What is a liberal? What is a conservative?
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
These words of the late Minnesota Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey have always best defined for me what it means to be a liberal Democrat. I still believe them to govern my political philosophy.
The key is belief in government not as the problem but as the needed counterpoint to over-concentrated power – to level the playing field, as progressive presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to John Kennedy to Bill Clinton would say, for equal opportunity, individual responsibility and social justice for the average American.
In recent months, however, some people who sincerely believe they are liberals are being quoted in the national media and on the blogosphere as if their definition of liberalism is the only one. (περισσότερα…)