What's a Liberal?

A relative who recently checked out Bluenecks at my urging, responded to the website by saying he thought the blog was “too liberal” (by which I think he meant “too radical”) and that it would turn off moderates whom we would like to appeal to. I appreciated the feedback, and it made me reflect on why Todd and I started the blog in the first place. In sum, I think we were motivated in three ways:

• To provide some witness, however meager, against the war in Iraq; regardless of whether we changed anybody’s mind, we felt a need to do something, even if it was just to say, “I want to be on record as being against this thing!”
• To rally other like-minded individuals, especially the endangered species of the Blueneck (an educated Southerner who is politically progressive), to discuss the issues of the war and politics in general and how we might collectively push the broader political discussion in our direction.
• Finally, and more as an afterthought, to appeal to moderate thinkers who are not committed politically one way or the other to support our cause, or to change the hearts and minds of those who disagree with us.

I think we’ve done a good job so far with the first two goals; on the third issue, perhaps we ought to be more mindful of how we present ourselves. As a passionate voter, I have a tendency to sometimes demonize the other side unnecessarily. The irony in my relative’s comment, however, is that I actually consider myself a moderate. In a future post, I’ll explore what I mean by this, but suffice it to say for now that I don’t believe I’m an extremist, and that in fact I think it is the current presidential administration and Congress that is out of step with the majority of American voters. Perhaps relative to their right-wing agenda, I do indeed appear to be a liberal.

I’ll write more on this later. For now, let me just say that we welcome a vigorous discussion on this blog, and anyone who wants to share their thoughts, whether they agree with us or not, is encouraged to post comments and give us feedback.

So there, I’ve issued the invitation: liberals, moderates and conservatives (whatever those words mean), let us have it!
-G