With and without quotation marks

The observant reader may have noticed that in more than fourteen years I have never used the word "liberal" without quotation marks. The reason is simple: I am a (quoteless) liberal myself. The word, derived from liber (free), has been stolen: it used to denote the philosophy of some great 19^th-century thinkers who favored individual liberty and opposed coercion (except in self-defense or applied to those who are incapable of responsibility).

The opposition of the thieves to the ideas whose outer mantle they have stolen has recently been highlighted by Sen. Kennedy's semi-clandestine legislation suppressing two dailies critical of his politics, but in the defense of scientific truth we have met this "liberal" trait almost every month.

Food irradiation, for example, quite apart from the scientific facts, is a matter of freedom of choice, for the danger (imagined or real) threatens nobody but the individual chooser. Yet by now you can tell a "liberal" by his opposition to food irradiation. (On campus, you can tell him by his mouth: it is full of academic freedom except when it is shouting down Jean Kirkpatrick and others who are not entitled to it.)

Why this "liberal" love of coercion? Because the supporters of big government, income redistribution and the welfare state hate the very opposite of it all: self-responsibility. They perceive the man who decides for himself and is willing to take the conse-quences, quite correctly for once, as the greatest threat to their lust for power over others.

Yes, self-responsibility: A free society does nothing about people who wish to run races with refrigerators on their backs: it is kept fairly free from such cranks by the weight of the refrigerator. But the "liberals" sue the refrigerator company for not warning the "victim" with a label "Use only as directed"; for "Only as directed" is the hallmark of their philosophy. [great]

The use of a word derived from liberty to mask coercion runs parallel with the appeal to morality to perpetrate the immoral. The standard example in this periodical is killing people by obstructing nuclear power, but there are others.

Here is one of them: Not every type of asbestos is dangerous, and no type is dangerous unless it enters the lung. Asbestos in brake linings is dangerous only to people who live in brake drums, and asbestos in properly sealed walls is dangerous to nobody. But when the wall is ripped open to take it out, the microscopic fibers will float around the room for a long time, no matter how well it is ventilated.

For the man willing to use his own brains rather than parrot what Tom Brokaw serves him, it is not too difficult to see through the omissions, distortions and double standards of the Great American Media Brainwash when its "liberal" spokesmen posture as champions of liberty and morality. In non-scientific subjects a little common sense and careful attention will do it.

For asbestos, radiation and other technical matters, this may not be quite as easy. Yet here, too, a liberal without quotation marks should remember that genuine liberty is based on self-responsibility and self-reliance. There are still reliable sources for those diligent enough to search for them and rational enough to evaluate them; even Tom Brokaw can unwittingly serve as a source of information (of sorts) if one listens carefully, noting what he considers important and what he has left out.

For in an age of mass manipulation by the "liberal" media, their captives should hear a new ring in some ancient words:

". . . and the truth shall make you free."