Reply #148: Clinton is Traditional Liberal - Do You Know What "Liberal" Means?

[tmorelli415]

So this is my first post and I've been reading DU for many months now, but this finger-pointing by the left wing of our party claiming that Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc are not "real" liberals or "Republican lite" is making me nauseas. Please please please please please before you do that learn a little bit about what liberalism really means. The "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party" is in fact the near left socialist wing of the Democratic Party. The "Republican lites" are in fact traditional liberals. The hardcore Bush conservatives are neo-cons who stole a few liberal ideas and not the other way around. Look it up, take a class, read some history, educate yourself but stop pointing fingers and claiming you are a liberal when you're really a "neo-socialist." And stop insulting traditional liberals like Clinton and Kerry who have very effectively shown that REAL traditional liberalism works and it always has. Liberals are quite simply reformers who believe in personal freedom and shared responsibility - they are not ideologues, they are idealists. I'm serious here, kids - the Democratic Party has not lost its way - it is right where it has always been and "3rd Way" or not it has always been the Democrats' way.

welfare reform = liberal (neo-conservative co-opted)
NAFTA/regulated economic globalism = liberal (neo-conservative co-opted)
economic corporate globalism = conservativism
economic unregulated corporatism = fascist
economic societal redistribution = far left socialism
economic regulated redistribution = near left socialism
universal healthcare = near left socialism
regulated healthcare = liberal
humanitarian militarism = liberal
isolationist = conservative
ideological militarism/non-militarism = socialism (neo-conservative co-opted)
fiscal responsibility = liberal
fiscal subsidization = near left socialism
fiscal redistribution = far left socialism
fiscal redux = conservatism
personal morality = liberalism
public morality = conservative
relative morality = near left socialism
societal morality = far left socialism

Reagan, Nixon, Goldwater = traditional conservatives
Clinton, Kerry, Gore = traditional liberals
Kucinich, Nader, Dean, Western European "liberalism" = near left socialism
Lenin, Marx, Mao = far left socialism
Bush, Religious Right, DeLay = "neo-conservative"

Near Left Socialists seem to be confused by Western European "liberalism" (really near left socialism) - they think that liberals are too much like those who they *think* are conservatives (but who are really neo-conservatives). They see some policies that leaders like Clinton and Kerry hold as identical to those held by the likes of Bush and Rumsfeld, and jump to the conclusion that they've sold out to the conservatives. The reality is that a few of those policy positions are in fact the same - and that is because the neo-conservatives have co-opted those policies from the liberals! Think Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Kennedy - that is liberalism and it has always included economic and military globalism. Clinton and Kerry did not depart from that liberal tradition. It was easy to confuse people when neo-conservatives started calling themselves 'traditional conservatives' because they co-opt some traditionally liberal economic and globalist policy, but this is of far lesser importance than their near right fascist ideological views of corporatism and institutionalization of morality - it is not a political theory but rather an ideology that borrows from liberalism, conservatism, and fascism as a reaction to keep their ideological priorities relevant).

Don't flame me if you don't like what I'm saying here. It wouldn't be a very liberal thing to do to flame a person for telling it like it is - it would, however, be a very "neo-socialist" thing to do. (Think about it real hard ... I'm forcing you let go of your ideology and it hurts, I know... but if you're REALLY a liberal why do you have an ideology? Stop! The angrier you get the more your ideology is taking over, and the less you can really be a liberal - say it! you're a socialist! It's okay - liberals like socialists just as much ase we like neo-conservatives as long as they *both* leave their ideology at the door and try a little ideallism).