Liberal Ethnocentrism

Submitted by Avraham (United States), Apr 1, 2003 at 11:35

I consider myself a liberal. I support gay marriages, gun control, a woman's right to choose, separation of Church and state, and affirmative action.

However, I, unlike many of my fellow liberals, realize that the civil rights I enjoy do not fall from the sky or grow on trees. They have to be earned, even fought for. The assumption that the freedom we enjoy in America is a natural or even necessary state of existence is the root of what I deem liberal ethnocentrism. Liberals today are reactionaries-they listen to Islamist ranting against America and Israel and then induce the cause of this anti-Western fervor to be America's fault.

The professors at Columbia and many other "academics" trace the cause of any grievance anywhere in the world back to Uncle Sam. The assumption here is obviously that the U.S. controls everything in the world, quite the ethnocentric assertion, if you ask me. Liberals need to leave their high-horse of anti-Americanism and realize that other people around the world can act independently of what America does. Sometimes we just don't have any control over this chaotic world, and as Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved.

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