Share the Wealth, Dudes!

I have to laugh every time I hear John McCain refer to the "tax and spend liberals" or when he insults Barack Obama for being a liberal. Liberal is such a dirty word in the United States, even though both Republicans and Democrats are liberals. Both parties support classical liberal values such as individual freedom, property rights, civil liberties, and the free market.

Now, I realize that the classic definition of a social liberal in one who supports higher taxation and societal regulation. Maybe so; maybe not so. I really think it boils down to who gets the tax cut and who doesn't. McCain, like our own lesser Bush (aka Stephen Harper), panders to big business, while those to the left argue for tax relief among the lower and middle classes. Which sounds more humane to you?

If McCain is not a liberal, what is he? The opposite of liberalism is fascism, and even I wouldn't call John McCain a Fascist. Conservatism, you might say, is the opposite of liberalism. Yet, there are few quality definitions of conservatism, so I adhere to Lincoln's: "adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried." That is what this election is all about.

If we can define conservatism as frugality with respect to spending, then George W. Bush's regime fails the test in spectacular fashion. He squandered billions of dollars in taxpayers' money in Iraq. He has spent the USA into a massive debt. It seems to me that Dubya is a liberal, according to McCain's definition.

Up in the Great White North, we have a political party called the Liberal Party of Canada (the Grits). We are not afraid of being called liberals or socialists, though most would draw the line at the term Marxist, mostly because few of us really understand the term after years of perversion by authoritarian regimes. Marx really only provided an excellent critique of capitalism. What happened after the revolution went largely unsaid, leaving ample room for the misapplication of his theories. But, I am getting side-tracked.

When Obama said "share the wealth around", he certainly was not calling for the proletariat to assume control of the means of production. There's no need for the Bourgeoisie to panic. This spin is another desperate Republican tactic to distort the sensible words of a reasonable man, the next President of the United States of America.

P.S. My political theory classes seem so long ago now...