Posted by
Chris Walker on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 7:43:26 PM
Remember the times when some of the most enlightened thinkers, and some of the greatest moral leaders in America were liberals?
Me neither.
But rest assured, there was a time when being liberal put you on the side of righteousness and truth, and it is true that some of the greatest people that America has ever produced have been liberals, and some of the greatest chapters in American history, (or world history, for that matter) were born of liberal movements.
There was also a time when Democrats were the conservative party and Republicans the more liberal one. Times change and political lines shift with them. And so it goes with liberalism too, it seems.
One needs only to look back a few decades to see the difference in the liberalism which spawned some of the greatest social achievements of the past, and the liberalism which runs rampant today, and has become, more or less, a threat to the fabric of the very society that those once great liberal minds and hearts were fighting so hard to create and to protect.
The difference in the two schools of liberalism is one of direction. Whereas the liberals of yesterday were seeking to rectify injustice by using God as their guiding light and righteousness as their standard, the liberalism of today seeks, to a large degree, to eradicate God altogether from society, in the name of absolute equality, and to impose certain ideology on all Americans.
The only problem with this is that, God has always been a part of America and, ironically, some of the greatest liberal achievements of all time. Meanwhile, absolute equality has never been the goal of America, simply because absolute equality cannot exist while liberty exists, and the protection and the advancement of liberty is the single greatest objective of America, and always has been.
For instance, the greatest moral leader of the nation in the twentieth century was Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister. His dream was the American dream. Sadly we are not much closer to it than when he was tragically killed in 1968, and in fact may be moving away from it, in a way.
King’s whole purpose in life was based on his tremendous faith, and his great achievements were evidence of the necessity of that faith in society. It took someone of unconquerable faith to achieve what he achieved. The importance of a belief in God and an unwavering commitment to His word cannot be underestimated in the Civil Rights struggle of the 50’s and 60’s.
One peek at his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” should be enough to convince even the most anti-religious leftist of the absolutely irrefutable role religion has played in the changing of America from a good idea to the greatest bastion for liberty and justice the world has ever known.
But this is not the only example, of true liberalism at its best.
Abraham Lincoln was arguably a radical liberal of his time. His faith carried him through disaster after disaster on the battlefields of the Civil War, and through fits of melancholy and numerous personal tragedies, only to have him emerge as the savior of the Union, the “Great Emancipator” of an enslaved people, and arguably the greatest president of them all.
Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and Adams were all liberals of their day, but the day of their liberalism has seen its setting sun. What we are left with are liberal movements which more closely resemble the social disaster of prohibition than the abolition of slavery, or the civil rights movement. But even prohibition was an attempt (albeit a really poor one) to move towards a more religious and moral people, rather than further from it.
Today the liberal leaders in society bear little or no resemblance to their forefathers and mothers. They are shouting for the sake of shouting. Can you imagine Martin Luther King standing up with the angry mobs attacking Christian churches in the name of striking down Proposition 8 in California, or invading church services for political attention? I simply cannot.
The same goes for abortion. Can anyone honestly tell me that they believe that Abraham Lincoln would support such liberal movements as “abortion rights” given his sacrifice and struggle to free the slaves in the name of God and the progression of human rights? Or even John Brown, the great abolitionist martyr – can anyone come up with a scenario where he would be in support of abortion?
In truth, the pro-life camp of today has much more in common with the abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries than the “liberal” pro-choice camp does, given that pro-life advocates are seeking to be the voice of a people who cannot speak for themselves or defend their own inalienable right to life, as ordained by the Creator.
Is it just me or does someone making the argument that abortion is a “women’s” issue; sound a whole lot like some southern fire breather of the 1850’s making the argument for slavery a “southern” issue, rather than a human rights one.
The truth is that legalized abortion is the single greatest tragedy in America since the days of slavery, and it moves us further from the goal of true liberalism, which is the ultimate advancement of humanity. Yet liberals today want to associate themselves with the great liberals of days gone by, when they are drifting further and further from the point of all of their struggles.
So don’t be fooled by the politicians, Hollywood nuts, special interest groups, and college professors and their warped take on justice and equality. They are but wolves in sheep’s clothing. Let’s not forget that even Hitler was convinced that he was making the world a better place and doing great justice for mankind. It would behoove us all to carefully examine the ends before we wholeheartedly endorse the means.