Shot In The Dark: Stealing Liberal

March 01, 2005

Stealing Liberal

At the beginning of "Rattle and Hum", as the Edge plays the intro riff to "Helter Skelter", Bono yells "Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles. We're here to steal it back!"

Dean Esmay reminds me - it's time we did the same thing with the word "Liberal".

One of my war cries for the last couple of years has been, "The Left isn't Liberal!" Most people look at me like I'm daft when I say that, but many so-called "right-wingers," who are actually quite liberal themselves, know exactly what I mean.

If you look at any decent dictionary, you'll find that "liberal" is generally defined as the American Heritage dictionary defines it:

1) Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

2) Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Mitch at March 1, 2005 08:03 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Mirriam-Webster includes "lacking legal or moral restraint" and "not strict" in its definition of liberal, and relates the words "indulgent" and "lenient" to it.
In constrast, in its definition of "conservative", it includes "marked by moderation or caution", "marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners", and uses words such as "cautious, discreet, moderate, reasonable, restrained, temperate, proper and prudent".
So, in answer to Dean's question "Are you a liberal ?", my answer in this context would be "no".

Posted by: Just Me at March 1, 2005 11:54 AM

I think the so-called Right-Wing deserves both terms these days. How many Conservatives are for protecting an old political/economic social class system or strengthing and creating government monopolies?

Posted by: OldWhig at March 1, 2005 02:10 PM

"Conservative" is also a perfectly good word, but let's keep in mind that the foremost definition is "Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change."

Quite a few people we call conservatives these days don't fit that mold either.

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