My Liberal Agenda

Honestly, I suspected that any discussion of liberal men would circle back around to Walt Whitman, but instead, we've arrived at Mark Twain.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark -- which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two -- on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

America, I know you. You skimmed through that and skipped until right here to see what I was going to say about it. So, just keep this one sentence with you--the most beautiful sentence in the American novel, if you must keep anything: "We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened." I don't know if you can get the weight of that sentence from the paragraph. But here are these two beings who aren't men--one because he's just a boy and the other because he's fugitive property--talking philosophy and theology. Do you get that? Do you see how stupid it is for people to object to Huckleberry Finn, as if it's racist because of the word nigger, when Twain is continually insisting that we recognize that Jim, a piece of property, has a life of the mind, when Twain is insisting over and over again that Jim, who isn't considered a man at all, is the only true man that Huck knows, the only man who truly gives a damn about this poor kid? Do we miss the gift for the fucking wrapping paper every damn time, America, or what? Anyway, Huck the blogger wrote me an email about the whole liberal man discussion (which is what got me thinking of Twain). I'm going to share it with you:

Oh, it pains me so to see you pitching fuel into the conservative bon-fires. I know you're offering food for thought, but to add my 2 cents, we liberal males aren't all tweed-wearin', pipe-smokin', organic gardenin', candyasses. Some of us are crazed, gun-totin', cat-kickin', carnivorous anarchists. 3 words: Hunter S. Thompson Some of us are against gun control. Some of us view PETA's and abortion clinic picketer's tactics as cut from the same annoying cloth. Some of us hunt and kill animals for sport. Some of us enjoy red meat, black gas station coffee, cornbread, gravy, Milwaukee's Best, death metal, and pussy. For me, to be liberal is to allow people to be free from fundamentalist and government oppressions. To despise the powerful elite and empathize with the common people. To avoid the slippery slopes that open easy-access routes for fascist controls. It's not whining about sports team names or cigarette ads. That kinda crap gives liberals a bad name. It's about fighting against the government's filthy habit of consuming our personal freedoms. In other words, you can't discount the freaks like me, the liberal libertarians. Sure, we may be nice guys, even "creepy" nice guys, but one thing is for sure. We sure as blackest hell ain't a bunch of sensitive kumbaya-singin' wussies.

Again, in case you missed the most important part, here it is: "For me, to be liberal is to allow people to be free from fundamentalist and government oppressions. To despise the powerful elite and empathize with the common people." (Though, to be fair, I also loved--"Some of us enjoy red meat, black gas station coffee, cornbread, gravy, Milwaukee's Best, death metal, and pussy.") Okay, I do have a point, which we are going to get to in a second, but let's talk about the libertarians I know--The Contrarian, sitting over there on the coast bitching about how the conservatives in South Carolina are too in love with Jesus to be of any use to him; Sarcastro... well, I get your emails, I know you've already formulated your opinions; and the Boy Scout, whose dog has a Bill Clinton chew toy. Why do I put up with such nonsense? Because each of them is ferociously engaged with life in a way that about knocks me over. There's a large contingent of conservativeness that is about establishing and preserving order. Not for these yahoos. They seem to thrive on confronting the chaos*, on challenging themselves and the people around them. I mean, is there anything off-limit to Sarcastro? If so, I haven't seen it. I've been trampled under foot a few times, but, my god, how can I not respect a man who never met a boundary he didn't want to cross? Which brings us back to Huck and to a strain of liberal men I adore, the fierce ones (see Huck, Chris Wage, Steve Pick, etc.) who not only have never met a boundary they didn't want to cross**, they really get that those boundaries are kind of arbitrary bullshit anyway. And, my god, when you read Huck talking about despising the powerful elite and empathizing with the common people, how can you not be reminded of that other Huck? How can you not be in love with this crazy idea that all the best, most interesting shit is happening among and with the regular, everyday folks? If there is some liberal agenda, Huck's totally got the first part and Donnell Alexander's got him covered with the second crucial point. So, here it is, my liberal agenda spelled out in the words of the crazy liberal men I love:

"For me, to be liberal is to allow people to be free from fundamentalist and government oppressions. To despise the powerful elite and empathize with the common people. To avoid the slippery slopes that open easy-access routes for fascist controls." (Huck) "It's about completing the task of living with enough spontaneity to splurge some of it on bystanders, to share with others working through their own travails a little of your bonus life." (Alexander)

Amen, my friends, amen. *With, of course, guns blazing. **Which brings us, of course, to why the libertarians are convinced they can convert me. In this regard, our world-views compliment each other enormously.