In defense of sanctimonious liberals
In a desperately craven attempt to rationalize the sell out of values and principles represented by the recently negotiated tax giveaway to the wealthiest of Americans, President Obama audaciously surrendered hope to cynicism by labeling his critics on the left as “sanctimonious” and “purists.”
Obama is lost and will be left in the ashes of his one-term presidency to bemoan the abandonment of the core base that ennobled him and, to our regret, gave him life. However, his ignorant and gratuitous insult requires a defense of “sanctimonious” liberals.
It has been liberals, progressives, and various incarnations of the left who have been responsible for the greatest advances in this country over the last century. It is liberals who have embraced fairness and equality and have stood in the bulwark of the fight against the institutionalized inequality that has been enabled in this country.
It is liberals who, in the face of unrelenting (and well-financed) conservative opposition, have advocated for: civil rights, peace, women's' rights, progressive taxation, the recognition of liberty as equality, personal privacy, citizen protections against government and police intrusions, environmental protections, respect of diversity of color and sexual orientation, workplace safety, workers' rights, consumer protections, open affordable education, and innumerable reinforcements of an eroded social safety net.
Liberal programs have allowed undernourished children to thrive, misdirected teens to find opportunity in education, parents to support their children and themselves in middle class lifestyles, and the elderly to live in dignity.
These defining elements of America have been fought for and implemented by vigilant liberals, who, often contrary to their own economic self-interest, embrace and maintain values other than the greed and exclusive self-absorption that defines conservatives. These “purist” liberal ideas represent core defining principles that cannot be compromised and should never be insulted, especially in a sorry calculated display of faux bravado.
So, go away, Mr. Obama. The legacy of the sanctimonious liberals will outlast your sorry tenure.
Glenn Sulzer
Grayslake