Searching for Liberty.. With Dignity

When I first started this blog, some two years ago, I didn't actually put a lot of thought into the name I would give it.  I knew that what I was looking for in politics wasn't so crass as just lower taxes, or the pursuit of capitalism.. it was something deeper.  Without actually giving it too much though, I decided upon "Searching for Liberty."

I think I realized that I didn't have "the answer", and that my blog would be more of a search for myself than an education of anyone reading it.. and the feeling I had was that I wanted was not material benefit, but "liberty".

Well, today I'm continuing to read, "Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists", and today's chapter really struck a chord, and helped, perhaps, explain my blog's title, and, perhaps, what many of us are searching for in our disjointed political environment.

Her suggestion is that what motivates all people, from liberals to conservatives and from Christian crusaders to Muslim extremists, is a search for "liberty" with "dignity".

She points out that Muslim terrorists, statistically, come from comfortable families and are generally reasonably well educated.  As such, the terrorist response does not come from those living in squalor, rebelling against those who have something they want.  Osama Bin Laden, living a fugitive life for some time, moving from cave to cave in Northern Afghanistan and Pakistan comes from the incredibly wealthy bin Laden family.  A family owning not only one of the largest construction companies in the Islamic world, but, reportedly, also owning major stakes in Boeing and Microsoft.  Not only wealthy, but powerful as well, with direct connection to the Saudi royal family.

Few people in this world held more financial security and more potential political power than Osama bin Laden, yet, he threw it away to live a pauper's life, pursuing jihad against western interests.

Closer to home, she points out that voters in places like Kansas and Oklahoma, who are often most negatively impacted by Republican economic policy, are those who are the most ardent "red states" supporting the Republicans.

Why?

Because our freedom and our dignity cannot be "bought".   Because in the deepest parts of our souls, what we share, as conservatives and liberals, is a desire for freedom and dignity.  Not just for ourselves, but, at our noblest moments, for everyone.

Sure, there are sociopaths who probably have no conception of others, but for the rest of us, it is not just our own personal well-being that we strive for, but the well-being of our children, and, in fact, of our society as a whole. 

None of us would knowingly relish the "perfect" existence of wealth and independence if the price were the subjugation of another. 

Now - liberals may read this and argue, "Conservatives have no conscience, they pursue their mindless quest for wealth at the expense of environment and those less fortunate."  In response, conservatives will say, "Liberals have no soul, they wish to take what is not theirs and give it to themselves and others, and, in the long run, they will hurt the less fortunate because as business suffers, so to does the tax base and society's ability to pay for education, health care and other needed social programs."

However - I believe that there are some fundamental truths to liberals and conservatives alike.  That if any of us are offered a sort of Faustian bargain of personal well-being, trading another person's liberty and dignity for it - we would not do it.  None of us. 

This isn't to say we don't rationalize or ignore the things we don't want to see or acknowledge.  We are often willfully blind to the ways in which our society hurts those who are weak or at risk, we say, "It isn't my doing", as if that's a complete answer, or we blame others, "The big corporations".

Look at almost every single major source of disagreement in politics today and you will see a struggle over liberty and dignity.

Global warming?

Advocates of the theory point to how big business, particulary oil interests, are harming our planet, and in the bargain, ourselves and others, ignoring the freedom and the dignity of everyone but themselves.  Dignity?  In the sense that to have dignity requires that we be "recognized", and "heard".  Advocates look to the IPCC and the scores of scientists supporting their position, and say, "Even when millions of us, around the world, speak up - they don't listen.  We aren't being respected, we aren't being "heard".

What about opponents of global warming theory?

Well, they feel their freedom and dignity is being offended as well.  They feel they haven't been consulted, as voters, that governments have surrendered their sovereignty to elite groups of scientists, who have coupled their environmental agenda with a complex and poorly explained economic agenda that "Gives my hard earned tax dollars to some other country to use in a way that I have no control over."  They also feel they aren't being "heard", and, further, that their freedom is being taken away to just pursue their own livleihood.  Real jobs are at risk of being lost in places like Fort McMurray, and Edmonton and Calgary, and they are the sacrificial lambs for people like David Suzuki and Al Gore.  They feel that they don't matter, that their own very real freedom and liberty is at stake.

Couple this last concern with the now infamous hacked emails.  Scientists  basically saying,

"Those opposing our point of view are not worthy of questioning us.  Better we hide the contrary evidence than have to listen to their stupid and ignorant questions."

Sound like someone else we know?

Perhaps, Stephen Harper in response to the Afghan detainee inquiry?