I, Liberal

Part of the liberal’s problem is that he has no right to complain; the right to complain has been taken from him by those who do have that right—the downtrodden, the weak, the ones who live on the street or in their cars—but cannot be heard, for whatever reason, so that the liberal is forced to act as a surrogate, to either speak on their behalf or to place a Buddha head in the backyard and plant a purple bougainvillea beside it. The liberal is the wounded species, wandering about the world in the tranquility of his compassion, doing at best the nothing that can be done. There seems to be less and less now to sustain the liberal argument—that it is a basic human right to live in a civil society that has the best interests of its citizens at heart—and so the liberal becomes the bird-feeder, binoculars around his neck, sprinkling a little seed here and there while training his eyes on the white puffy clouds in the sky in the hope of seeing a red-tailed hawk. At this point the liberal position is able to stake out only two territories—tolerance without grace or grace without tolerance—having given way to louder, angrier voices, withdrawing completely behind the curtain of an imagined, momentary bliss.

Being a liberal is my problem, not yours.

“The New Christy Minstrels”, television collage, 16” x 24”, Thomas Fuller, 2021.