The 'L' Word

By: Arthur Joel Katz

Confession, they say, is good for the soul, so here I go with a public confession. I am a L. . .

Sorry, I can't do it. It is like admitting to being a masticator; lots of people are not sure what the word means, but they know it is not a good thing to be.

Back when I was young, not only were most of my friends masticators - they masticated three times a day, most of them - but they were also L. . .

We thought that was a good thing. In the 1930's, in the midst of the Depression, L. . . probably saved the country from revolution. Can you imagine what might have happened if Herbert Hoover had been re-elected in 1932? Millions of people might have starved. There would have been no Social Security. There would have been no Works Projects Administration so that there would have been almost no jobs and none of the infrastructure, the roads, the post offices, the courthouses and the rest, that the WPA built. The right of workers to organize free from violence and employer disruption would never have been established.

And what might a population hopeless and starving have done?

The right wing in 1939 through 1941, and to some extent even now, blamed us Li. . . for supporting the allies against Hitler. We were accused of bringing on the Second World War. It was we Li. . ., after all, who supported rearmament, which involved higher taxation, and the draft.

The right were for "America first". Had they prevailed, Europe, including England and Russia, might be under Nazi enslavement today, to say nothing about our own situation in the Pacific.

If the United States survived at all, it would be a third-class power quaking in fear of German and Japanese military might and economic dominance.

And then, after the war we Lib. . . fought McCarthyism and ran the risk of being damned as communists. Those were the terrible days when you were encouraged to rat to the government on your friends to protect your own nest.

Had we lost that battle, you might still go to the polls every November, but it probably would not be by choice. Just as in the Soviet Union, the announcement would be that 99.2% of the electorate had voted and somehow the ruling party had gotten all of the vote.

Later on, we Libe. . . demanded that our country get out of the war in Vietnam that was not only destroying that country but needlessly killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of our most patriotic youth. We said that the war was wrong and that all the killing was not to protect any vital interest of the United States.

In the end, the United States withdrew from Vietnam and we Libe. . . were accused of losing a war that almost everybody admitted could not be won.

Terrible people that we are, we saved thousands more of our young from being destroyed. And none of the dire predictions that the right argued would follow, if we did not defeat North Vietnam, came to pass.

Yes, it was we Liber. . . who supported the civil rights movement, who helped to ensure that African-Americans - indeed, all Americans - had the right to vote and work, that centuries of slavery, discrimination, inadequate education and lack of economic opportunity would not continue to inhibit the progress of a whole race.

Indeed, we argued that affirmative action might be required to correct some of the past injustices and for that we were, and are still, being pilloried.

Then there were those other terrible positions we Libera. . . took:

• Providing Medicare and Medicaid.
  
  
• Providing housing for the poor.
  
  
• Providing school lunches for those unable to pay and food stamps for those who didn't have enough to eat.
  
  
• Providing job incentive programs and, yes, even midnight basketball that might serve to redirect inner city youth.
  
  
• Defending a woman's right to control her own body.
  
  
• Supporting education.
  
  
• Defending the environment so that there will be something left for our children to breathe and enjoy.
  
  
• And creating the government programs that have protected and added to the lives of all of our people.
  
  

In the last few years, the right has succeeded in making the 'L' word the political equivalent of the 'F' word. It is not a word that can be used in polite politics. They accuse us of fostering big, intrusive, expensive government that controls the lives of Americans, saps their initiative, and steals from their pocketbooks.

But the right has never hesitated to use government to support its own agenda. In general, that agenda is to insure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

No doubt we Libera. . . have made mistakes. There are instances where the government is overloaded with bureaucracy, over-regulates, and spends money foolishly.

It is certainly fair criticism to point out these instances. But to demonize those who feel that government can be used to heal the sick, help the needy and establish the general well-being is to resort to name-calling rather than reason.

Contrary to the epitheticians (OK, name-callers) of the right, Liberals do not believe that the solution to every problem is pass a regulation or throw money at it.

Oh, my God, I used the word.

I might as well stick by it.

Yes, I am a Liberal and proud to say so.

(Please keep off the lawn when you come to tar and feather me.)