The Liberal Garden

I would like to rehabilitate the word 'liberal.' Liberal, according to my dictionary, means generous; noble-minded; broad-minded; not bound by tradiitional authority or orthodoxy; candid; free from restraint; looking to the general or broad sense rather than the literal. These are all beautiful ideas. Only one of the last definitions, free from restraint, could possibly be given a negative spin. It is this last and least meaning that has the conservative (tending to support the preservation of established views, customs, institutions, etc.; opposed to change) knickers in a twist. (Knickers being ultra-conservative)

Freedom from restraint means people can behave any way they like within the law. Social codes are broken right and left. I lose control over my children, my spouse. My neighbor doesn't cut his lawn. HIs dog pees on my petunias. The music on the radio hurts my ears. All the doctors at the hospital are foreign and they don't treat me right. Asian women should not be given drivers licenses. Hatred of difference blossoms in my heart. I don't want to face my own ugliness. It must be something wrong with THEM.

If we are liberal, we try to find ways to thrive that allow others the room to thrive as well. Tolerance is not easy, but it is very poor soil for hatred. Instead of seeing society throught he lens of the family, which presupposes adults knowing what's best and laying out rules for the children, liberals view it more as a garden, where hierarchy is irrelevant. In a garden, different plants require different soil, and changing the ph of the dirt is not moral relativism but sensible realism. In a garden, it would never do to allow one plant to grow like kudzu over the entire plot. The Christian Coalition is the kudzu of the American social garden.