I Am A Liberal - Part the First

Not just any kind of liberal. No. I'm a special liberal. I'm a progressive liberal. Know what that means? It means I want to take all your money and give it to low-lives and welfare queens; I want crackheads to get all the crack they want and I want you to pay for it; I want to turn the constitution into a party hat, for the crackheads; Oh, and I want to eat your babies. All that's true; except for the part where I don't.

I believe in work. I believe in family. I believe in freedom. I believe in fighting for what's important. I believe in the inherent goodness of people. I believe a nation's greatness is based on how it treats it's most helpless.  I stole that last bit from Aristotle. Pretty good, right? Stick around I might give you more Philosophy 101.

I believe in taxes. There I said it. Taxes. Taxes. Taxes. Know why? I like roads, and police, and firemen, and libraries, and schools. I like knowing that a safety net of social services exists should me, my friends, or someone I don't even know, need it. And no I don't believe that we have an evil cabal of welfare queens and crackheads waiting to suck every last cent out of the system. Do they exist? Sure. But stopping the programs because someone may get something for nothing is foolish and short-sighted. Oh, and no, I don't agree with drug testing AT ALL. Whether I have something to hide or not. It's like saying "Why do you care if government listens to your calls if you're not saying anything incriminating?" Oh, I don't know, a fundamental right to privacy, perhaps. I don't think you abdicate that right if you fall on hard times.

Mostly, though, I believe in the middle class. The backbone of America. The group responsible for making us great. Sure the industrialists had the capital and the means to start companies but without the us, the middle, the workers, the people who pride themselves on hard work, they'd have nothing. Truly nothing. I wasn't born into the middle class. Nope, I'm working class. I envied the middle class. I aspired to the middle class. Teachers, nurses, police, fire. People who make a difference in other's lifes. Union people.

We need the unions. More now than ever. Why do you think they came into existence? Was it because of the safe and secure working environments of the late-1800's and early-1900s? A greedy middle class not satisfied with the benefits of a living wage and reasonable hours? No, they grew from a need. A need that still exists.  Unions are not the reason for the mess this country is in. Try greed, corporate greed. The constant outsourcing of jobs in this country.

Now before you go off assuming I'm some starry-eyed hippie, I'm not. My husband owns his own business and has for years. I understand profit-margin and the need to have a healthy financial company for everyone to prosper. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about greed plain and simple. Not being content with a comfortable life. The relentless pursuit of luxury - no matter the cost.

We're dying. A slow, painful, ugly death. A death that some are happily assisting with.

This turned into a longer blog post than originally intended so I am making the executive decision to turn it into a series. Up next: The Nanny-State