Forward

The idea of framing puts language foremost in the public debate, and as the NY Times Magazine pointed out a few weeks ago, the Republican core values are summed up in a few words - lower taxes, small government, family values - the Democratic values are difficult to lay out in a full essay.

An Article in the LA Times on Bill Richardson quoted him as saying, "It's basically not center, not left, not right, but basically forward, What works? What helps people? What solves problems?" And this is what liberal politics has been about in my life.

Conservatives look back and want to keep the status quo even if it means wearing blinders or applying a completely inappropriate but comfortable band-aid to a social plague or cutting off whole branches of liberty because they don't like the smell of the blooms even as the fruits nourish the whole population. It is negative and backward looking.

Liberals, or progressives, want to keep working out what can be done with today's population, in today's economy and with today's technology to build a better tomorrow. The "tax and build" liberals gave us the interstate highway sistem, gave us the Medicare and Social Security that the general population recognizes as a basic good, forced upon the conservatives racial integration and women's rights that even the mode backward looking nostalgia conservative would not undo. I can't cound the number of women who work and are proud of the job they do, who would not sit still for a young man they had trained to be promoted over them because "he'll have a family to support someday," to be able to get a home loan or car loan without a male family member to co-sign. I remember those days and I have the good grace to be grateful to the women who made those very real economic shackles on my freedom go away. They were not perfect; the changes were not all ideal. But if we keep moving forward, the parts that don't work will fall by the wayside. Going back won't fix anything. Going forward. Solving problems. Using what works and rethinking what doesn't. These are sound bite values I can live by.

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