I’ve been engaging lately in what I once thought was the right way to do things – reading and researching to understand what those words “liberal” and “conservative” mean. I confess I’m running into trouble. I just can’t understand “conservative.” All I know is it’s not my father’s conservative, even mine up to and including Eisenhower. I do know, though, what I mean by “liberal.” This is a partial list
- Violence breeds hatred.
- Hatred breeds destruction for the hater as well as the hated.
- Vengeance is violence in any form, physical or other, even ridiculing, insulting, or demeaning.
- Peaceful problem problem-solving leads to fulness of growth for everyone.
- Every individual is of value, deserving of care, appreciation, and encouragement.
- People come in many genders, abilities, and color.
- Freedom makes creativity possible by allowing every individual to grow and prosper.
- Peace makes freedom possible, and vice versa.
- Appreciation, gratitude, and forgiveness clear the path to peace.
- Earth is a gift to be cared for with appreciation.
- Children are a gift deserving birth into a loving, caring society.
- Agape love signifies mental health.
- Good mental health depends on all the bullets above.
- History ignored opens the way to history re-enacted.
This is it for starters. Now I ask for two things,
- Add to my list
- Provide me with a similar list of the current meaning of “conservative.”
Thanks
I remember my student tour of Europe in 1951. Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Holland, Belgium. Eveywhere we met people like us. And everywhere except Switzerland we found bombed out buildings. I remember Germany especially, men without arms and legs making their way by new businesses trying to get a foothold in any corner where temporary buildings could be erected. Most of all I remember thinking “all these people are just like us” as we communicated through gestures and what minimal knowledge we had of the language of the country we were visiting. I remember our twenty cent packs of cigarettes were worth 60 cents for just one cigarette. It was our medium of exchange for tipping. Let me repeat. I remember the people we met were just like us.
And I remember the student guide who said to me as we tried to understand what had happened, “This will come to you someday in the United States.” Yes, more than remember that, I have never forgotten it.
I remember an 8-year-old Mona (me) in 1937 thinking Hitler must be a nice man, because I saw a picture of him smilingly accepting a bouquet of flowers from a little girl my age. I remember practicing a speech I would deliver to him explaining why he should be nice to other people.
Years later, I remember a client whose family was left behind in a country cruelly dominated by the USSR. In her distress over their situation she wondered, “How did they let this happen to them?”
I love traveling, and everywhere I go I meet people who are just like me – trying to make a good life.
I remember wondering how people could let it happen to them.
How could it happen? Could it happen to us?
I remember, and I wonder.
monagustafsonaffinito 