“The ‘L’ Word”
Leonard’s defense of American Liberalism. He starts with the
criticism of liberals as too idealistic and as “…not sufficiently red in tooth
or claw.” Of course he really means this as an argument for liberalism. He goes on, with a note of sarcasm:
Believing as we do that people are basically decent
and social justice is a good idea and democratic institutions can do something
about the discrepancies about what is
and ought to be…
He writes, “A liberal sometimes feels ashamed…This is
different from self-hatred. I don’t hate myself but I imagined someone better”
and coins the t-shirt quality saying “We are the children of qualm.” Could have
been written by Aaron Sorkin.
He takes the opportunity to knock down the enemies of
liberalism, “I pledge no allegiance to the Bush, nor the pips for whom he
squeaks, and they have nothing to tell me about my country that would make me
love it more.”
Great closing:
Shall I tell you what liberalism is all about? It’s
about the First Amendment to the Constitution, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
Address, and Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience, and Martin Luther King’s
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”- and, of course, the Sermon on the Mount.”
Sounds exactly like Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
New word: Ogham = medieval
Old Irish alphabet.
New
learning: Leonard (who I should mention died of lung cancer in 2008),
originally attended Harvard where he worked on The Crimson. He dropped out after his sophomore year and enrolled
at Berkeley…I guess Harvard wasn’t liberal enough.
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