Friday, December 23, 2016

GENEROUS, BOUNTEOUS, BROAD-MINDED, TOLERANT

The word liberal as defined by the dictionary means: “marked by generosity and open-handedness, bounteous, broad-minded, unbigoted, tolerant.” Those qualities sound like the kind of qualities most of us would like to see in our children. Now, I wonder which of these qualities Ann Coulter objects to? Does she dislike “generosity” or open-handedness — or is it the broad-minded part that bothers her? Of is it the “tolerance” concept to which she objects?

The Conscience of a Liberal is a book written by economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. It was 24th on the New York Times Best Seller list in November 2007.[2] 

Going by the dictionary definitions of these words, I would like for my family to be known as liberals, and surely not the opposite. The dictionary definition of conservative is basically “disposed to maintaining existing views” which is why conservatives of long ago were opposed to freeing the slaves, the right of women to vote or to become lawyers and professionals — as well as the rights of African Americans to vote and the Civil Rights Act. 

I’ve always been taught that Christ was generous, tolerant and broad-minded, which fits the definition of liberal. He washed the feet of the lepers, hung out with the moral outcasts and sinners — who were so transformed by his loving acceptance, they desired to "sin no more." In summing up, based on those qualities of character, it seems to me undeniably that Jesus was a bleeding heart liberal.  

My conservative friends may disagree with the label, but not the spirit. We must never allow words to get in the way of communication. 

Again, I would like to believe that good conservatives are really liberals at heart. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, “Hath not a conservative eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Are they not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer that a liberal is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh? If you poison them, do they not die? If you wrong them, shall they not revenge? If we are like you and the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

We are not children of a lesser God; we are all children of the same God.  


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The Conscience of a Liberal is a book written by economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. It was 24th on the New York Times Best Seller list in November 2007.[2] The title was used originally in Senator Paul Wellstone's book of the same name in 2001. Wellstone's title was a response to Barry Goldwater's 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative. In the book, Krugman studies the past 80 years of American history in the context of economic inequality. A central theme is the reemergence of both economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Krugman analyzes the causes behind these events and proposes a "new New Deal" for America.[1]

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