Democrats. what does it mean to be a liberal?

I was inspired by JFK to become a liberal Democrat in 1960. I was inspired by Nancy Pelosi to become a liberal independent in 2009. By that time I could no longer ignore the fact that the national Democratic Party had abandoned liberalism for statism.

Over the past decades I have learned that in America liberals want liberty to be conserved, while conservatives want to conserve liberty. The difference is one of emphasis.

Liberals want people to be free to enjoy life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The radical liberals who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had exactly that in mind.

Two forces are powerful threats to that freedom. The first is government coercion, regardless of party. The Republicans want to coerce gays to remain unmarried. The Democrats want to coerce everybody to tilt the playing field to favor specific voting blocs. Both are government coercion.

Democrats today have abandoned liberalism. A great triumph of modern liberalism was desegregation of schools so that children of all races could enjoy equal access to education. Today, Democrats deny inner-city minority children access to education by supporting an agenda of the teachers unions to keep incompetents on the payroll.

Another great triumph of modern liberalism was the recognition in law that life-saving medical care must be available to all regardless of station, race or belief. Today, the Democrats deny inner-city minority group members access to quality health care by supporting the Trial Lawyers Association's addiction to the litigation casino. This raises the cost of malpractice insurance to the point that few quality medical care providers can afford to practice in the inner cities. Obamacare makes that worse by changing how medical imaging centers can charge for their services. In the suburbs a medical imaging center can operate 24/7 and pretty well keep the appointment chart full because a two-parent household with two cars enables people to make appointments on time, even at three in the morning. The new rules, requiring that these centers bill based on usage 90% of the time, are a surmountable problem in the suburbs. In the inner city, where single parents rely on public transportation, it is an insurmountable problem.

Liberals favor free elections through a secret ballot. The crowning achievement of Cesar Chavez's life was obtaining the right for migrant workers in California to vote by secret ballot on unionization. A young Jerry Brown was Chavez's right-hand man in that fight. Today, an older Governor Jerry Brown has agreed with the union bosses to do away with that right and to send the results of the election - by individual, with home address - to the union headquarters. It seems the campaign contributions of the union bosses are more important than the rights of workers.

Liberals recognize the power of government to do good. They also recognize the power of government to do harm. That is why they wrote the Constitution to protect citizens from their government. Today's Democrats are committed to an agenda of ever-increasing government control of every aspect of life. That is not liberalism, it is statism. And statism is neither liberal nor conservative, it is thuggery. The most successful statist of the past 100 years is Benito Mussolini, the Fascist.

What i believe is that there is a divide in our country

both parties want some form of government, most republicans want more social government, like marriage control, abortions, and border control, and most democrats, want more economic control like regulations, fair taxation and equal pay, but many democrats disagree with the republicans and vice versa because of the American dream. The American Dream is that if you work hard and go to a good college you will get a job, but in reality this is not true. Even if you are a hard worker, even if you went to a good college you are never guaranteed a job. It is totally dependent on the manger or businessman. And not everyone has the same ability to go to college, which makes even less jobs. you may disagree but I believe that if there are more small businesses the middle class will increase, and the more the middle class increases then the better the economy. The divide is about the American dream, one party believes that no matter the situation it will always be true and that if everyone can access jobs then there should be no government dependency and therefore no taxes, the other believes that situation does matter and that jobs are not that easily made, and life is not that easy. I personally think that the democratic party is the correct one personally.

Since you are a Wikipedia guy, why did not you file all of it? Democrats have extra Masters and Ph.D.'s. Academia Although Democrats are good-represented on the postgraduate degree, self-recognized Republicans are much more likely to have attained a four-12 months tuition measure. The tendencies for the years 1955 by way of 2004 are proven via gender within the graphs beneath, reproduced with permission from Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality, a e-book released in 2008 via Joseph Fried.[25] These outcome are founded on surveys performed via the National Election Studies, supported via the National Science Foundation.[28]

Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] is a political ideology or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.[2] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, and the free exercise of religion.[3][4][5][6][7]

Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting several foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as nobility, established religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The early liberal thinker John Locke, who is often credited for the creation of liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition, employed the concept of natural rights and the social contract to argue that the rule of law should replace absolutism in government, that rulers were subject to the consent of the governed, and that private individuals had a fundamental right to life, liberty, and property.

The revolutionaries in the American Revolution and the French Revolution used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, Latin America, and North America. Liberal ideas spread even further in the twentieth century, when liberal democracies were on the winning side in both world wars and liberalism survived major ideological challenges from fascism and communism. Today, liberal political parties remain a political force with varying degrees of power and influence on all major continents.

A twenty-first century development is an emerging new liberalism that is centered on the concept of timeless freedom (ensuring the freedom of future generations through proactive action taken today).[8] This is an idea that has been endorsed by the President of Liberal International Hans van Baalen.

The role over the government is to promote the social welfare of the citizenry, to protect the nation from threats both internal and external, to be transparent and to hold fair elections, to rule by a system of reprisentation. It means that the government can't/shouldn't give social group exclusive access to priviledges/rights. That the governments role isn't in policing, or judging peoples personal decisions. That the governmentt lacks the authority to dictate the medical or life decisions that people make, and that the drug war is a perfect example of government overreach. That the most powerful, and themost wealthy corporations do not deserve special consessions, but that they must pay their taxes like everyone else. That a well educated population base is the only way to compete in a world economy. That writing legislation based on interpretation of scripture is unconstitutional, and that the Bible holds no explainatory power over science. That America should avoid war, and that 2nd Amendment rights don't give you the right to walk through the streets with assault rifles. That regulations exist to prevent abuse of the system, not to abuse the system. That prohibitions reduce freedom, and that mandates don't inherantly reduce freedom. That you shouldn't be able to lie on the news, or on the floor of congress. And that if you choose to participate in our electoral system by donating large sums of cash to your chosen nominee, you must publicly disclose yourself, for the sake of transparency.

to look at the facts and what works and do what is best for the nation...

mixed economies with social protections work...

social programs work...

even if they had problems in greece, these nations all still lead the world in almost every category you would want to lead the world in...

Quite simply....open to change through equality and freedom.

"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.” -JFK

That's what it's always meant to me.

If you feel like you are a member of the American Civilization... you are a liberal.

If you feel like you are a member of only one sector of the American civilization you are a conservative.

Liberals are progresive thinkers... And republicans are hicks, rednecks and other small minded people