Roselva Ungar: Reform and progress

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There must be a typo, or perhaps Terri Lovell has been drinking some foxy Kool Aid to confuse liberalism with autocracy (“Liberal Oppression,” published Feb. 17 in The Signal).

It is autocrats who believe in, to quote Lovell’s words, “absolute power” and “taking away individual rights.”

For  liberals, in her words, “the goal is to centralize all power under their control” and “use innocent children and young adults to expand their own power by teaching them to hate freedom and despise traditional values.”

I find this assigning autocratic  purposes to liberals very puzzling. It was liberal thinkers who wrote our Constitution and established this nation’s liberal traditions.

Liberalism, by definition according to Webster, is free, not literal or strict,  not narrow or bigoted. It is broad-minded, favoring a democratic or republican form of government as distinguished from monarchies and aristocracies.

It favors reform and progress, trending toward democracy and general freedom for the individual, freedom of thought and action, absence of narrowness or prejudice in thinking.

The word itself comes from liberty or freedom.

I know many liberal-thinking people; I, myself, am one. We tend to be open-minded and freedom-loving. In politics we want power to serve the people’s needs and to be controlled democratically.

As an educator, I  want students to think critically, to understand civic responsibility, fairness, and to be open to new ideas.

I find it Orwellian to confuse liberalism with autocracy and truth with fiction.

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