Sunday, February 17, 2008

I'm Proud to be a Liberal

I'm a liberal (i.e., progressive) Democrat who believes strongly in environmentalism, civil libertarianism, feminism, and other forms of egalitarianism. Yes, I'm proud to be a liberal. I don't care what those loud-mouthed idiot conservatives say about me.

I believe in a mixed market economy that is highly regulated, though not controlled by the federal government. Corporate greed and monopolization is a major problem in our economy today, especially when companies outsource jobs overseas and betray American workers in the process. It is time to eliminate all corporate subsidies and deny tax breaks for companies that outsource large numbers of American jobs or fail to comply with environmental and labor standards overseas.

I strongly oppose racism, sexism, heterosexism, ethnocentrism, classism, ageism, and related ideologies of hate and intolerance. 

I reject the Religious Right and their exclusionary message, especially their myopic focus on the ostensible "sin" of homosexuality. As has been aptly demonstrated time and time again, the leaders of the Religious Right are mostly hypocritical demagogues who misquote the Bible to support their own narrow-minded theocratic agenda. 

I support same sex marriage rights and equality. Why should heterosexual couples maintain a monopoly on the legal institution of marriage? Why should gay couples be denied over 1,000 legal rights and privileges that accompany marriage licenses? There is no rational reason for such bigotry. Just as mixed race couples were once criminalized by an oppressive government, the same thing is happening today with same sex couples.

I often identify with the Religious Left, since I believe, for example, in helping the poor and the less fortunate (as Jesus advocated). I embrace what I believe to be the real message of Christianity - love your neighbor as yourself, judge not or you will be judged, etc. 

I recognize that a majority of welfare recipients in this country are working poor people and their children. We should support these families, not stigmatize them. I support voluntary workfare programs, earned income tax credits, living wage rates, and free or heavily subsidized worker training programs and publicly funded college coursework for all persons who meet minimum academic standards. 

I favor the reform of Social Security payroll taxes that would raise the cap on taxable income, thereby saving the system and making it more equitable. It is incredible that the wealthiest Americans do not pay their fair share of payroll taxes. Why should I pay as much in Social Security taxes as Bill Gates? It makes no sense. 

I support universal health care and believe that health care should be considered a civil right, rather than a privilege. Every industrial nation in the world has some form of universal health care, with the exception of the U.S. At the same time, the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world.

As a civil libertarian, I also believe that the war on drugs has clearly failed; it is especially time to end marijuana prohibition. Along those lines, our criminal justice system is in dire need of reform. It's time to shift the focus from treating drug abuse as a criminal justice problem and instead spend more tax dollars on drug rehabilitation and related human services. I also reject mandatory minimum sentences and the death penalty, which I am convinced are highly racist and classist in application, not to mention ineffectual in actually deterring crime.

In terms of foreign policy, I am a strong supporter of human rights and believe that debt relief for Third World nations is imperative. Torture is always wrong and should never be used by the U.S. government. I find it particularly offensive that the Bush Administration has established secret prisons, arrested people and held them without charge, and tortured suspected "terrorists," thereby clearly violating the Geneva Conventions. 

I support military action only as a last resort or in cases of direct military attack on the US or our closest allies. I am a very strong critic of Bush's neo-conservative foreign policy and jingoistic doctrine of preemption, which has made the world a much more dangerous place and succeeded in vilifying America in the eyes of the world.

1 comment:

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