I think you'll find that my commentary here fits right into the general subject that David just was talking about. We hear the term "liberal" tossed about very frequently these days because of the political and economic situations now extant within the nation. Now, interestingly, the term "liberal" appears only five times in the Scriptures "liberality" only twice, and "liberally" only twice, for a grand total of nine times. Three of those times are in one section in Isaiah 32. The Hebrew word literally means "voluntary," thus having the sense of one doing something willingly without being coerced into whatever the act was. Thus, it also carries with it the suggestion of generosity.
Generosity is a good characteristic, is it not? It is. However, the Hebrew term translated "liberal" there is also applied to a person as noble, honorable, even a prince. You have probably heard of someone called a prince of a person. This is the sense of the biblical "liberal."
However, some people do not deserve that sort of praise, but they are given it nonetheless because of their position of influence in the community and they are given that title of noble by others who curry their favor in order to get something for themselves. That is how the term is used in Isaiah 32:5-8, and it prophesies there at the time is coming when no longer will decadent, vile scoundrels be called "liberal" or "noble," but they will be known for what they really are and their favor no longer curried.
The American Constitution, compared with other national government constitutions, is a very liberal document. it gave, and still gives, more liberties to minority peoples than any human constitution ever devised. Minority immigrants could come to this nation, and if they work very hard, they were accepted quickly and became stable, middle-class members of society despite being of a definite minority. Some even became very wealthy. These people fulfilled the American Dream. Many Norwegians, Dutch, French, Russians, Germans, Italians, Poles, Jews, Irish, etc., have accomplished this. They took advantage of the built-in liberality of the American Constitution that gave them the opportunity without demanding that they be slaves. We were a generous nation, and at the foundation of that were Christian principles under-girding our Constitution.
Somewhere along the line of our history, the Democratic party adopted the subtitle that they where the liberal party in America, but also again somewhere along the line, the concept of true liberalism became hijacked into the very perverse form we see existent today.
I hardly think that a government that openly and forcefully supports the murder of babies and is preparing a health care program that will "gently" force euthanasia on the elderly and the mentally handicapped, and we will deny health assistance to the physically handicapped [is truly "liberal"]. Do you know that they are already beginning to do this physically handicapped thing in our V.A. hospitals? They are denying care to veterans who became handicapped—injured badly—fighting for this country.
I want you to name the great nations that you know that have deliberately murdered over forty million of its potential citizens. I can name two of them—those great heathen nations named Russia and China.
I've been thinking and reading on this for quite a while, and I think from my observations that I have a simple answer to what happened to true liberality in America: just a bunch of wrong-headed thinking. I have no hard, statistical data to back up my thoughts, but at the same time, I think that I am on track with my anecdotal observations.
The first is that compared to known conservatives, the known liberals are far, far more likely to be irreligious, atheistic, agnostic, non-Bible believers. This is a major, tragic effect on their conclusions about life, and the most dangerous of these is that they do not believe in absolute moral and spiritual laws. This forces them to believe that there really is no such thing as good or evil. To them, one moral choice is every bit as good as another. The choices simply lead in different directions, and the conclusions of those choices are also neither good nor evil. This is why they can so forcefully support abortion, homosexuality, lesbianism, gay marriage and on and on. It's just a choice—that's, all. A different lifestyle.
The pundit Evan Sayet says that he was born a liberal, New York Jew. But he underwent an awakening as a mature adult, and he terms the liberals' affliction as indiscriminateness. He said that regardless of circumstances, they cannot discriminate between good and evil. They have nothing to anchor it to. He said they will invariably choose the wrong way. Do you ever wonder why they are making such weird conclusions about things anymore?
Modern liberals have become the ultimate pragmatists because they are not led by principle, but only by what is perceived at the moment to get the job accomplished, regardless of its long range effects. The liberals' idea is that we will deal with the consequences later. Thus solutions, even if they are eventually arrived at, are inevitably stretched out over a much longer period of time. Getting something right the first time is generally not part of their operation. Their idea is to just get going. They are very sloppy in their dealings.
An example is that despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists declare openly and strongly that this global warming alarm is a major hoax, there are enough modern liberals in positions of power to thwart their voice, and major bad decisions are made involving American domestic and foreign policy. This is not generosity of spirit. This is a step toward national economic and quality of life suicide.
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