How "liberal" does being against the war make one?

[mrgorth]

I keep seeing posts about how Dean shouldn't be the head of the DNC since that means moving the party to the left. Yet, as has been said about a billion times, Dean is a moderate's moderate. Me? I'm for the death penalty and wouldn't mind seeing SOME restrictions on abortion. So how am I, because I'm a Dean supporter, oh so far to the left? You know why I supported Dean, because he spoke against the war and for health care for all when it wasn't popular. That is why Dean ATTRACTED many liberals. However, he also attracted a lot of moderates. So since we seem to be getting on with tearing the party apart would someone tell me why being against this monumentally stupid war makes you "liberal"?

[htuttle]

1. It makes you as liberal as Pat Buchanan

[Uzybone]

10. excellent answer

anti IRAQ WAR does not a liberal make.

[Maat]

2. I see Howard Dean as being very moderate.

Just goes to show you how far things have lurched to the right.

And, please DUers, don't support restrictions on abortion ... unless you show an equal amount of support for birth control and adoption funding (which * is busy cutting). Then, you will have credibility with me. Unwanted children are abandoned all the time. How do I know? I was the one that picked them up and who had to find a good foster-home/adoptive hom for these precious angels. EOR. Thanks for allowing me to express myself.

I didn't mean to offend, but I ask you to consider that info.

I respect you for being a moderate. I'm always labeled a left-winger.

[mrgorth]

4. I indeed support what you recommend

I don't want this to turn into an abortion thread but I'm all for education, adoption and contraception in reducing the need for abortions. I'm not "pro-birth" either, just using that 411 to make a point. Peace.

[StopTheMorans]

3. not much at all

n/t

[pacalo]

5. Republicans should be just as outraged as Democrats about the war.

This administration misled us & lied to us in order to proceed with this unnecessary war, giving our country a $trillion deficit & costing thousands of needless deaths of our troops & innocent Iraqis -- not to mention the hundreds of thousands of seriously injured whose qualities of life have been compromised & destroyed forever.

[goddess40]

6. It just makes you a decent human being

Liberal or not being against this unnecessary war makes you a good, moral person.

[Uzybone]

11. is Buchanan a good moral person?

is Farrakhan a good moral person?

[goddess40]

17. Well maybe it is one of many things that make you a decent person

It sure isn't possible without it.

[ArtVandaley]

7. Being against the war makes you a person w/ common sense

anyone with a brain could have seen that Iraq would be a disaster and was completely unnecessary.

[Malva Zebrina]

8. I don't care how liberal it makes me

the war is an evil atrocity beyond that which I am able to reconcile with my conscience.

If that makes me a rabid liberal--I am proud of it.

[KnowerOfLogic]

9. Problem is, dem leadership refuses to point out the simple point you made.

Therefore, the only voices we hear are the repukes screaming "LIBERAL!" and of course the dems also refuse to point out that being liberal isn't bad.

[Justitia]

12. Dean was not "anti-war", he was anti THIS war (Iraq)

and he made that distinction over and over again.
He supported the Afghanistan war, as it was obvious that is where OBL found a home in the Taliban.
He also said he supported the first Iraq war, as a response to the invasion of Kuwait.

Of course, he has been unfairly portrayed as being against all war, which is simply untrue.

I happen to agree with him in each case.

As to the other issues, I am okay with the judicious use of the death penalty (requirements for such too lengthy to go into here), but I am a staunch supporter of the right of a woman to make her own medical choices - NO RESTRICTIONS, NO EXCEPTIONS.

Actually, I think ALL PEOPLE should have the exclusive right to control the destiny of their own bodies (i.e., Right to Die).

I'm middle of the road on gun control and thought Dean made excellent points on this subject, saying it should be regional. He said his state of VT and south central LA had very different needs regarding gun control and I thought that made a lot of sense.

The "labels" are useless huh?

[Selatius]

13. Dean is only "liberal" because he's not terribly friendly to corporations

We haven't had very many of these kinds of people in government nowadays. So many Democrats and Republicans bend over backwards to corporate/special interests because politicians need money to win campaigns. They have the most money, thus they have incredible influence over government policy, something the people have lost. I knew Dean's days were numbered the second he mentioned that he'd go monopoly-smashing on the corporate news media. They then painted him as ill-tempered and unstable afterward. It was character assassination.

[fnottr]

14. as liberal as these people

http://www.peroutka2004.com/schedule/index.php?action=eventview&event_id=148

Seriously, EVERY candidate other than Bush was at least somewhat against the war. Furthermore, every third party candidate was more anti-war than Kerry. This is not a liberal/conservative issue

[fishwax]

15. A little less than half of America was against the war

according to the polls. So if you've got 45% against and 55% for, and most of the 45% would prefer your party and most of the 55% would rather die than vote for your candidate, what makes more sense ... siding with your 45% and trying to pick off a few percent of those who don't agree with you on that single issue, or siding with the enemy and hoping that you get maybe 15-20% of that slight majority without pissing off the other 45% for abandoning them?

This analogy is a lot clearer in my mind than it probably reads in that pargraph, but it boggles my mind that even after that election some dems will still shy from labels like liberal or anti-war. Why do we always insist on letting the other side frame the debate?

[pjazz19]

16. I'm tired of the word "liberal" being a negative label.

The word liberal stands for positive, progressive change in America. The definition of liberal is "favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded." Isn't that something we should want to be a part of?

We'll never beat the Republicans if we continue to move to the right. If we try to run on their issues, they voters will vote for the real Republican every time. Instead, we must offer a stark contrast to the dangerous and increasingly extremist Republican party.

Being against the war however, is neither liberal or conservative. It is just right. I don't believe that it is possible to support an illegal, criminal war and be someone worth listening to whatsoever.

[hollowdweller]

18. Liberal is a pejorative that the Right uses to pigeonhole anyone

they don't like. How many times have I heard Clinton called a liberal? He was even less of one than Dean.

A liberal has come to mean a person who cares more for minorities that whine than the average joe. That is a sissy. That is for spotted owls over jobs and families. Somebody who wants to take your gun and leave you defenseless. Somebody who is always complaining when somebody says something offensive. To get to the point, somebody not like YOU Mr. Voter.

Are there any people really like the above? Not really. But somehow the press and the democrats have allowed the word to be hijacked.

[evilqueen]

19. Merriam Webster's says:

Main Entry: lib-er-al-ism
Pronunciation: 'li-b(&-)r&-"li-z&m
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being liberal
2 a : often capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity
2 b : a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard
2 c : a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties
2 d : capitalized : the principles and policies of a Liberal party

In addition, the Wikipedia has a rather interesting section on Liberalism.

In reading some of that at wikipedia, it makes no sense for our party to be pro-gun control, unless Democrats are not Liberals. Actually, the more I read this, the more it sounds like what the Republicans stand for...

The original Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu, attempted to establish limits on existing political powers by asserting that there were natural rights and fundamental laws of governance that not even kings could overstep without becoming tyrants. This was combined with the idea that commercial freedom would best benefit the whole of the political order, an idea that would later be associated with the advocacy of capitalism, and which was drawn from the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The next important piece of the triad of ideas of liberalism, was the idea of popular self-determination. Most liberals support a combination of these ideas, although many would ascribe more importance to one of them than to the other two.