February 15: Apology, Liberality, Scrooge-ality

Before I get into the meat of my thoughts this morning, I would like to issue an apology for the typos in the blog I posted last night.  I was tired.  I was in a hurry.  Bed was calling to me.  Generally, I read, reread, and reread again anything I'm thinking of posting.  Last night, I didn't do that.  Therefore, several glaring mistakes made it online.  I have corrected those typos.  I go apeshit on my students for typos.  Typos are sloppy and stupid.  I have corrected those errors this morning.

Now that I have that off my chest, I can move on with A Christmas Carol:

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits.  At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

OK, I know I've talked about "liberality" and the bad rap the word "liberal" has received, but coming across this passage today actually made me laugh out loud.  Charles Dickens isn't using the word "liberality" in a negative manner here.  He's using the word to show what a son of a bitch Scrooge really is.  These two guys show up in Scrooge's office to collect money for the poor, and Scrooge wants nothing to do with their "liberal" cause.  In Dickens' book, Scrooge is the one who has his head up his ass.  Scrooge is the one who's going to end up with a one way ticket to Marley damnation.

I find this passage funny because, in a presidential election year in the United States, the word "liberal" always gets thrown at candidates as some kind of insult.  I don't understand it.  "Liberal," in my lexicon, is a synonym for "generous" and "charitable" and "kind."  If you go to a party, and the host is liberal with the food and drinks, you come away full and happy (and maybe a little drunk).  You want a liberal host.  It's a good thing.  Why wouldn't you want the same character trait in the leader of the United States?

On the flip side, the word "conservative" somehow has become a badge of honor in most election years.  Being conservative has come to mean moral, ethical, and Christian.  I don't know how that happened.  If my memory is correct, Jesus didn't have a beatitude that said, "Blessed are the conservative in spirit, for they shall keep all their money and be upstanding citizens."  In the Dickens universe, Scrooge, who is, by all accounts, an ultra-conservative, isn't the one with whom we should sympathize.  Old Chuck would roll over in his grave in Westminster Abbey if he thought we agreed with Scrooge.  Conservative means frugal, stingy, cheap, maybe even a little greedy.  That's Scrooge.  I don't want to go to a party thrown by a conservative host.  I'd probably have to bring a dish to pass. 

Want this guy in charge of things?

When I hear Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin refer to "good, conservative values," I cringe.  I don't want my president to have good, conservative values.  This past weekend, Mitt Romney gave a speech where he used the phrase "we conservatives" about a thousand times.  Every time Romney said "we conservatives," I heard "we Scrooges."  Basically, all of these Republicans are a bunch of Scrooges, wanting to keep health care as a privilege and not a right.  Wanting to keep the poor poor and hungry.  If someone asked Newt about the plight of the impoverished, I could actually hear him saying, "Are there no prisons?"

Therefore, I will not be voting for any presidential candidate who calls him/herself "conservative."  I want liberality, not Scrooge-ality.

Saint Marty, liberal and proud.