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The Liberal Defense
I am a liberal. I am not ashamed of it. If caring about my fellow human beings makes me one, I'll wear the liberal badge with honor.
Some would think that because I am African-American, I embrace liberalism because I want a hand-out. Liberals realize that before affirmative action, there were those who had been receiving "hand-outs" for years. Liberalism is all about making things fair and evening up the odds.
Conservatives claim to be against hand-outs. As I have said in previous articles, it was the conservatives who heavily taxed the middle class and gave tax breaks to big business and the one-percent rich.
Liberalism is not anti-rich. Liberals have nothing against those who work hard and become rich. Liberals just want everyone to pay their fair share of taxes.
Unlike conservatives and libertarians, liberals believe the federal government should be involved when things get out of hand. For instance, during the civil-rights era, conservatives wanted no part of ending segregation in the South. Black males were being lynched and black folks couldn't vote.
Liberals wanted to put an end to this madness. Conservatives wanted to stay out of it. They wanted to leave the problem solving to the Southern States. How can a person say something like this when many Southern governors behaved like members of the Ku Klux Klan themselves? Governor George Wallace of Alabama stood in front of a school to prevent black students from entering. Conservatives still didn't want to get involved. Luckily, liberals didn't listen to them.
I think stories like these should be told to those libertarians who also start talking the same Feds-hands-off nonsense. I wonder if folks seriously believe that without government intervention, the South would have ended segregation.
Recently, I've been criticized for digging up the past and "needless finger-pointing." Like a true liberal, my main goal is to point to the wrongs in life and show where those wrongs may have started. If it's a sin in showing the obvious that the Republican party is full of truth bending , divisive hatemongers - then a finger-pointing, sinner I shall be.
If there's on thing that sickens me is the way conservative types tells me how they are turned off by the anger in my writings. Yet and still, those that tend to speak on their behalf really let the anger-goose loose.
One time I received a three-page letter full of anger. This person didn't like what I wrote about Jeb Bush. He was offended and said I was practicing "left-wing McCarthyism."
Another incident happened in a bar. My friend, Nigel, and I were in Will's Pub one night. A fifties greaser type was fussing to his female friend about how this magazine (Impact) was such bullshit.
He knew I was sitting nearby. He looked right at me before he grabbed the magazine from the magazine stand.
Apparently, from his angry mumbling, he didn't like what someone had written about right-wingers. Instead of just saying he didn't like what one person had written, he blamed the whole magazine.
Twenty minutes had passed and the guy was still fuming.
I have yet to see a liberal carry on that way.
A liberal would have hated the writer, not the whole politically-diverse magazine.
And why are conservative types always writing Impact urging the staff to separate themselves from me?
I have yet seen a liberal do that, too.
The only time I got in it with my fellow liberals is when I had the Nike emblem on my knit cap. Seeing how Nike treats people overseas, a man of my liberal nature shouldn't wear be wearing it in my Mind Power picture.
I understood that. What kept pissing me off was how folks were carrying on.
"Look, Patrick, I don't know you, but get rid of the Nike hat."
"Patrick, don't you know how Nike exploits people?"
Yes, I can be the first to admit, liberals can be a downright pain in the ass.
Still, the pain in the ass mainly comes from their concern for others. So, I got rid of the Nike emblem. (And, no, I didn't get rid of it because of money. I wrote that to piss those annoying folks off.)
Besides being pains in the ass, there's another thing that gets me extremely upset with liberals. When other groups talk shit about how evil we are, liberals don't talk shit back. Fuck that!
Liberals ought to be more vocal. We have a lot to be proud of.
For those who hate liberals, let's yank liberal programs from them. A person applying for a college loan and don't like liberals, don't give it to them.
Some senior citizen mouthing liberals, take their social security. We'll see what the conservatives will do for Grandma and Granddad.
Know a military veteran whining about liberals? Fuck the GI Bill. You don't like liberals? Well, no veteran benefits for you, buddy.
Some yahoo fussing about how liberals are ruining the country, then let that chemical company next to his neighborhood keep right on polluting his environment. When his kids start being born deformed, he'll have no one to blame but himself.
How about an immigrant? Can you say, "Deportation."
What about a woman bad-mouthing affirmative action? Send this female yahoo straight to the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. Also, tell her she can't go to college and she can't earn the same wages a man makes for doing the same job.
And heaven forbid, know somebody black running at the mouth? Well, we'll just tell this Clarence Thomas Uncle Tom that he can't vote.
Despite recent rumors, liberalism is not dead. Like I said earlier, liberals just need to be more vocal.•
Suggested Liberal Readings:
- Down Size This! by Michael Moore
- Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken
- We're Right, They're Wrong by James Carville
- The L Word by David P. Barish
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