In order of liberals and progressives to start winning again, it's time for us to start looking to the definition of who we are. We need to once again look at our philosophical under-pinnings, believe in what they stand for, and be able to articulate them to anyone and everyone. When was the last time you looked to the core of why you stand the way you do?
I was fortunate enough this past semester at college to take a class called Freedom and Equality. I was looking to fulfill my political philosophy requirement, and what I had found was a class I'll not soon forget. The class made me think that so few of us care why it is we think about issues in the way we do, and perhaps even few of us ever care to do so. Conservatives often talk of their share of the liberal tradition. It is indeed a powerful device, allowing them to not only use religious arguments, but also philosophical to make their followers feel good in their convictions, justified by their thoughts.
The progressive tradition is no different, and our share of the liberal tradition is an important one. An easy political philosophy would be to follow what a philosopher/prophet/son of God, whatever you wish to call him said some 2,000 years ago. "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).
Unfortunately, this simple law seems to complex for us humans.
After Jesus, many other political philosophers surface which are often cited, but one which is often neglected, and in my discussions few liberals even know about, especially younger ones, is John Rawls.
To me now is the time to emphasize what Rawls taught, who only passed away in 2002, and articulate a backbone for what liberalism means today.
Try for yourself, and with your friends and others you talk with his classic exercise of the Original Position and Veil of Ignorance. Assume that you are man in the original state of nature, no cities, no nations, man fights and fends for himself. What would you seek in a society, how would you seek to be protected, what rights would you have? But, before answering that question, also allow yourself to believe that you are wholly ignorant of yourself. You do not know what talents you possess, what attributes you have. Your value compared to others whether it be intellectual, physical, anything, is completely unknown. Perhaps you are to be at the top of society, but the odds of that are just as much that you will be at the lowest.
Now, how is it then that you would form society and define rights? For Rawls, he believed that you would situate yourself in a way that no person may be better than any-other, no one may have any rights beyond anyone else. And thus, the lowest shall be equal in rights to the greatest.
From this exercise Rawls believes we come to two principles of justice:
1. Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value.
2. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.
Isn't that something to think on, and base a political belief around. Fighting for equality of opportunity, and for liberty of all. Such ideas sound strangely American to me. Perhaps it's time for us to better arm ourselves in our beliefs and use that to encourage others to the same.