We tend to pigeon-hole people according to whether they're liberal or conservative. Liberal used to be good, a label worn with pride. Theodore Roosevelt claimed he was a liberal. Compared to the conservatives around him, he was. Started the Bull Moose party, the breakaway Republican splinter group that divided the GOP vote and gave the election to Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Pretty sure it was 1912, you could check.
But we don't often ask ourselves how we define these terms. When I asked the Conlawprofs to refer me to a work that does define the two major categories, I got no takers.
Today I see that Geoffrey Stone, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at the U. of Chicago Law School, who has written an excellent book on First Amendment episodes in American history, has taken the trouble to make a list of ten defining characteristics of what he sees as a liberal.
Maybe a lot of us are liberal on some things and conservative on others. We're a mixed bag. We're complex. As Walt Whitman wrote, "I contradict myself? So I contradict myself, [What of it?] for I contain multitudes." Or something very close.
I thought a liberal was a person who was willing to accord others equal rights on the ground that they were people, too. When I was growing up, and today, this isn't always the case. Back in the day, when blacks were relegated to the back of the bus, the back of the class, the back of everything, when even allowed in the room, park, or ball-field, it was considered "liberal" to urge that this needed to be changed. Arguing for equal human rights for blacks was to be considered a "bleeding heart liberal," as opposed to bloodless conservatives who could care less. The result was the Civil Rights Revolution of, let's say, the 1950s, et. seq. Actually the civil rights movement goes waaay back before that, but it had other names, such as abolition, civil war, women's suffrage, and the like.
Let's see how Prof. Stone defines liberal and you can come up with a similar list for conservative.
What it means to be a liberal
By Geoffrey R. Stone. Geoffrey R. Stone,
a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of
"Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Published October 10, 2006
In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.
Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.
1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.
2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)
3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.)
5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.
6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."
7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.
8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)
9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.
10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty."
Consider this an invitation. Are these propositions meaningful? Are they helpful? Are they simply wrong? As a liberal, how would you change them or modify the list? As a conservative, how would you draft a similar list for conservatives?
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WHAT DO YOU THINK?
- How do you define a liberal? How do you define a conservative? E-mail us by 2 p.m. Tuesday at [email protected] with "define" in the subject line. Include your name, hometown and contact information. Responses will be published online and in Wednesday's Voice of the People.
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Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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