What is Liberal?

WHAT IS LIBERAL?
I had received an interesting response to one of my posts on a blog, called The Global Warming Swindle, the response was called “lets respond to this arrogant liberal” Now I find this very interesting because I have often wondered if people now truly know what a liberal is and what they actually stand for. I have asked myself am I a liberal? By today’s standards probably not. How about conservative am I that? No not that, so what would I consider myself and what ‘category’ do I fall under? These are questions I asked myself and the findings I have found very interesting. One of the other reasons I wanted to write this short paper is in order to have people understand a little more about what it means to be liberal or libertarian and where those words came from.
It is a big mistake to just clump people into these categories in the popular “line spectrum” for their political beliefs; this is a gross misrepresentation of a person’s political beliefs. The line spectrum usually looks something like this
LEFT/Liberal------------------------------------------RIGHT/Conservative
This is an archaic way of showing a person’s political beliefs, even if your 5th grade history teacher taught it to you this way, as mind did. It is important for people to understand these terms in order to know where they stand and help them make the correct decisions according to their proper beliefs.
First off I’d like to go over what a liberal is now and what they were meant to be. Liberal, in the classical sense of the word, simply means a “hands off” or Laissez-faire, policy. We were called by our forefathers a “liberal democracy” we were literally founded on a laissez-faire economic policy, although we were never completely laissez-faire as I’m sure everyone now is away.
At the beginning of our government and for about the first 150 years (give or take 30 years) we were very much close to being lassiez-faire, and we became the biggest industrial power on earth, ended slavery and began giving rights to everyone. We were of course not perfect, nor can any system done by humans be. It was our “liberalism” that initiated our success and les us to be the greatest power on earth. It was our “liberalism” that attracted million of foreigners to come to America for the opportunity of a better life.
Please note the word opportunity not promise. This is the case today, many people come here not for an opportunity to become better but because they can now leech off of other more productive people. A poor person can loot the wealth of a richer person through means of welfare and Medicaid and other such programs. Because there are far more workers then there are business owners it is easy for a worker to gain political pull and force pressure upon politicians to put regulations in place to constrict a business owner from doing his or her job properly in order to help the worker. This works under the assumption that being a worker is more important to the success of a company then does being the company owner. It is important to remember without the owner there would be no jobs for workers to complain about not being paid enough for.
A “Rights Theorist Libertarian” which is what I consider myself understands that everyone has a right to his or her own life and should be allowed to do any such thing that they so please as long as it does not infringe on the rights of another human being. Workers have the right to gather together and strike if they feel they should be paid more for their services. They do not however have a right to go to the government to force the business to pay them more. We are entitled to our rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” people do not have the right to reach into someone’s pocket to help them be happy.
America was founded on the idea that government was to play a minimal role in the affairs of society and the economy. That the job of the government was not to provide a direction for society or the economy, but simply to maintain a “free environment” where the public could conduct themselves as they so chose, as long as they didn’t “infringe’ on the “rights’ of others (www. Rationalrevolution.net)
As was stated earlier America was founded on government playing a referee, its only job is to ensure the rights of the individual. The American Government was so successful because for the first time in the history of mankind a country was founded in reason, logic and the full use of the mind. Not as has always been before, by tribal warfare, religious indoctrination and other such savage ways of the origins of all other countries on earth. America started out with reason.
That was a brief overview of “liberal” and where the word came from in America. And it was extremely brief as there have been many books on the subject. The word has changed, today the concept of liberal is that of a “leftist” which is today associated with big government and economic regulation. Also with different forms of “progressive” taxation and social policies. This does include such things as “gay rights” and unlimited free speech which in fact are very liberal concepts. But big business and progressive taxes are not. It has been clumped with the “leftist/liberal” concept, the true left and the true right, uses governments to pass certain policies in order to promote certain viewpoints and agendas. Again a government is merely supposed to be the referee and never to take sides on any issue, especially issues that can take the individual rights away from a certain group of people. Whether those are the rights of the bum on the street or the billionaire in his mansion. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness” Everyone not the poor or the needy at the expense of the rich and prosperous.
This can continue for a long time, beginning to understand the Democrats and what they stand for as well as republicans. The best political spectrums are not ones that clump everyone into one of two categories but one that shows all the different categories people fall in. Before people can make decisions on which politician or policy to vote for. They need to know what they actually stand for what type of world they should be fighting for. In other words a philosophy which helps integrates their values into concretes.
On a personal note, I stand for fairness, justice, equality and the only moral economic system, capitalism. A system which outlaws force of any kind. People have often say I am skeptical of many things people have considered the norm. Which I take a great compliment I am skeptical of any man, woman or organization that claims to be putting into action certain things that take way any individuals’ rights and to claim it is in the best interest of society to do so. I understand people’s rights to disagree with me, and accept them. I appreciate a healthy argument on our different viewpoints. We must never forget that America is not just a marketplace for different products, it is a marketplace of ideas, the government’s role is simply to regulate and make sure this never crosses a boundary infringing on the rights of a certain group of individuals.
The person who responded to my blog called me arrogant and if the person defines arrogant as: “making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearing assuming; insolently proud” I would most adamantly agree. I am arrogant not in what I would consider overbearing but in being proud, even insolent in a sense. I am proud of being a champion of individual rights. If he defines it as: “Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth and self-importance.” I again would be proud to be called arrogant for I agree that I display my sense of self worth and self-importance, I again am proud to believe in what I do. I did not come to these conclusions overnight. I also did not accept blindly what everything I was taught by my parents, or pastors or teachers. I believe in what I have been able to come up with through my own independent research and a love for live, a love for every individual. I am an arrogantly egotistical atheist objectivist who believes in reason, logic and rationality as to be the most important of human elements. Not that I like to classify myself! I believe in the individuality of every single person I meet, and I disagree with anybody who would ask for more government intervention in our lives.
I will end with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Government Big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take away everything you have. The course of history shows that as government grows liberty decreases.”