Confessions on being a liberal
I was almost indoctrinated into humanistic liberal theology while in college. However, it was while doing research for term papers and reading some sociology journals that I got a real taste of the arrogance and condescension inherent in liberal ideas. For example, I still remember studies published in a "scholarly" sociology journal in which the authors termed homeless people as DSPs (deranged street people).. That was my first real epiphany as to the condescenion and superiority complex that liberals feel toward those who they ostensibly are "trying to help." In my studies, as well as my experiences growing up in Chicago, I saw the deleterious effects of "the Great Society"and Urban Renewal projects, and saw families who felt they were trapped in housing projects like Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor housing project.
I thought, "This is what the Great Society had to offer? This is the liberal answer to the war on poverty?" I was beginning to get a real sense of what the term "white limousine liberal plantation" meant, as liberals continually promised the world to the downtrodden, while at best delivering a less-than meager subsistence, and at the same time scaring them into believing that even that would be taken away if Republicans ever got into power, thus securing their votes.
I began to realize that the liberals needed poor people. They didn't want to see poor people succeed, especially on their own, for then they wouldn't need liberals anymore. I began to see a codependency relationship between liberals and their supposed charges. I saw good, capable people being held back by a glass ceiling created by liberals, who kept insisting that minorities were powerless against white society, and that they would starve or worse if left to their own devices. I began to realize that this was an insidious philosophy, and was damaging to the human spirit and dignity of a person. I worked at an adolescent treatment center, and saw first hand the results of the breakup of families in the minority population. I saw first hand how multiculturalism, rather than being a tool to raise the status of minority populations, was in effect, just a euphamism for the extension of the Jim Crow laws.
I had also begun to note how the values that I was raised with began to be twisted in such a manner that no one was allowed to judge right or wrong, and that every deed, good or bad, belonged in a gray area. There were no more absolutes in the liberal lexicon. I was asked to disbelieve my personal experiences, and asked to take a leap of faith to believe in a doctrine that seemed surreal at best, and was told to think of pathology as normal, and what I thought and experienced to be normal as pathology.
But I had faith in all peoples' ability to succeed, and therefore I began to subscribe to the conservative philosophy, where all are capable and invited to succeed regardless of racial background. Where we all share a common heritage and purpose as Americans, regardless of ethnic or racial heritage. Where all people are not only created equal, but actually thought of as equals, both in terms of dignity and abilty to succeed, as well as in the ability to be accountable and to handle responsibility.
I have never looked back to the liberal philosophy since.. when I do, it is with a heavy heart for those who continue to subscribe to it. -psycmeistr-
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