Why I Am A Liberal

More than ever, I wear the label with pride.* Basically, I am a liberal because I think that there are certain collective values that can only be protected by a central authority--the government. These include: equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities, clean air and water, protection of our natural resources, and food and workplace safety. A subset of this includes public safety issues like the rigorous regulation of guns. I am most happy to hear Senator Obama's votes indicate that he is a strong proponent of gun control. It's funny that Walker posted on this while I was working on this post, since gun control is one of the main reasons I am a liberal. I understand that you can find statistics to demonstrate gun violence goes down as gun ownership goes up. But you can also find the opposite and my common sense tells me that no one needs access to assault weapons, even for philosophical reasons. My earliest political memory is contributing along with my mother to a group lobbying for passage of the Brady Bill in the 80s after President Reagan was shot.

People on the right might not be aware of how some of us perceive the last 8 years: more or less as a tragedy. President Bush's willfully ignorant approach to governing is tolerated by so many on the right; to me that says lots of people are willing to strain a gnat but swallow a camel, politically speaking. While I am not that impressed by Obama's many "present votes"--he is ever the careful one, is he not?-- I understand them. It is his particular genius to sidestep the culture war-type issues that have bogged down so many. That is a digression, but I make it in order to acknowledge that I know my guy is not perfect, and to just hint at the mountain of junk Republicans have to overlook in their own leaders to be able to see the so-called crimes of the left.

To elaborate, here are some things I am looking forward to under the "liberal" administration of President Barack Obama:

•Someone who will bring intelligence and compassion to the prosecution of and ending of the Iraq war. (I do not pretend to know what that will look like.) But the waste and inefficiency of this war is breathtaking. The disregard for human life appalling. The sacrifice of America's position as a world leader in human rights in favor of torture and the circumventing of the rule of law, downright depressing. (As Mark said earlier, imagine how you would feel if a democratic president started pushing these sorts of boundaries........)

• Someone who will invest in economically smart ways of conserving energy and our natural resources. It's okay with me if you want to talk about alternative explanations for climate change, and engage the world in a debate in order to come to some resolution, but for crying out loud, we are the United States of America. Let's lead the world in figuring this stuff out. Putting your fingers in your ears and essentially repeating "I'm not listening!" is no kind of solution.

• Someone who is proactive, rather than reactionary, in evaluating our schools and health care systems and making smart decisions for our future, as well as installing civil servants who are competent to oversee the agencies they serve. (Brownie, anyone?)

• Someone who will reinstate regulations protecting the safety of our food and drinking water. In addition to allowing for higher concentrations of arsenic in drinking water, the Bush administration limited the circumstances under which beef inspectors could discard tainted beef. Oh, and did I mention about how he wants truckers to be able to drive longer runs at a stretch? As a mother I don't want these folks on I-10 with us when my family and I drive to Austin.

One olive branch before I go. I think on a lot of this stuff McCain will out perform Bush by a long shot. But then, I guess I would think that. He and I are both liberals, right?

* The only reason I get a little prickly when I hear a poster talking about Obama being "left wing", or some such, is not because I think it's bad to beon the left but because I suspect the person assigning the label means it to be a knock-out punch to his credibility as a leader. Some have noted, and I agree, that one reason for Obama's quick rise is that philosophical liberals have found someone who is not ashamed to make liberal votes and explain them in terms of the principles of equality, freedom and peace that we all value (or should). As I understand it, he opposes stuff like ill-conceived wars and mistreatment of combatants for the same reasons I do--not because we want America to fail or be in some way harmed. That doesn't make sense. We live here, and so do our children. It's because we are the greatest country in the world, and if people are going to follow our lead we need to act like it.