Page 22 - Liberating Liberals V2
P. 22

The Mental Prison Break
concealing dubious foundations.
(But yes, I was still impressed enough to elevate
to the top of one of the Twin Towers, avoiding an ironic and awful 9/11 death by just 274 days and 10 hours.)The point is: Just because an institution has majestic power doesn’t mean it makes sense. Liberals have internalized conservative arguments ad nauseam, but we shouldn’t let the awesome expressions of their ideas limit our goals.
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According to Merriam Webster, a liberal is one who “is not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy
or traditional forms.”4 American liberals can be loosely defined as everyone to the left of Republicans including: Yellow-Dog Democrats, Progressives, Democratic Socialists, Anarchists, and the lifestyles of Libertarians. The beginning of liberalism is often attributed to the Enlightenment which was in part headlined by John Locke’s opposition to rule by kings and support of the rights to life, liberty and property. It evolved to include the social liberalism of FDR, JFK, LBJ and Obama.5
According to Merriam Webster, freethinkers are people who form “opinions on the basis of reason and independent of authority.”6 Free-thinking liberalism includes the thinking that supports freedom of speech, assembly, and the press. But more precisely
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