Liberal Democrat Voice Opinion: Liberalism is radicalism By _Paul Connolly_ (http://www.libdemvoice.org/author/paul-connolly) | Mon 2nd December 2013 Though cheered by Nick Clegg’s letter on Liberal principles, I balked at being “slap, bang in the liberal centre”. Though not his intention, “centre” always suggests equidistance between left and right. It implies reasonableness. And everyone knows politics is a contest for the centre ground. We live there. We win. Except this conflates two unhelpful metaphors. When Labour and Conservatives contest the centre ground it doesn’t make them Liberals. Rather they’re engaging with popular (often illiberal) sentiment, metaphorically located somewhere between them, in order to succeed electorally. If strong, they cajole that sentiment towards a programme. If weak, they appease it. Our supposed location in the political centre is another misleading metaphor. It suggests we are a synthesis of left and right, a neutrality, an ideology wrought from indistinctness. Combining these metaphors makes us seem compromise incarnate. But the truth is, as Clegg implies, liberalism is the most radical creed: hard, nearly impossible to live by, utterly distinctive. All parties pay liberty lip service. We believe in it. We reject illiberal Daily Mail appeasement by Labour and Tory Home Secretaries. We value public services, but are wary of state centralism. We believe in free markets, not as unregulated rat-races where corporate oligarchs thrive, but as settings for creativity and innovation, where targeted interventions empower consumers and allow small and new enterprises to flourish. We believe in equality, but know that without freedom it’s mere coercion. We have an odd relationship with tolerance. Our pluralism means we tolerate those who are legally intolerant. But we must not let them win. Our liberalism is never easy-going. We are rigorously self-critical, lest we tolerate lack of diversity in our election candidates or shrug at sexual harassment. That would be intolerable. We’re Enlightenment creatures, rational, but shy of systems. We want fairness. But we balance our thirst for social justice with belief in personal responsibility, the rights of property and the rule of law. We know there is such a thing as society, not an impersonal collective or Burkean mystery, but the place where individuals find full expression through free association. We love democracy. We want to extend it beyond a merely representative into a truly participative model, so as to make political decisions more legitimate and less remotely bureaucratic. Liberalism is sceptical, a tough creed. It subjects its own tenets, all my foregoing cries of “we believe” and all our policy positions to the challenge of evidence. If liberty were better served by a radically reduced state and a bigger role for the third sector; if fairness could be secured in the NHS by co-payments or liberal education by letting school operators make profits; if a fairer tax take from the wealthy depended on them seeing transparency and accountability in welfare: we’d know what to do. Wouldn’t we? Certainly. We’re realists. We’d make necessary accommodation with the “centre” of popular opinion. But we’d do so artfully and lead it. Because we’re Liberals. No one’s wishy-washy moderates, thank you. We’re radicals.
-- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
