Kaback: What is wrong with liberalism?

The election is over. Now let’s forget about it please. Let it roll right off your shoulder… The election is over. Now let’s forget about it please. Let it roll right off your shoulder quicker than a Rob Thomas song. Let the conservatives enjoy their Tea Party and watch as John Boehner sparks the largest self-tanner buying craze in history.

We all knew it was going to happen — and if you didn’t, then CNN gave you enough roundtable discussions to teach King Arthur he needed to get a patent.

So now that we’re back to doing what liberals are so good at doing — ignoring the obvious and being sad about losing — it’s time for us to put down the talk about Democrats and Republicans and ask ourselves, “What is really wrong with liberalism?” Over the past few years of Obama’s presidency, we have been bombarded with cries about the big bad “liberal agenda.”

There are perceptions of almost every political group that just stick to them: from the NRA’s inability to read nine out of the 10 amendments to the Sierra Club and its borderline love affairs with forests. For liberals, the common stereotypes seem to include characteristics of weakness and pretentious know-it-alls.

Now some of you might wonder what exactly the impetus for this realization is. Haven’t liberals always been characterized as Popeye without his spinach?

Well, in the past few weeks, Keith Olbermann, a liberal newscaster, was suspended for making campaign contributions without consulting his employer. My first response to this news was actually kind of angry.

Would Fox News have dropped Glenn Beck for a similar offense? Hell no! In fact if they tried to, Beck would most likely storm back on air in his Halloween costume of a uniform that he uses for book covers and say something ignorant about minorities.

Well, as a pretentious liberal, I decided that I was OK with what happened, as NBC was just enforcing its rules. But less than three shows after he was removed, Olbermann was brought back on! Liberals really are wimps.

Everything that happens just asserts that we liberals are better suited for a Phish concert than for any confrontation. I feel like that kid on “Hey Arnold!” that kept getting punched in the face by Helga Pataki. Liberals used to be the Roosevelts and Wilsons of the world, the Kennedys staring Russia in the face and not blinking! What have we let our perceptions become?

I don’t know how much the American education system teaches about Eugene V. Debs, but I think that we need a history check. Debs was the leader of the Socialist Party of America and ran for president of our country a number of times.

As he had the word “Socialist” next to his name in the prime of the Red Scare, Debs was largely written off by the political mainstream. He was thrown in jail and called a traitor to his country. By the end of the era of Roosevelt and the New Deal, the same ideas that had him imprisoned were credited with saving this country from economic disaster.

So when I look at the current political landscape, I get pretty scared. I see Sarah Palin lashing out at liberals and branding us as Socialists. Funny, considering she’s from Alaska, where the state owns its vast energy resources and disperses the wealth to its residents.

Maybe she should find a dictionary before she tries to “refudiate” me. I see Bill O’Reilly calling us Fascists for believing that Intelligent Design should not be taught as science. I see liberalism being slandered into a dirty word.

Liberals should be at war. Although I realize that liberals are about as good at battle as Lindsay Lohan is at staying clean, it’s time to defend ourselves.

It’s time to stand up for the need for health-care reform in this country. It’s time for us to realize the need for increased spending on science and education. It’s time for us to fight against unnecessary wars. It’s time for liberals to step up and stop this barrage of attacks on our ideals.

Glenn Beck rallied to restore honor. John Stewart rallied to restore sanity. Liberals now need to rally to restore our pride. There is nothing wrong with having liberal ideas. There is nothing wrong with believing in a world where homosexual people have the same rights as everyone else, where people with foreign-sounding names can get on a plane without a cavity search, where the poor and the downtrodden are given a little bit of help from our government. I will not accept being bullied out of what I believe is best for this country. You shouldn’t either.

E-mail Andrew at aak47@pitt.edu.