Blah, Blah, Blah

DocBrain has been chastized on several occasions by his liberal friends for defining liberalism according to what conservatives say about liberals. So, DocBrain googled and googled and finally found what liberals say about themselves.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=Liberal+Agenda+Entries

Some of the self-definitions are funny, others scary for DocBrain. Some are so mom and apple pie that no one could dispute them.

DocBrain did some heavy lifting, and here in a nutshell, is liberalism:

• Capital Punishment is bad, when you are talking about killing hardened criminals, but it is good when you are talking about taking away money from those who earned more than you.
• You are free to be equal, no more, no less (not equal opportunity, equal outcome)
• You are encouraged to bee productive for the common good
• It is the duty of government to provide not only for your defense, but also your health and education. By provide, of course we mean "control". If we have it our way, we will not only tell you how we will protect you, but also what health care you will be entitled to (and what care you will not be allowed to have) and what you will be allowed to learn. This freaky, top-down structure is really bad if you think about it. If this doesn't scare you, then you haven't been paying attention. This is one of DocBrain's pet peeves!
• If you want to say grace in a public restaurant in the USA, well, we will be offended by that, but if you are the leader of another country and condone public beatings of women who dare to learn to read, well, we will respect your culture and national autonomy; who are we to judge?
• Just because you didn't apply yourself in school, didn't work hard, didn't focus on your children's welfare, or didn't take care of your personal health is no reason why you shouldn't have equal dignity or opportunity.

Some of the main problems with many of the definitions of liberalism by liberals is that they imply that inequality is due to an unfair bias by society; that an enforced collective good morally trumps individual acts of kindness and charity; that the acts of people cannot be judged by a common standard; that the answer to every question is government; that the goodness of our society is judged by how much it gives to the least among us; that law is the highest good; and that personal success demands retribution and personal failure deserves reward.