Misconceptions about Liberals - are people really this stupid? Really? REALLY?

For some reason people seem to have the wrong idea about us liberals and it’s really beginning to piss me off. I am not offended by the words they use, but by the fact that these morons think they know about politics. If you think liberalism is about letting criminals get away with murder, allowing illegal immigrants to live in ‘£1 million palaces’ while they ‘scrounge off the state’ and advocating extremism then you’re an idiot. In fact, idiot is too nice a word. But I won’t waste my time trying to find an appropriate term for your ignorance. So instead I’ll just try to educate you on what liberalism really means in the hopes that it will somehow make its way into your thick little head and you won’t look like such a cretin when you try to be political.
First of all, Liberalism is an ideology, and a very broad one at that. If we were to place it on the political spectrum, it will be in the center. Not the left, which is a common mistake that many of you seem to make all the time. Because the ideology is so broad it is also quite possible to have two people who correctly define themselves as ‘Liberal’ but who share quite different beliefs. From Social Liberalism, to Libertarianism, Anarcho Liberalism to Conservative Liberalism (yes, you read correctly, you can be liberal and conservative at the same time), they all come from the same family. They have the same basic principles, but different ideas on how to achieve them.

Liberalism comes from the Latin term, ‘liberalis’, meaning ‘of freedom’, and freedom is the single most defining feature of liberal belief. Liberals emphasise importance on liberty and equal rights, as well as constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, free trade and separation of church and state. These ideas are shared by the majority of people in the free world and are the ingredients for a fully functioning, healthy society. Now explain to me what is wrong with that? What on earth is it about people being seen as equal in the eyes of the law that offends people so much? What is it about letting the people decide who makes the laws that causes some of you to recoil in horror when you hear that dirty word, ‘liberal?’. If you are indeed one of those people, you may want to think, because chances are, if you believe in these principles, you have liberal tendencies yourself.

The media, of course, have indirectly painted a much different picture, and so it has made way for these misconceptions. My very first post to this blog was a quote by the late John F Kennedy, and I will repeat the quote again, as I do not think there is a better definition:

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.”
But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

Opinions on JFK may differ but you cannot deny that he hit the nail on the head with this quote.

Another good quote concerning Liberalism comes from the political drama, West Wing, and I have also posted this quite a few times as I feel people need reminding of exactly what liberal ideas have achieved in this country. It is of course, very American but it is still highly relevant.

“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things…every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.”

As will I.

It is a stupid mistake to assume that we are ‘looney lefties’ who give hard working tax payers money to the lazy. The fact that it is utterly ridiculous to suggest that all ‘poor’ people are lazy is a good point in itself, but the main problem with this argument is that, as I mentioned earlier, liberals advocate a free market, and for many of us, low taxes as well. Some of us prefer money to be spent on education and healthcare to raise the standards of living, rather than given directly to the people. The welfare state is a safety net, not a free money machine for people to exploit. Center-Right economics is the belief adopted by the Adam Smith Institute, named after one of the most famous liberal thinkers in history.

Another mistake, is that we advocate extremism. There are actually people out there who lack the braincells to distinguish belief in freedom of religion from supporting terrorism. This of course only applies to the very few, thankfully, but it’s still an issue I would like to raise. I do not want the laws in this country to be decided by the church, or any other religion. I do not want Sharia law to replace common law, I want a purely secular state. That does not mean, however, that I think Muslim women should be banned from wearing the veil, or that mosques should not be built in this so called ‘Christian country’. Britain is a liberal democracy, and as such, freedom of religion exists. To impose your beliefs on others is wrong, but to prohibit people from worshipping their religion peacefully without bothering anyone else, goes against everything we stand for.

We are not ‘soft’ on criminals. I believe someone who commits murder should be locked away for life, and that life should mean life. I do think it is possible to rehabilitate some criminals in certain circumstances, and I believe that politicians should focus on eliminating the causes of crime rather than trying to squeeze criminals into overcrowded prisons. I also think that, if what I hear about many prisons is indeed true, criminals should be deprived of luxuries such as game consoles and instead positively contribute to society with community service. Another thing is that I am not a huge fan of the death penalty. I think it would be dangerous to go back to it, not to mention it would mean leaving the EU. I do not believe the state has the right to decide who lives and who dies. There are some powers that we cannot let any government have, as to do so would be dangerous.

Finally, the fact that many liberals opposed to the decision made by the UN to allow some countries to continue having the death penalty for gay people does not make us hypocrites. While one of our defining beliefs is democracy, nobody ever said that democracy was a perfect system. The great John Stuart Mill cited Alexis de Toqueville who referred to a ‘tyranny of the majority’, a criticism of the democratic process which indicates that the will of the majority can mean that a dissenting individual would be actively oppressed. In cases such as these it is acceptable to place human rights above democracy.

People who have these false understandings against liberalism really ought to pick up a book, as they may be surprised by what they find out. Whether or not you still agree with these principles after you educate yourselves is up to you, but please do not stand there and insult liberals when clearly you know nothing at all about the word, stop throwing it around willy nilly as if it makes you seem clever to use it against someone in an argument, as all you are doing is making yourself appear utterly ignorant, and tragically thick.