Are you open to new ideas?\u00a0 Do you celebrate change, or do you fear it?\u00a0 Are you willing to sacrifice some of your cultural heritage and history if it means that other people gain greater justice and freedom?<\/p>\n
Depending on how you answered those questions, you might be a liberal.<\/p>\n
The word “liberal” is a fighting word in many households.\u00a0 It’s often accompanied with the descriptor “bleeding heart.” Maybe that’s the old way of insulting liberals.\u00a0 What I usually see now is “libtard.” Or worse, “cuck.”<\/p>\n
Looking around the internet, the political definition of liberalism is usually defined as the opposite of conservatism.\u00a0 That strikes me as strange, since “conservative” these days is so often synonymous with Christian.\u00a0 The greatest irony of the day is that Jesus Christ, the religious figure at the head of conservatism, is the perfect example of a bleeding heart liberal.<\/p>\n
I personally strive to be like Jesus.\u00a0 I believe in the message of love and forgiveness, and I’m not ashamed or afraid to admit that.\u00a0 Based on that, do I consider myself a liberal or a conservative?<\/p>\n
That’s a tough question for me to answer.\u00a0 Not because I fear retribution for picking a side, but because there are parts of liberalism and classical conservatism that I agree and identify with strongly.<\/p>\n
The whole idea of picking sides and joining the fight bothers me.\u00a0 I don’t like either extreme.<\/p>\n
Are there things about liberalism I don’t like?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Once you get far enough into either extreme, things start to get a little bit strange.<\/p>\n
One trivial example: food.\u00a0 Is free range, organic, non-GMO food a conservative or liberal ideal?\u00a0 If you said liberal, you’ve been paying attention to society.\u00a0 But if you said conservative, you’ve been reading ahead and know what I’m about to say.<\/p>\n
If you look at how organic, non-GMO food is grown, you’re looking at old models of farming and food production.\u00a0 Holding to traditional methods is part of the definition of being conservative.\u00a0 Being open to new ideas and technology is supposed to be what it means to be a liberal.\u00a0 From what I’ve read, there is no real benefit to getting food that is organic, and no real harm eating genetically modified food.\u00a0 So why is that part of the liberal ideology?<\/p>\n
Not all liberals are so picky about food.\u00a0 And like I said, it’s a trivial matter.\u00a0 But there are other nuggets floating in the stew that is liberalism that I don’t want to consume.\u00a0 Fortunately, we can all pick and choose the things that we agree with.\u00a0 The things that align with our personal code.<\/p>\n
I consider myself a moderate that leans left on a lot of issues.\u00a0 If I was looking at myself from the outside, I would label myself a liberal.\u00a0 But if that label would interfere with my ability to reach out and talk to people, to listen to them and hear their views and opinions, then I’d rather do without the label.<\/p>\n
I think that our country is wounded right now, and I’m not just talking about Trump and the Republicans.\u00a0 Emotions are running high enough that I fear neither side of the isle is prepared to listen and compromise.\u00a0 There are a few liberals I follow on Twitter that speak loudly about not forgiving Trump supporters.\u00a0 That kind of behavior is as bad for the country as anything the right wing has done lately.<\/p>\n
We need to unite as a country.\u00a0 Put the “U” back in USA.\u00a0 For us to be healthy nation, we need strong liberal voices that are brave enough to look for new ways of achieving our goals.\u00a0 We need liberals to continue to push progressive ideas, so that those with a smaller voice can still be heard.<\/p>\n
Being a patriotic liberal American is about supporting freedom for those that are not strong enough to defend themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you open to new ideas?\u00a0 Do you celebrate change, or do you fear it?\u00a0 Are you willing to sacrifice some of your cultural heritage and history if it means that other people gain greater justice and freedom? Depending on how you answered those questions, you might be a liberal. The word “liberal” is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":929,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}