Am I really a Liberal?

Labels are not something I typically indulge in, par for the course for me in my "gender Abolitionist" type personality I guess. I get told varying things in person and by email, from I'm taking a"..... steep turn to the left. Posting anti-American crap" to "how dare you consider yourself a liberal or even mildly feminist".

Being a Liberal obviously depends on what the definition of that person feels a liberal is rather than some real firm definition. Ironically to some I'm not extreme enough and to others I'm too extreme. However in the end it's not how they see me it's how do I see me that really matters.

How do I define me...I am of course alot more than just a "liberal" and the whole designation of the liberal title came about because I am basically a rebel at heart. The very things spewed about how Liberals have no common sense, Liberals always deal from emotion, Liberals are what is wrong in America endears me to claiming the title of Liberal if nothing more than to demonstrate you can believe in what are called "Liberal values" yet have common sense.

Will I at times piss off the more extreme Left as well as the extreme Right? Yes, I most certainly seem to have that ability. I was interviewed the other day for a local newspaper on blogging in general and one of the questions he asked me was why do I blog? Do I have a message...That was an easy one for me. My whole message is the majority of us out there are not one extreme or the other. Alot of the blogs I read catered to one extreme or the other, there were very few out there that were heavily political that I felt at home at. I have since that time found I am not alone but at the time I created this blog, I knew there were others out there that felt like I did and I started writing to them. I am not enough of a feminist to be comfortable at most of those blogs, I'm not a democrat, and I believe the true way to save our political system would be to demolish the power of both republican and democratic parties. I don't feel comfortable with all of the Green Party message and I do like some of the Libertarian platform but not enough to be able to embrace it fully. I strongly believe in social programs as I do believe it is our duty to help those who are less fortunate, but I believe it should be at a state level not a federal one. I do not believe in unfunded or underfunded federal mandates. If the federal goverment is going to tell my state it has to do something then it should either fund it fully or back off. I believe in State Rights....our government was not designed to be the huge monster it is today, nor were the states meant to basically hold very little power at all. The federal goverment was supposed to be the thread that bound us all together into a Union, not a chain that choked us. I believe in the constitution and I think things like the Patriot Act is far from even resembling anything patriotic.

On the subject of religion, I believe the constitution gives us freedom from a government approved religion, whatever we decide personally we want to believe in as far as a God, or have no God is our personal choice. If you want to pray you should be able to pray, however you should not have the right to tell someone they have to pray or cannot pray. It's all about respect, something many of us seem to have forgotten in our rush to make everyone do things "our way". I learned quite some time ago that I don't always get my way, that at times a compromise is better than both sides losing.

I don't like the idea of abortion, however, my personal decision to not have an abortion should be respected the same as the opposing view. I believe if we spent half of the money spent on both sides fighting each other on realistic sex education and prevention of pregnancy, abortion would become a non-issue.

Education is not "one size fits all". It is and should be more individualized. While of course each child has to learn the basics each one has their own strengths and weaknesses. They should be encouraged to grow at their own pace not forced into some set standard of what must be accomplished realizing some will exceed and some will take time. Some struggle to complete what must be done while others wait impatiently becoming bored while waiting for others to catch up. Would this be more challenging for teachers? Yes, but the end result of having each child reach their own personal goals would end up making it better for all of them. Don't coddle our children by not giving them grades, learning how to set and make goals is one of the most important lessons they can get from education. Teach them balance, that while an A is an awesome thing, a C that was obtained from hard work and their best effort is nothing to be ashamed of.

Make gender a non-issue. It' s not the best man or the best woman for the job, it's the best person.....While there will always be biological differences these should not separate us, a woman may be the only sex able to give birth to a baby but that does not mean that there are not men out there that have the ability to be the logical choice to be the stay at home or primary parent. It's not a matter of sex after the birth process takes place, it's a matter of personality.

Stop the extremism from both sides. Temper it with common sense and the reality that there are alot of us out there more in the middle on most issues. We are forced at times to feel as if we have to pick one extreme or the other when in reality? We hold the power, we are the majority if we would just make our voices heard.

So while I have confirmed what a complicated person I am, I also know none of us fit one definition with the exception of the one that should matter, we are human......