{"id":8762,"date":"2006-10-15T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2006-10-15T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8762.html"},"modified":"2006-10-15T09:00:57","modified_gmt":"2006-10-15T13:00:57","slug":"sunday-discussion-group-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/sunday-discussion-group-71\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Discussion Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone noted<\/a> what many of us have known for quite a while: the word “liberal” has taken such a beating for so long, people who consider themselves liberals “have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe.”<\/p>\n

In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define “liberal” today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.<\/p>\n

Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the “liberal” position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good idea; debate is what the Sunday Discussion Group is all about, particularly on a subject like this one. Stone’s “Top 10” list is quite good and as good a place to start as any. I’d encourage readers to click on the link<\/a> to read how Stone fleshes out these points in more detail, but here’s a truncated version of his list:<\/p>\n

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others…. Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.<\/p>\n

2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.<\/p>\n

3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.<\/p>\n

4. Liberals believe “we the people” are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.<\/p>\n

5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual.
\n
\n6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.<\/p>\n

7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith.<\/p>\n

8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties.<\/p>\n

9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible.<\/p>\n

10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values.<\/p>\n

The list is not without flaw. While I can wholeheartedly agree with all of the tenets he mentioned, I suspect a whole lot of conservatives would find the points inoffensive as well. As Ezra mentioned<\/a>, in noting his concerns about Stone’s piece, “The meaning of liberalism, at least so far as it seeks to separate from conservatism, needs to offer points of disagreement<\/i> between the two. Stone’s piece doesn’t do much of that — it doesn’t create a liberalism most conservatives would reject.”<\/p>\n

So, let’s take this for a whirl. What do you think of Stone’s list? What did he leave out? What would you include on the list to emphasize areas of fundamental, ideological disagreement with our friends on the right?<\/p>\n

(Special thanks to Carpetbagger regular Beep52, who suggested today’s topic via email)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone noted what many of us have known for quite a while: the word “liberal” has taken such a beating for so long, people who consider themselves liberals “have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe.” In that light, I thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}