Liberal or Conservative

Hummmmm — Are you Liberal or Conservative? A definition of terms.

Carl sent this to me and asked me what I thought of it. Its a reflective piece with a scoop of history. That is, its pretty good.

If you take a historical look at the condition of our culture, most good things stem from liberal thought. Now, before all you conservative supporters launch yourselves into orbit, keep reading.

To understand a bit of this, we have to rewind our historical tape back to the summer of 1215 A.D. But before we do that, let me introduce a phrase that many political scientists use--“The Power Structure.” This is generally defined as the individuals and organizations that are responsible for creating public policy. It goes far beyond Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and such. And it includes the truly powerful folks, such as the present-day media.

With that in mind, we now find ourselves in England in 1215. Here we meet King John and his Barons. The Barons had absolutely had it with John. It seems like he was not a very nice guy. So they presented him with what we know as the Magna Carta, and told him to sign it. That made him a very unhappy King, but he had no choice. I don’t think anyone would describe these Barons as conservative, nor would they call this act anything but liberal.

This represented the first real attack on the “Power Structure,” and paved the way for hundreds of years of citizens trying to restrain these power guys. We can see it in the formation of the English Parliament, the growing influence of the power of law, and sometimes in revolutions. So we can see that the liberals tried to restrain the power structure and succeeded. The conservatives, on the other hand, supported the entrenched—the establishment.

But today we have the conservatives asking the government to get out of their lives, and the liberals worshiping at the feet of the “Great God Government.”

Thus the question is — “Am I a conservative and want to restrain the Power Structure, or am I a liberal and feel that all good flows from the King, also known as The Government, and its political buddies”?

Carl, the E.