Liberality

My dictionary defines liberality as the quality of being open to new ideas and free from prejudice. " John F Kennedy said in defense of the term "But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Most of our founding fathers were liberals. I believe the majority of this country believes in the principles of liberality, but they won't define themselves as liberal because, conservatives have done a thorough job of besmirching the word liberal over the past fifty years. The problem is that the percentage of liberals in our government has been dropping steadily over this period. This causes some of my good liberal friends to become disgusted with the choices we are given at election time, which causes them not to bother voting. For instance, senators Hillary Clinton, and Maria Cantwell have not spoken out against the war, so many liberals will not vote for them. I think this is a mistake.

One of our best liberal senators is Russ Feingold. Russ Feingold was interviewed yesterday on Air America. He was responsible for blocking the NSA wiretapping bill the same week as the Military Commissions Act was passed. When congress comes back after the elections in a lame duck session, the Republicans will try to ram the NSA bill through again. Hopefully he can stop it again. He wanted to filibuster the Military Commissions Act but he didn't have the 40 votes he needed because of the 11 democrats that chickened out. Maria Cantwell, and Hillary Clinton, did the right thing and voted against it. If we stop voting for them, then Feingold will never get the backing he needs.

Feingold said that reversing the Military Commissions Act would be a top priority for him. If we can pass a bill reversing it, then Bush will veto it, but Feingold wants to force him to veto it and then take that into the 08 election.

Asked why 11 Dems crossed over - Feingold said "Obviously, they feared the fact that this would be laid at their doorstep as being somehow soft on terrorism." He said it wasn't typical of the stands they usually take. People have to get active. They have to support progressive candidates and call their representatives and write letters to the editor. We have to find ways to move the collective consciousness back to the left and our representatives will follow. If we try to pull government back to the left by withdrawing support from less than perfect centrist democrats, then we are shooting ourselves in the foot, and pulling the rug out from under the few remaining liberal representatives that are fighting the good fight.