What the hell is a “liberal” anyway?

Language can really make communication difficult. That’s why Shakespeare just made up words when there wasn’t one to fit what he was really saying. He invented as many as 3,000 words. There are more than 17,000 different words in his writings. Shakespeare was working for poetic precision. There was no adjective for the state of suspicion. So, he invented “suspicious.” There was no word for the condition of being covered in blood. So, he invented “bloody.” In other cases, it was to be more specific, not because there wasn’t a word but because the word there was didn’t quite fit the condition he was trying to describe. He used the word “flawed,” for example, instead of “broken.”

It is said that Shakespeare invented the word “torture.” Like most of his words, he created it by changing the part of speech. The word “torturous” already existed, from the French. Shakespeare made it a verb and look what happens. It invites a noun for the person, place or thing that “tortures.” Now, we have a “torturer.” Semantics is a big deal.

The point of this blog is to examine my liberalism. What is it? How does it fit in today’s usage of the word. If Barack Obama is a socialist, then I’m off the left end of the right-left scale. I think he’s center-left. Those farther left than I practically call him George W. Bush. OK, so I’m to the right of them. If this were a map, I’d have to place myself at left-center-left. So, is that liberal? My Republican friends think it is, but David Sirota and Katrina van den Heuvel don’t think so. I’m not sure what David Corn would think or Rachel Maddow.

OK, let’s be inspired by Shakespeare and look at it poetically by delineating the denotation and connotation of the word “liberal.” Maybe we need a new word for me. Or, maybe I am a liberal and those to the left of me need a new name.

Denotation, according to the Oxford American Dictionary of Current Usage:

adj.
1. given freely; ample; abundant.
2. (often foll. by with) giving freely; generous; not sparing.
3. open-minded; not prejudiced.
4. not strict or rigorous; (of interpretation) not literal.
5. for general broadening of the mind; not professional or technical (liberal studies).
6. (a) favoring individual liberty and political and social reform. (b) ( Liberal ) of or characteristic of Liberals or a Liberal party.
7. (Theol.) regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change (liberal Protestant; liberal Judaism).

n.
1. a person of liberal views.
2. ( Liberal ) a supporter or member of a Liberal party.

- ORIGIN Middle English: via Old French from Latin liberalis, from liber ‘free (man)’.

(The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English. Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Howard Community College – Columbia.  10 May 2010  <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t21.e17662>)

I think that’s me in noun form; I am a person of liberal views. When it’s capitalized, it should be referring to a political party or movement. We don’t have one of those. We lower-case liberal tend to vote with the Democratic Party in elections. We are establishment liberals, I suppose. So, did liberals vote for Ralph Nader or did Liberals? It turns out the privileged liberals voted for Nader. (New Political Science, Volume 28, Issue 2, June 2006 , pages 229 – 244) I find these folks to be the Bobos of David Brooks’ very funny book Bobos in Paradise that describes rich baby boomers in the 90s. Brooks at his snarky best.

It’s too muddled. There’s no good operating definition for the people on the left of the political spectrum in the United States of America in the 2011th year of the western calendar. Who are we?

One idea is to resurrect the terminology of the “founding fathers.” I believe that I might want to be a Federalist. I believe in a strong central government that can keep an eye out on the whole country. I believe that the federal government is an important safeguard for states that may go off half-cocked like Arizona. The federal judicial system will fix that because we have one. Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snow and other centrists could bring back the Democratic-Republican party that was formed at the time of the Constitution. The left could resurrect and be proud of wanting real socialism in this country. Call yourselves Socialists. Lay claim to the belief and get a good PR campaign going. Organize!

For all the education of the liberal wing of the American political system, we are lousy communicators. We are true to our denotation in connotation: we are not strict or rigorous; (of interpretation) not literal. We are open-minded; not prejudiced.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”