There they go again. President Bush and his campaign are going negative again, trying to label John Kerry rather than level with Americans.
You should really reconsider animadverting negativity and labeling, especially when it's as a preface to an article that will soon equate conservatives with slaveholders and murderers.
Now the refrain is that Kerry and Edwards are too ''liberal'' for America. Democrats tend to duck when such charges are leveled. Frankly, I think it's time for people to stand up.
Think about it: A conservative Christian is a contradiction in terms. Christ wasn't a conservative. He healed the sick, simply because they were sick.
No, He healed the sick because He was the Son of God. If you could find a miracle-worker to heal the sick for us, we wouldn't even need health care. In the meantime, make an effort to make historical arguments that are a) relevant, and b) dated within a thousand years of the present.
He didn't push them into an insurance company, or let the drug companies gouge them on prices.
That might have been because neither insurance companies nor drug companies existed in 20 AD. Just a thought.
Jesus was a liberal; Herod was the conservative.
It's the newest trend in fashion! WWJJD: What Would Jesse Jackson Do?
The Suffragettes were liberals; those who opposed the vote for women were conservatives. Martin Luther King was a liberal; the segregationists were conservatives. He wanted to end racial discrimination; they wanted to conserve it.
Alger Hiss was a liberal, Josef Stalin was a liberal, Mikhail Gorbachev was a liberal, Mao Tse-Tung was a liberal, Pol Pot was a liberal, Ho Chi Minh was a liberal, Che Guevara was a liberal, Fidel Castro is a liberal, Charles Manson was a liberal. You win some, and you lose some.
Advocates of national health care are liberals; George W. Bush, the HMOs and drug companies are the conservatives. They profit from the current system and want to conserve it from reforms that would make health care affordable for all Americans.
Universal health care doesn't make health insurance affordable. It just shifts the costs onto the shoulders of the wealthy, while doing nothing to address the salient problems with the system. If you are proudly defining liberal as "one who pours tax money into a broken system," it should be becoming clear why the Democrats duck the label.
America was a liberal idea. Washington and Jefferson were the liberals; King George was the conservative.
Now there's a jaw-dropper.
"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or tenements)." --Thomas Jefferson
"Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself." - Thomas Jefferson
"Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment." - Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson
America was founded on the proposition that ''We the people'' were endowed with inalienable rights -- including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when oppressed by an unjust ruler, we had the right to declare our independence and establish our own form of government.
The pursuit of happiness implies that effort is required. But, if you find America's refusal to adopt socialism disturbing, go ahead and declare your independence. Go off and found LiberalLand. Don't expect the Right to stop you. In fact, if you need any help founding your own country, we'd be happy to help you. It's the American thing to do, you know.
And America was built by liberals -- by dissenters, by those persecuted for their religion or their race.
It was also founded by people who revolted against taxation. Or as you liberals would say, we revolted against "the roll back of our self-inflicted tax cuts."
The Statute of Liberty doesn't say, ''Send me your privileged, your wealthy, your powerful yearning to conserve their fortunes.'' It says, ''Send me your tired, your poor, your humble yearning to breathe free.''
It also doesn't say, "Send me them so we can have everyone else pay for them to be unproductive."
Today the choices are equally clear. Bush and Cheney argue for tax cuts for the wealthy; they want to consolidate the wealth and power of the ''have mores'' that the president calls ''my base.''
Tax cuts, as defined, allow individuals to keep earned wealth. The only "consolidation" is a natural one as created by market forces. If you have a problem with certain people making so much money, here are some suggestions.
1) Stop making so much money yourself.
2) Repudiate capitalism and become a communist, thus guaranteeing there will be no "consolidation."
Liberals are for rolling back tax cuts for the rich
No, you're for taking money earned by the rich. Last time I checked, Jesus didn't throw his support behind theft.
and investing in education so every child gets a fair shot.
You're for conservation of the public school system. You want to fund the broken system; it's the "conservatives" who want to change the "status quo." Your whole argument just evanesced with that blunder. I guess the liberals don't always support change, after all.
Conservatives would conserve the two Americas: one system of education, health care and retirement security for the powerful, and one for the rest of us. Liberals would make certain that everyone has the right to a high-quality education, to affordable health care, to a decent retirement.
Everyone already has a right to a high-quality education. The difference is that most public schools don't provide it. Everyone already has a right to affordable health care, providing that they can afford health insurance. And everyone has a right to a decent retirement, providing they work for it. Liberals would conserve the class warfare and New Deal socialism that has made these institutions politically and financially bankrupt, while discouraging the personal responsibility required to allow them to function correctly. The rights are still there. A right to health care means a right to recieve it; it doesn't mean a right to make everyone else pay for it.
Bush wants to cut guaranteed benefits under Social Security while privatizing it; liberals want to save Social Security so that all Americans have a basic floor beneath their feet.
Social Security is cutting its own guaranteed benefits. Alan Greenspan recently announced that the system itself, without any interference, will soon be unable to pay for everyone. That would make liberals the ones who want to cut benefits by, again, conserving a broken system.
Bush is against a minimum wage; liberals want to raise the minimum wage.
An announcement of fact! I hope you don't mind that I take a second and revel in it, before I move on. Meanwhile, view this for the opposition to the minimum wage.
For me, I stand with Christ against Herod; the many against the few, and liberals against this crowd in the White House. But whatever you choose, the next time Bush and Cheney rail about Kerry being too liberal, remember that America was a liberal idea from the start.
The Soviet Union was a liberal idea from the start. Do you stand with that, too?
Conservatives and liberals have each been right and wrong. I choose to stand with liberty, free markets, and legal equality. That makes me right throughout history. You can buy your WWMHD bracelets now.
