It seems that the American populace tends to divide themselves into two major groups, usually containing various stereotypical types of members. There are the liberals, usually with members that believe in some sort of social justice movement, and there are the conservatives who usually include those that are heavily religious. While the two groups may contain members that vary in terms of what they think and what they believe in, this is what the majority of America categorizes them as. The problem that I face with these groups is not in their beliefs at all. The issue I hold with both of these groups is that their very names sort of defy what they end up doing.
What exactly do I mean by that? How is it that these groups are acting so different than what their label implies? Well let us first start with liberals. The very word liberal comes from the Latin liberalis, meaning free. Freedom implies that anything can be done by anyone. Herein lies the problem with calling such a group by a title that implies liberty. They claim to be so “liberal," but the majority of their agenda is telling people what they can and cannot do in order to not offend people. While at first glance this may seem fine, it gets out of hand. For historical reasons, you would not want to call people of a certain persuasion by an ancient derogatory word, or misuse their culture. Liberals, however, decide to take it a step further and make sure that no one can even say anything about anything. While it seems like an exaggeration, anything that is said can and will be viewed as racist, homophobic, sexist/misogynistic, etc.
I try to maintain my political neutrality as much as possible, so now it is time to view why the title of conservative is inappropriate. The word conservative naturally comes from the verb “to conserve," which is to retain something in a older state. Some may say that conservatives indeed hold true to traditional values that they battle to retain every single day, but let us think a bit outside the box. Conservatives seem to be changing every single day when it comes to key issues. They do in fact retain their values, but their extremity tends to vary greatly. Slowly, but surely, conservatives begin to become more extreme, thus not exactly conserving their values. They keep making their ideals more and more extreme over time.
Like with any political statement that I make, I bring it back to the belief that we as a people should stop labeling ourselves with titles other than American. Holding the title of American is something that we should all bear with pride and unity, so that we may prevail as a nation.
