Al Gore‘s recent self-disqualification from the 2004 race has opened up the field, allowing other Democrats to express their unique ideas and vision for the future. I hope those ideas sound half as good as those from George McGovern, from whose Harper‘s essay the following is taken:

Webster’s dictionary defines [liberalism] as “a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties.” From the beginning, Americans have believed that the conditions of their lives could and would be improved; that is, they have believed in progress. One cannot conceive of a nation dedicated to democracy that does not rest on faith in “the essential goodness of man.” It would seem even more likely that in a democratic society most of the citizenry would accept the importance of personal freedom – “the autonomy of the individual” – as well as the need to protect that freedom.”

As my friend and sometimes debating partner William F. Buckley puts it in his book Up From Liberalism: “Conservatism is the tacit acknowledgement that all that is finally important in human experience is behind us; that the crucial explorations have been undertaken, and that it is given to man to know what are the great truths that emerged from them. Whatever is to come cannot outweigh the importance to man of what has gone before.” The business of conservatives is, in other words, to cling tightly to the past, and although such a stance can be admirable, a stale and musty doctrine is of little use at a time when the nation needs not to fear the future but to seek out ways to improve it.

Virtually every step forward in our history has been a liberal initiative taken over conservative opposition: civil rights, Social Security, Medicare, rural electrification, the establishment of a minimum wage, collective bargaining, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and federal aid to education, including the land-grant colleges, to name just a few. Many of these innovations were eventually embraced by conservatives only after it became clear that they had overwhelming public approval for the simple reason that almost every American benefited from them. Every one of these liberal efforts strengthened our democracy and our quality of life. I challenge my conservative friends to name a single federal initiative now generally approved by both of our major parties that was not first put forward by liberals over the opposition of conservatives.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 16th, 2002 at 5:04 am and is filed under Law & Politics.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.