Laying it out
Michael Silence gave me a shout out today, which I certainly appreciate. He identified me and Joe Powell as two liberal East Tennessee bloggers he recommends. I appreciate the compliment, and I certainly appreciate being lumped into any category with Joe.
Joe takes some issue with his labeling, but I sure don't have a problem with mine.
I'm a liberal, and I'm proud of it.
I'm very strongly pro-labor. The labor movement worked for decades to improve the lives of American workers, transforming the sweatshops of the 19th century into the modern workplaces we all now enjoy. The labor movement saw the abolition of child labor, the establishment of workplace safety laws, and the institution of some notion of fair labor practices into an economy which had previously found such notions alien and subversive. In a nutshell, the movement sought to elevate the plight of the working class above the level of mere subsistence; were it not for the unions, the historic explosion of the middle class after World War II would not have happened. We owe our prosperity to the labor movement, and not to the robber barons they fought.
I'm all for standing up for the little guy, whether David is facing a corporate Goliath or one wearing the mantle of government.
I believe we have an obligation to maintain the goal laid out by the framers of the Constitution: "in order to form a more perfect union." This is an evolutionary task, never ending, but is instead a goal which poses new challenges to each succeeding generation. That means progress, and it means continued vigilance against poverty and the infringement of individual rights.
To "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," I believe we have an imperative to care for the environment, leaving it at least no worse off than we found it. We have an obligation to future generations, and that includes not polluting our air and water, not destroying the natural environment, and not leaving future generations with legacies too burdensome to bear. To me, that also means caring for the least among us, since history has proven that the cycle of poverty cannot break itself.
The rising tide lifts all boats, and all that.
I strongly believe in the ideals of our government as articulated in the articles of the Constitution. That means respecting the separation of powers, the co-equal nature of the three branches of government, respect for the rule of law, and respect for the supremacy of the people over government. That last one, the supremacy of us over the government, is rooted in both individual liberty and collective responsibility; one can't exist without the other, and both have equal power.
I guess the "collective responsibility" part makes me a socialist or something. Whatever. Without collective responsibility and its dynamic relationship with individual liberty, we'd have either anarchy or feudalism. Both would suck. I think the recognition of that dynamic is mostly a liberal thing.
To me, the Bill of Rights is the most articulate, powerful political document ever written, and I'd defend all of those amendments with my dying breath (as well as those numbered above ten). Yes, that even includes the right to gun ownership. Although I'm not convinced that the Second Amendment applies to individuals any more (since we don't raise national armies by mustering militias), I do think that gun ownership is nevertheless a protected right. Gun ownership has been a fundamental part of the American character ever since the beginning of the Republic; for that reason, it has become a de facto right which we "the people" have chosen to assert for ourselves. This is clearly protected by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and I support it just as I would support any other asserted right, as long as that right doesn't impinge on someone else (like the right to privacy). I own a pistol, I know how to use it, and it's largely none of the government's business that I've chosen to do so. However, I have no problem with background checks or even licensing and registration of firearms, since those tend to be part of a larger emphasis on public safety.
The assertion of newly evolved rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution is the heart of progress, and as such forms one of the linchpins of liberalism.
I don't want to belabor the whole Bill of Rights thing too much, because conservatives can legitimately claim it equally as their own. But I do think there's something inherently liberal about the core of the First Amendment, with its protections for protests, and offensive speech, and totally private things like religious expression. The wall of separation between church and state is, in my mind, the most liberal concept ever encoded in a political document. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments run close behind.
Modern liberalism arose as an intellectual consequence of the Enlightenment; personal inquiry, respect for science, and the sway of compelling arguments based on fact and reason took the place of truths handed down from the mountaintop and rule by divine right. The intellectual and moral authority of popes and emperors gave way to a personal authority which rests within each of us; the journey of learning and understanding serves to "form a more perfect union" by its very nature. Collectively (there's that word again), our joined personal authority gives government its legitimacy. Nothing else does.
Our collective contributions to that learning benefit everyone, not just our own narrow lives; sometimes it means casting aside an existing, creaky, broken order in favor of something better, and it always means using the best of our abilities to make the world better for everyone. That's liberalism in a nutshell to me, and I'm proud to claim it as a worldview.