I posted the following on another thread in answer to some snide comments and insults from Goofballupagus, and I think it would be appropriate to post it here as well.

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Tell you what, Goofball. When you get to Oz, tell the Wizard that, like the Scarecrow, you, too, need a brain.

I'm not a "so-called" liberal. I am a Liberal. A John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John F. Kennedy Liberal.

Nothing "so-called" about it.

I arrived at this position through education (staying awake and paying attention in high school and college classes), study and thinking.

The ideas of Liberalism started in ancient Athens, the first place in which Democracy existed. It was flawed, but it had good points that we could wisely incorporate today. For one thing, they had a foolproof method of preventing their law-makers from being bribed. Well worth re-examining today.

Plato was not a Democrat. Nor a Liberal. He believed in government by an elite (Philosopher Kings, of which he planned to be one himself).

In relatively more recent times, one of the first major steps in Liberalism and the establishment of Democracy was when King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D., limiting the power of the king and delineating a list of basic rights.

It's a long and on-going struggle, which included the French Revolution, wherein the bone of contention was protection of people in general from the abuses of the aristocracy. And the American Revolution and the United States freeing itself from the abuses of being a mere collection of exploitable colonies of an Empire.

There are those who would re-establish the abuses of "privilege," and it's Liberals and Progressives who are striving to prevent it. By keeping up on events, interpreting them in the light of a cohesive ethical philosophy, then participating in political action.

Those who are too damned lazy don't realize what others are doing in their behalf. And some of them have the unmitigated gall to insult and criticize those who, in the long run, are keeping them from the possibility of being hauled off to a concentration camp at somebody else's whim.

Don't thank us, Goofball. I wouldn't expect it from the likes of people like you.

Don Firth