TO BE A LIBERAL TODAY YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE:
-that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding;
-that trial lawyers are selfless heroes, but doctors are overpaid;
-that global temperatures are affected more by Yuppies driving SUV's than
by cyclical, documented changes in the brilliance of the sun;
-that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat
than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese;
-that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity;
-that self-esteem is more important than doing anything to earn it;
-that there was no art before federal funding;
-that the NRA is bad, because it stands up for certain parts of the
Constitution, but the ACLU is good, because it stands up for certain parts
of the Constitution;
-that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high;
-that Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Gloria Steinam are more important
to an understanding of American history than Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee
and Thomas Edison;
-that the most troubling thing you can find in a public school is
children praying;
-that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas aren't;
-that any change in the weather is proof of global warming;
-that national wealth is determined by what we consume, not by what we
produce;
-that the only wars in which America should become involved are those in
which the national security is not at risk;
-that perjury and obstruction of justice are impeachable crimes if a
Republican president like Richard Nixon commits them, but harmless private
matters if a Democratic president like Bill Clinton commits them;
-that the way to end racism is to give people special treatment on the
basis of their skin color;
-that we can have a strong military without spending any money on it;
-that the way to improve public schools is to give more money and power
to people who have misused it in the past;
-that a mother can be trusted to decide whether to terminate the life of
her baby, but cannot be trusted to choose her child's school;
-that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than HIV;
-that hunters and fisherman don't care about nature, but pasty-faced
activists who rarely leave the Upper West Side of Manhattan do;
-that a bureaucrat living in Washington can make better decisions about
how your money should be spent than you can;
-that Hillary Clinton is a strong example for young women of feminist
independence because everything she's gotten in her life is a result of
her marriage to her husband;
-that being a movie star makes you qualified to speak out on public
policy;
-that a clerk in a government-owned liquor store is a selfless tribune of
the people, but a clerk in a privately owned liquor store is a vile oppressor
of the masses, even though prices are lower and hours are longer in the
private store;
-that a handful of religious wackos living in isolation in rural Texas
are more of a threat to public safety than Puerto Rican terrorists who plant
bombs in major cities;
-that cigarette and liquor advertising must be banned, because it causes
kids to smoke and drink, but we don't need to worry about sex and violence
in television programming because kids aren't influenced by what happens
between the commercials;
-that passing new laws is a better way to prevent crime than enforcing
existing ones;
-that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it has been tried
is because people like you haven't been in charge.
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men
who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder
and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be
both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing
without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will
submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong,
which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are
resisted with either rods or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed
by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass |
