Andrew Sullivan: 'Why is Liberal a Dirty Word?'

Source:The Dish- with Andrew Sullivan. Eat as much as you want, you might learn something. Comeback for 2nd's & 3rd's.

Source:The New Democrat

"[T]here’s reason to believe that today, many Americans eschew the term not because they associate it with any particular unpopular attitudes or issue positions, but merely because they’ve only heard it discussed negatively. In a thought-provoking 2013 paper, Christopher Claassen, Patrick Tucker, and Steven S. Smith of Washington University in St. Louis note that although most Americans prefer the term “conservative,” those same Americans are “remarkably consistent” in telling researchers that they prefer liberal policies. How come? One reason may be that “conservative” has positive “extra-political” associations. To many Americans, it connotes “caution, restraint and respect for traditional values,” positive attributes irrespective of one’s views on specific policies.

But even more important, Claassen, Tucker, and Smith suggest, may be the negative way in which “liberal” is publicly discussed. “When certain labels are emphasized or favored by political and media elites,” they write, “the public is more likely to identify with them than others. Public framing often promotes the term ‘conservative,’ while the term ‘liberal’ is used with much less frequency and has long had a more negative connotation.” Part of the reason Americans consider liberal an epithet, in other words, is because they mostly hear it used as an epithet." 

From The Dish

Since I started blogging in 2011, just from talking to people and looking at polling on particular issues, I've always believed and really before I started blogging, actually, that there has always been a lot more Liberals in America, than self-described Liberals. 

Think about it: 

Americans like the right to privacy

Believe in free speech overwhelmingly 

Believe in a free press

Believe in checks and balances 

Believe in personal freedom and responsibility

Believe in property rights

Believe in the rule of law

Believe in equal justice, equal rights, quality of opportunity for everybody, a safety net for people who truly need it. 

I don't want to put words in Andrew Sullivan's mouth, (but only because he might have too many of his own words and he suffocate if you put any more words in his mouth) but I think that's what he's talking about in his own article. Americans like associating with the word Conservative, because it tends to come with positive social and political associations. 

But when people think of Liberal, they think of the left-wing illiberal, (meaning not Liberal) the person with the long beard, who looks like he's never been to a barber shop in his life, whose living like it's still 1968 or 69, trying to take down the man. 

When Americans tend to think of Liberals, they think of the hipster revolutionary, who think that most so-called White people are immoral and bigoted and that Americans for the most part are too dumb to manage their own affairs for themselves and even think for themselves and we need a national government big enough to take care of everybody for them.

I think Andrew Sullivan's point here about Americans and Liberals, (and again I'm not trying to put words into his own mouth, for reasons I already explained) is that a lot more people in America are Liberals, but perhaps aren't aware of it, because they don't know what liberalism actually is, what liberal values really are. 

Or, Americans know what liberal means and what it means to be a Liberal and what liberalism really is, but they don't think it's politically and culturally safe enough to let the rest of the world know that they're a real Liberal and what it means to actually be a Liberal.