Social Studies Blog

So for social today I had to write an answer to the question "EXPLAIN, in your own words, why liberalism can be seen as a solution to a lot of the world's problems. This may take the form of a fictional piece, such as a story or poem, or a nonfiction piece, such as a newspaper article or a blog entry." And since I didn't want to have to sound all smart and official, I decided to write it like a blog entry. And I think it's kinda really funny. I sound ridiculous in it, so I decided that I wanted to share it with you! It'd be a nice contrast from my entry about gayness and my views on killing fetus'...

Anyways, let me know what you think! Or don't, I actually don't really care.. Not because I don't value your opinion (well, some of you I don't.. but yeah), but it's mostly I have this thing where as soon as I'm finished an assignment for school, no mater what subject, I don't spend another thought on it. I never ever ever re-read any of my work, because, for one, I hate how I sound when I read my own work, and two that's just spending extra time on an assignment that I've already put a conclusion to. (The exception is math. I'm not doing math anymore, but last year I would go over the stuff to make sure I didn't completely fail).

So without furver ado, I give you.... THIS! (It takes up one and a little less than a quarter of a Microsoft Word page. Just to letcha know.

Liberalism is crazy. In a good way. It’s HUGE! You’d be surprised to see just how many people in the world follow liberalism. Probably half of those people aren’t even aware that they’re following liberalism. Why, you ask? Because being a liberalist doesn’t mean you’re voting for the liberal party. It means that you value yourself as an individual, you value others as individuals, and you value your rights and freedoms. Maybe you’re living in a communist country- I’m sure you still believe you have individual rights and freedoms. And you do! They’re just maybe not ‘allowed’ in your country. But they’re there- we as people all have the same rights. It’s just the government you’re under that chooses to either embrace these rights, or smother them.

            The point I’m trying to make with this is everyone values their lives. Everyone’s a liberal, or at least believes in liberal principles. Not everyone- in fact, hardly anyone believes whole heartedly in communism or fascism. Marxism or totalitarianism. No one (short of a couple psychopaths) believe that the world would be a better place if you wiped out an entire race. But everyone does believe in their individual worth. People love themselves- that’s just a fact. If it was you or them, you’d pick you. Nine times out of 10, you’re looking out for number one.

            This is the very reason why liberalism can be seen as a solution to a lot of the world’s problems. Because of the following it has. If you took the people in the entire world who believe in the value of the individual, and gave them the option to live under a government that supports this, I would say a really high amount of those people would say yes. They’d all be under liberalism now. If there’s a problem in the world, liberalism can fix it. Because liberalism has three billion people. Three billion people have a hundred dollars to spend on an issue. That’s $300, 000, 000, 000 for a world problem. That could even solve the majority of world poverty, if only for a short time.

            But it’s not only money that makes liberalism the strongest, surest solution to the world and it’s constant state of crises. Governments, ideologies, and people are intimidated by the vastness of one group’s popularity. Heck, you see it in junior and high school all the time. The cool kids who sit at the cool kid table every day at lunch. There’s only four of them, yet they have the entire school terrified. Why? Because those cool kids could tell some non-cool kids to go pick on other non-cool kids, and those first non-cool kids would do it. Because they either 1) want to be a cool kid, or 2) they don’t want another non-cool kid to be told to pick on them. It’s intimidation. You either want it, or you fear it, and either way ‘it’ gets what ‘it’ wants.

            Same thing goes for governments, countries, ideologies, and leaders. You see it in movies, too. There’s one big boss, who gets whatever he wants, and does whatever he wants, by simply telling someone else to do it. Take Lord of the Rings, for example. Sauramon. He’s some old, white-haired wizard who, sure, has power enough to take down a mountain or two, but sick on Orc on him and he’d be toast. So why do the Orcs let him order them about? Other than the fact that he has a direct line to Sauron? Because they don’t want Sauramon to order someone else to kill him. Which he can do, because they’re afraid of him. It’s psychology more than anything, and no one really understands psychology anyways, so there’s no point getting too into it.

            The point is when there’s a government or an ideology, or even a single leader, who has such a following, other governments or ideologies or leaders don’t want to get in the way. They’ll work with that government and they’ll do it nicely, so they don’t end up being the ones massacred. Until, of course, you get the new-kid-Frodo-government leader guy who doesn’t understand the logistics of what’s going on and decides to stand up for himself. Then you get the Cuban Missile Crisis. But that was their fault, anyways.