Liberal? Yes, I suppose--in the sense of being, and wanting to live the life of, a Free, Honest, Generous, Enlightened and Benevolent Man--I am.
But "Liberal" has another, darker, much more restrictive--and, to me, quite incomprehensible--significance in the mouths of my fellow Americans: something to do with "socialism" (variously defined) and something like blanket amnesty for mass murderers. The less intelligent, less educated, and more religious they are, the more certain my compatriots are of the meaning and the inherent evil of what they call Liberalism; but, alas, with low i.q.'s and lack of education beyond the primary grades, and with the extatic "Salvation" of Abrahamic religions, comes verbal confusion and logical incoherence. I simply can't make out what they mean when they spit "liberal" as if it were a curse.
posted by anatole at
1:49 PM
2 Comments:
And long may you flourish!
Sadly I do find that significance comprehensible, though far away and lacking eyeball contact with any member of either side in the hateful divide.
What I see is these fellow-Americans as the victims of intolerant virtue-signallers who wish to impose their values as unquestionably right. The alternative would be to live and let live, not pick fights—and practise to humility. Then then neither side would cultivate enemies.
Simply to say "I am right, they are wrong" is enough to create enemies where none were before. If the ones labelled wrong find themselves economically downtrodden as well, the sting is worse, salt in the wounds inflicted by the lash of words.
All of this, the lack of education, intelligence, the dependence on extatic anything from whatever source, to get by, goes back a long way indeed. Perhaps it is inherent in the human condition.
And perhaps the old patrician virtue of noblesse oblige is in order. But then it looks different from the Old England of my viewpoint.
"Intolerant virtue-signalers who wish to impose their values as unquestionably right"? Mon Dieu! Wherever do you hear of, or encounter such monsters? What in the world is a "Virtue-signaller"? Do you really think that that is what my dumb, unlettered countrymen mean by "Liberal"? If so, they aren't as stupid--and are far more depraved--than I had supposed them to be.
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