DEATH OF A LIBERAL

Last night Howard Metzenbaum, retired Senator from Ohio, died. Here’s what part of what Wikipedia has to say about him:

“While in the Senate, Metzenbaum was a powerful liberal. He was known as "Senator No" (a nickname shared by Republican Jesse Helms of North Carolina) because the Senate Democrats knew that almost nothing would get through if Metzenbaum opposed it even though he never held an official party leadership post or chaired a committee. Metzenbaum took a particular interest in antitrust and consumer protection issues, often threatening to repeal the exemption from antitrust laws given to Major League Baseball. Since his retirement, however, the issue has gone largely unaddressed. Metzenbaum became well-known for his service on the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly because of his dedicated efforts to keep stringent antitrust laws and his pro-choice stance on abortion.

Metzenbaum devised a different method for filibustering in the Senate by offering scores of amendments to bills in place of talking one bill to death like his Southern colleagues did during the debate for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s.
Metzenbaum was behind several important pieces of legislation, including the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which required warning periods for large factory closures; the Brady Law, which established a waiting period for handgun purchases;[5] and the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEPA) (U.S. Public Law 103-82), which prohibits federally subsidized adoption agencies from delaying or denying child placement on grounds of race or ethnicity.”

In reporting on his death this morning, an NPR reporter on Morning Edition referred to Senator Metzenbaum as “an unapologetic liberal”. That got my goat.

What conservative has ever been called “an unapologetic conservative”? What does a liberal have to apologize for? Should we apologize because we think that government should be the servant of the little guy instead of the gluttonous corporations that bloat the coffers of the “conservative” party? Should we apologize because we think that it is better to work with people as they are than to find ways to punish them for not being what we want them to be? Should we apologize for wanting to apply tax dollars to social problems instead of to wars? Should we apologize for believing that amassing personal wealth at the expense of the rest of civilization is immoral? Should we apologize for believing that our government should not be a wholly owned subsidiary of the military/industrial complex? Should we apologize for being able to recognize when we are being had by a government bent on sacrificing the country’s future and the lives of our children and grandchildren in the name of amassing more wealth and power?

The right wing has done an excellent job of one thing - the attachment of a completely negative connotation to the tag “liberal”. If liberal politicians were as mean spirited as their opponents maybe they could by now have come up with some way to make people think politicians should have to apologize for being conservative. The fact is, though, that one of the differences between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives believe that it’s their way or the highway while liberals are still trying to be accepting of everyone including their blockheaded colleagues across the aisle.

I, for one, am sick of it. I far prefer being labeled a liberal with all the attempted negative tags the right wing has stuck on it to being called a conservative. The best definition I’ve ever run into for that side of the aisle is a person who can’t enjoy a good meal unless he knows someone else is going hungry.
I’d much rather be known as someone who is willing to do without a meal to feed a person in need.

Don’t you dare ask me to apologize for being a liberal, because I won’t and there is absolutely no reason why I should.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle