Why I am a liberal. Issues Beyond Palo Alto, posted by Alice Smith, a resident of the Green Acres neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I would like to remind people that being a liberal means according to Wikipedia: By voting No on 4 and No on 8 you would be supporting individuals' right to be left along by government, limiting the power of government over your individual freedoms.
"Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.[1]
Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property[2], free markets[2], and a transparent system of government.[3]All liberals — as well as some adherents of other political ideologies — support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.[4]
Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejected many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, established religion, and economic protectionism[5][6][7]."
Posted by Sharon, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The term "liberal" has become corrupted in the US, it now equals socialism at best, communism and national socialism at worst.
It is completely different from Traditional Liberalism.
Pioneers of traditional liberalism such as Adam Smith conceptualized free markets, free trade, invisible hand, spontaneous order, and how they lead to prosperity.
Traditional liberals argued that economic systems based on free markets are more efficient and generate more prosperity.
Those these days true to the traditions of liberalism are the Libertarians and the Western Republicans, like Mitt Romney.
I look forward to his presidency when we can get back to the basics that made America great.
Unfortunately anti Mormon bigots got in his way this time around.
Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2008 at 8:06 pm Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online
Posted by dave, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 25, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I find it disquieting that people use labels to characterize a person. Since all labels mean different things to different people, this does not help communication.
For example, my definition of a conservative does not fit our current government leaders. Using fear as a tool, they have created an overriding Homeland Security Dept. which has carte blanche to invade our privacy without a warrant. So far citizens still have habeas corpus, but who knows when that may disappear.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- or Acorn -- the troubled left-wing activist group, has new headaches.
Last week Michael Slater, head of its Project Vote, admitted that some 400,000 of its claimed 1.3 million newly registered voters were rejected by election officials as either duplicates or fraudulent --
i.e. it doesn't sound as if Acorn's vaunted "quality control" efforts were all that effective.
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