I must agree with Bill's points.
What have Liberals contributed to the once proud American culture, aside from the HR 3200 abortion?
- “Putting others first” has become “Paying far more attention to how others live their lives than how they live their own.”
- Being open minded has become abject permissiveness.
- Deriding the smug holier-than-thou small-minded Christian faithful has been replaced with an ever increasing blind faith in anything wrapped up in saccharin faux-humanist pseudo-scientific garb. Genuine lack of critical thinking leads them to logic defying leaps of faith in the cult of Global Warming, and the wholesale unquestioned goodness of (of all things) Politicians. Boiled down, all the sins that some cast against Christians to discredit anything they have to say or believe, has come full circle to be held as badges of credit by those same people.
- “Question Authority” as a means of mutual recognition and respect on ethical, moral and functional grounds has become “Question It”. But if the answer isn’t served up to them on a platter and stated in kindergarten language, or challenges them in any way, then they never let the answer be tolerated.
- If history does not support their world view comfortably, then history must be changed.
- The phrase “a friend in need is a friend in deed” is utterly lost.
- They speak of the eternal myth of “fairness” as though it's not just real, but a cornerstone truth of morality. Their belief that earthly justice, real justice, is within mankind's ability to exercise regularly, let alone understand, is spoken of as though it should be as expected as the morning sun rise. It is delusional.
- They believe it's better to be a victim. It's easy, and morally righteous to boot.
- Having conviction in almost any belief is held in contempt as something selfishly fascistic. Ethical and moral ambivalence is the sign of real goodness and selfless thoughtfulness. To them it's much better to have a stalwart (and louder) conviction of being against others convictions.
- Having an opinion has become a tyrannically inspired judgment for no other reason than it's not couched in kindergarten-safe language, it's not Federation Starfleet approved (sorry Chan, Roddenberry didn’t do us any favors with that B.S.), UN sanctioned, or is a danger of possibly challenging anyone on any level...even if they are not in the room.
- “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” has become an all-consuming unquestionable moral good to not say anything harsh or uncivil to anyone at any time as you might commit the crime of hurting someone's feelings.
- It's acceptable to desecrate, warp or denigrate anything held as dear, sacred, or even functional by anyone espousing anything resembling a traditional American value, so long as the language used to do so is civil, i.e. politically correct.
- The phrases “Grow up!“, and “Get over it” has become instead “There there, it's OK. It's not really your fault.”
- Superiority by actual virtue rigorously exercised has become superiority by consensus of good intentions and emotional projections (and we all know where that road leads). However it's never actually tested lest it's proven fragile.
- Owning your life once meant acknowledging your place in your environment while understanding that God gave each of us enough of a spark of the divine so as to see our great individual potential, and actually setting yourself on a path toward it, beholden to none. Now we’re told it's defined by a collection of goods and 'service to our fellow man' that means “Shut up, do what your told, pay the government what we think you owe it, and maybe, just maybe we’ll keep patting you on the head and telling you how special you are.” Civilian defense corps my ass.
- Childhood now continues to age 26.…emotional maturity and personal responsibility is not required at any age.
- Ah yes, and my favorite: Liberals have given us the proof that it is actually possible to be strong in weakness. Various weaknesses can be maintained, cultured, and grown into a perceived strength given enough of a mindset constructed with tangential versions of actual virtues. They thrive in environments insulated against any challenges that allow such mental structures go unchallenged. Need proof? Just look at any environment where Liberal ideals are the mainstay: politics, academia, media, even science. It's nothing more than mental inbreeding.
- Journalism, once actually lofted as the crowning achievement of a civilized society, has become what is called the Lame Stream Media, a host infected with the virus of propaganda.
- Instead of accepting that God challenges each of us to be stronger in the blessed virtues, God must be challenged because, well, its far easier being pathetic and cozy.
- Somehow, somewhere, the word “humanism” changed markedly. It went from meaning a fan of mankind's innate good virtues along side all of its shortcomings, with a healthy respect of both. And though some innate virtues are not ascribed as coming directly from any godly belief system, they never directly opposed a belief system. Such virtues were in parallel. However, today the word has an undeniable dedication and near dogmatic belief in mankind's greatness, period. A belief its followers maintain less by action than by rigorous pursuit of insulated good intentions, hopefulness and large scale visions of some untethered joy and happy state created by means of some “thing”.
- It's actually possible to be a person motivated to help others while projecting virtuous attributes, and at the same time have a crippling self-centeredness that poisons those around them.
- Everyday words and phrases of the American lexicon have nearly disappeared. Some of those include “humility”, “the American way”, as well as “the American spirit”, “God-given”, “virtue”, “sin”, and to our own devastation, “sovereignty”. That word by itself on the tongue of an American once had tremendous power.
- Individuality was once consisted of basic decency and accountability before man and God. Individuality is now principally marked by self-gratification through commercial consumerism and reveling in the edginess of base impulses.
- God gave us free will so that our lives may have value. Liberals believe God was wrong. They believe free will is over-rated at best, dangerous at worst. Value is in the eye of the law holder.
- It's better to place all possible aspects of humanity under the jurisdiction of some law rather than letting humans and Humanity figure itself out.
His last one peeves me more than many of the others because Liberals have come to believe all that's needed to correct some perceived ill or injustice is to create new legislation to outlaw it. The only problem with that belief is that there are already so many laws that are poorly enforced or universally ignored (mostly by the Left) as to make any new ones just as meaningless. Frankly, we have better things to do with our time and our efforts than to deal with useless and toothless laws, or worse, laws that have far reaching consequences that go way beyond what they were supposed to fix.
And so it goes.