I am an liberal or leftist (not sure of which is a better term) who believes in the Constitution, supporting democracies as allies, and many deep-rooted American values. Mostly, I am an American and believe this is one of the greatest countries on earth.
America got that way because of the people it has drawn from other countries. Until the 1930's the U.S. has offered almost no social "safety net." Coming to a country where the minute you set foot you had to work like crazy and, to boot, in most cases learn a new language was a daunting prospect. Though it is a fictional work, Fiddler on the Roof was based upon historical fact. Its setting, the Western part of Czarist Russia, and now modern Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were always what should have been paradoxical, despotic, anarchic and chaotic at the same time. The "government" such as it was provided few if any services, and did not enforce law and order. The famous Kishinev Pogroms were a well-known highlight of this state of affairs. People who wanted to make something of their lives simply had no future among drunken peasants that wanted nothing more than to kill them.
One of my four great-grandfathers, and the only one I know anything about was a jeweler in Kiev, Ukraine. A conscript in the Czar's army, he fled when the Army wanted to force a renewal of his term because of his skills. He and my great-grandmother (an arranged marriage in the Jewish tradition of Fiddler on the Roof) fled to New York by way of Montreal. He became a shoemaker in Yonkers, and never really struck it rich. One of their daughters was my maternal grandmother. She married my grandfather, a dentist. They bought a small house in Yonkers. While their lives were not perfect (I understand a bad marriage and alcohol abuse on the part of my grandfather were involved) they put their son (my uncle) and my mother through Syracuse University. My uncle became an executive at a major TV network. My mother became a housewife, and spurred my father to success as an interior architect after an unsuccessful Cornell education as an engineer. I went to Cornell and Boston University Law School and became a lawyer. Only in America would this levitation be possible.
And it was mostly through "the Constitution," (through grudging tolerance for Jews) and hard work, as well as a belief that there really are no limits to growth (except I'm short and didn't grow to the sky), that made all of this possible. Their was no real money in the family and we received little government assistance, except Navy-paid and GI Bill education for my father, and a small amount of unemployment assistance for brief periods between jobs for me.
My OWN life has not been perfect. However, I don't look to find fault or place blames for any of my misfortunes on other people, the government, Donald Trump, etc.
How do I rate myself a left-winger and a liberal? I believe that governments should raise money openly through taxes and not through speed traps, petty regulations and fines, etc. I support integration in the schools and work place, though I am against affirmative action. I am pro-choice. I believe in the public school system. And I support causes anathema to many conservatives, including legalized marijuana and reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone.
