American Liberalism

I’ve been thinking about American Liberalism, or at least how I perceive it to be. The American liberalism of today isn’t the type of liberalism that set this nation free from tyranny; it is quite the opposite. Today’s form of liberalism is leading us back into tyranny.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. That my friends is a liberal statement … it was a radical statement. And yes, we all know that when the Declaration of Independence was written that not everyone was treated equally.

But at the time of our country’s beginning the founders weren’t writing documents that were meant to simply address the problems of the day; they were building a new nation … one that would be radically different than any that had existed before. They were building a “more perfect union”.

The preamble of the our constitution read as such, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”. “To secure the blessings of liberty” … what does that mean? I believe that phrase was written into the constitution to declare that government must protect our liberties and not damage them.

It wasn’t written into the constitution so that we can take “liberties”. It wasn’t written so that government would have the “liberty” to do as it pleases, or to take “liberties” with our religious beliefs, or the spend our money “liberally”. Nor was it written into the constitution so that our courts and legislatures could take “liberties” with our traditions and principles. It was written into the constitution to remind us that government cannot provide us liberty “we the people” do.

I view today’s liberalism as primarily a movement toward permissiveness. It disguises itself in the traditional ideals of freedom and liberty, but betrays itself in saying that it defends them when in fact it does not. American liberalism has always (up until recently) been founded on virtue, fairness, kindness, and equality … it was founded on what is right.

Liberalism has help bring about the end of many things that have been wrong with the United States. And yes, it has helped us to become “a more perfect union”. Liberalism helped to strengthen our moral and ethical foundation, and move us to greater freedom than we had ever imagined possible. However, it wasn’t based on the extreme that it is today.

Today’s liberal is almost reluctant to claim the title. Instead they call themselves, progressives, or free thinkers, or non-conformists. When what they really support is permissiveness. They claim that they support personal freedoms, while at the same time they avoid personal responsibility. They claim that they support freedom of choice … so long as the choice is one that they approve of. They claim they support the right of people who love one another should be able to marry one another, while they themselves very often avoid marriage all together … while at the same time they support the perversion of marriage that is same-sex marriage. They claim that they support childrens’ rights yet they support the killing of babies before they are born. They will even state that aborting an unwanted pregnancy is somehow “the right thing to do”.

No, what is known as liberalism today is not at all what American Liberalism has ever been about.

There you have it. Pass it along if you like or let me know if I don’t have a clue.

Eddie