‘Why I am a Liberal’ (Oh, Boy!)

Today I bit the bullet and tried to read a piece from the Bolshevik rag, The Nation, entitled “Why I am a Liberal.” After all, said the teaser, liberals have always led the struggle for freedom and liberty everywhere in the world. But then they wanted me to disable my ad blocker before I could read the whole thing, and it just didn’t seem worth doing.

Besides, I’ve already heard a number of answers to this perplexing question.

“I am a liberal because I don’t have the common sense that God gave an inchworm.”

“I am a liberal because I think all that stuff they’re doing in Venezuela is really, really cool and I want to see them do it here!”

“I am a liberal because my parents didn’t love me.”

“I am a liberal because a whole lot of smart people are liberals and I want to be like them.”

“I am a liberal because I want free stuff from the government.”

“I am a liberal because people who aren’t liberals are, like, totally stupid and we need a very big government to control them.”

“I am a liberal because Mayor De Blasio or somebody said we need the government to order our view of reality. Or something like that.”

“I am a liberal because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is and I think she’s really hot.”

“I am a liberal because we need for people to be sorted into identity groups and ranked according to their respective degrees of victimhood. And I hope that sounded smart!”

“I am a liberal because all my professors in college told me I’d better be or I wouldn’t get good grades.”

“I am a liberal because I want to run the country and tell everybody what they can or can’t say, think, and do.”

As you can see, there are many compelling reasons to be a liberal–the list could go on til Doomsday, if I let it. I said “compelling,” not “good.” There’s just no accounting for what compels people.