Commentators on Fox News and Newsmax, the two great conservative cable networks, continually refer to the far-left extremists who claim they are progressives as “liberals.”
That not only is misleading, but it also credits them with being tons smarter than they really are.
One longtime commentator from the left has been Bill Maher, and he has remained a classic liberal. The difference is huge between classic liberals and progressives.
To check myself, I recently asked Google to provide the “talking points” of a classic liberal. It said, “The fundamental liberal ideas of consent of the governed, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to bear arms, the right to due process, and equality before the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism.”
That almost sounds like conservatism, and indeed the two sides share many important viewpoints.
If conservatives could debate classic liberals in Congress, discussions would be much more civil, and everyone on both sides would realize we have much more in common than we have had lately. Debate would not be where we really want to go but just on the best way to get there.
True, really strident rhetoric occurs on both sides of the aisle, but that is based on the idea that I can’t convince anyone I am right and you are wrong unless I can make the listener see the other side as an awful person he should hate.
A few years ago, I listened to a discussion in the British House of Commons, similar to our House of Representatives. Members of both sides argued in raucous language, calling each other every name in the book. When the gavel fell and discussions ended, members on both sides went out and had beers together.
They were friends, and each recognized that the other side used the strong language just to cement their relationships to their supporters, whose contributions helped them get elected to their high-profile jobs.
Back to this side of the “pond,” we should call liberals by that name if they truly believe in the Google example specified above. If they believe boys are girls and vice versa, that children should be physically altered to make them fit the example, if they believe all guns are evil and every decision should be made by unelected bureaucrats, we should call them what they are: progressives. Or how about “idiots“?
There is a difference. As noted above, a huge difference.
Jim Street,
Fort Worth
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