I don’t know, maybe I’m no better–I need to do more. But I’m continually trying to take those things I do believe and implement them in the way I live my life. And I literally lay awake at nights toiling and torturing myself over some issues until I reach a point of resolution. I suppose if I felt everyone else did the same, I wouldn’t see liberalism as such a fad.
But maybe I’m just a square.