A “Cartelian” converted to “Bleeding heart liberal”?
Posted on May 22nd, 2007 by Niket
Read this piece by Gaurav Sabnis on freedom of expression.
Then, go to the ACLU site and read what they say about defending the rights to free speech:
Free speech rights are indivisible. Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to silence you.
It might surprize a lot of people that we have a lot in common with our ideological opposites, sometimes more than our ideological “partners”.
Your comparison would be appropriate if definitions of liberal and conservative were same in both the Indian and American contexts. Liberals in India are often clumped with the Lefties and frankly libertarians as a class doesn’t exist (in terms of recognizable numbers). So in fact, Liberal and Libertarians might be grouped in the same group in India but not so in the U.S.
Arun Simha (Quizman) had written on this difference on his old Rediff blog. unfortunately, that post doesn’t seem to exist right now.
You point well taken. I think I had read Quizman’s post on his old blog.
Frankly, Libertarian as a political group has hardly any voice in Washington either. I would say as a “border-line libertarian” myself, I find my views in line with social liberals and fiscal conservatives.
In any case, at some point, branding views as libertarian, liberal or conservative is absurd. I guess, I was perhaps alluding to this, more than anything else, in my post.