Policy:
JoT re Steven re "Liberals"

You've got a fine point: you can't assess the liberals' "score" without taking their failures into account, and who remembers failures? You listed a few. Plus, there's the ERA, and the whole idea that genetics have negligible effect on individual character.

So I'll back off to a weaker and more defensible stance. The advances that we acknowledge are liberal causes put forth in the face of conservative resistance. It's not that the liberals had a great record of getting their reforms through, but it is the case that, with hindsight, we see that it's the liberals who were ahead of the game and the conservatives who were behind it. But I'll keep saying, "The liberals were right" because that's easier and more provocative.

"Of course if we're looking at successful moral reforms they'll only come from non-conservatives because part of being a conservative is keeping things the way they are."

Conservatives (religious and secular) have agendas of their own to advance. The 20th century saw certain drugs made illegal, the addition of "under God" to the pledge, our motto changed from the inclusive "E Pluribus Unum" to the exclusionary "In God We Trust," the "so help me God" tacked on to the President's oath of office, and the Confederate battle flag added to numerous state flags. Plus, corporations gained the rights of citizens. Conservatives don't necessarily favor things staying the same; they frequently campaign to make things more "traditional." Luckily, liberals have managed to restrict conservatives mostly to symbolic victories.

—JoT
July 2003

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Gay Pride Parade, Seattle, 2003

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