Liberalism is no longer a dirty word. It can, however, be slammed back into that dirty box if it is handles improperly. Liberal philosophy, as Eric Alter seems to be arguing, is best served when accompanied by progressive tactics. The institutionalization of progressive tactics will lead government to be more liberal. If this is true, it serves the cause of liberalism to push our candidates to accept progressive stances on issues.
This article concerns what I consider a fundamental tenant of American greatness and an opportunity presenting itself to strengthen that greatness forever.
Americans have a right to petition their government for redress of their grievances. Americans are the government (not to be confused with government employees). The combination of these ideas makes government accessible by itself, its citizens. This stance requires government to be transparent.
Merriam-Webster Online definition 2(d) of transparent is that characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices.
In order for the current acceptance of liberal philosophy to take hold, liberals must institutionalize transparency. Both Hillary and BO08 seem wholly uncommitted to this principal and it seems that this will be our undoing.
Government should be transparent. I call for labels, real-time open access to political documents and full disclosure. This article was sparked by my BO08 “My Blog” experience. After reading a DU Kos “do the math” argument for Obama I saw that nobody was stating the obvious, that the rules were 2025 to win and while Hillary could not get 2025, neither could Obama. After the post I requested group status for a blog called “2025.” The Obama people never responded. after a respectful period of time I wrote a post describing what I have just relayed. The post seems to not have been accepted and group 2025 remains both unapproved and not rejected.
Here is the creation pending approval letter:
Your group, 2025, has been created‏
From: My.BarackObama.com (info@barackobama.com)
Sent: Tue 3/11/08 10:42 AM
To: MyCurrentOpinion@hotmail.comJonny,
Your group, 2025 has been successfully created. Your group is pending a site administrator’s approval. You will receive an email confirmation when the group has been approved.
Please go to the link below to view your group.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/2025
Thank you.
Some may think I am crazy for putting impugning the importance of my point on Obama’s failure, some may think I am a just a hater and “R” loyalists on the other side may say “see.” I am not sure. All I know is that if the liberal philosophy is to take hold for more than the four years it will take us to get out of Iraq we must institutionalize transparency reforms to the fullest extent possible.
Mr. Obama is right for the job, but he may not be up to the job – the job of National open upper. His personality seems to be the new order and his skills seem to be bridging the gap that must be leapt between the old ambitious and the new open, as described below.
In order to achieve this institutionalization we must change the candidate personality from firstly ambitious to firstly open. All y’all whose skeletons kept you from public life before are still out. All y’all who were masters at hiding your skeletons were in, and now you’re out. The new political creature is one who is an open book, so hyper honest about him or herself that the actions of life do not require a defense, merely an explanation. Charisma and oratory will come back in vogue and we will all come to accept that we are two-thirds together, despite the one-third healthy disagreement. Those who cannot abide should remain in private life and we will not suffer. Are there more open and honest charismatic orators, or are there more ambitious skeleton hiders? Despite the answers and without conceding the point, are not we not better-off with less of the former than more of the latter?