Walk The Line

Bryony and I travelled to Oregon last month to visit with my former roommate and good friend Janice for a week. While we were in the PNW, we managed to squeeze in a visit with my good friend Eva-Maria and her daughter Alexandra. At some point during conversation that evening, one of the adults commented on how something is very "conservative," and a few seconds later, made mention of something being very "liberal" and Alexandra asked what those words mean. I should preface the rest of this anecdote by acknowledging that all three of the adults that night are steadfast liberals. However, as I tried to define and contextualize the words for an 11-year old mind, I found myself wanting to be as fair and unbiased as possible. If I remember correctly, I told Alexandra that liberal could mean "open-minded, willing to accept new ideas and ways of doing things" while conservative could mean "set in one's ways, less likely to welcome change." Eva-Maria countered that conservative could easily be defined as "traditional," a definition that I found both accurate and fair.

Alexandra still seemed a little confused, so I decided to give her an example. Picking up on the "traditional" concept, I asked her to think of Thanksgiving dinner. Knowing that this is certainly not the way things are done in every partisan household, or even most, for the sake of ease or explanation, I used the following example:

A conservative might go for a more traditional Thanksgiving dinner, with a turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, dinner rolls and apple pie. It's tried and true, it's traditional and it's what we know, so it feels right. On the other hand, a liberal might opt for a new and more experimental menu for Thankgiving dinner, with an interesting fusion of ethnic Native American dishes and cuisine from England, to truly commemorate the blending of cultures from the first Thanksgiving.

This seemed to make sense to Alexandra, although I did re-emphasize that the Thanksgiving dinner example was just that, an example, and certainly not what conservatives and liberals throughout the U.S. are doing every November.

So I've been thinking more and more lately about what sets up left-leaning liberals apart from the conservative right. With all the news of late about Tea Parties, filibusters, partisan politics, death threats and the like, I've been re-examining my own political will. Make no mistake, I am a left-leaning liberal, through and through, and I believe that I always will be. Having said that, however, I do believe that having opposing parties and viewpoints strikes a necessary balance. As much as I would like to always have policy and legislation dicatated by liberal politicians since those are my values, I don't pretend to think that everything I believe is necessarily the "right" way. I think it is, but it's not right for everyone, and I can appreciate that.

News surfaced this past weekend that Justice Stevens is retiring from the Supreme Court soon, meaning that Obama will be looking to replace a very uber-liberal leaning justice with someone similar. I heard a news commentator comment that this replacement will not really rock the proverbial boat, at least not nearly so much as if it were a conservative judge retiring. As much as I don't agree with conservative values and legislation, all I could think is, "Well, I guess our nation was built on the idea that dueling viewpoints would both have a place in our country's political spectrum, and to some extent, they serve as a 'checks and balance' system so as not to allow things to get too wildly liberal (*sniff!*) or too desperately conservative." Although a bit of wild liberalism never hurt anyone...

So, I guess all of this rambling has been meant to impart the fact that while I don't agree with my political opponents, I can still respect (some of) their viewpoints and their important role in the landscape that is American politics. I might be very left of center, but I can still walk alongside the line.