What do we have in common?

[Andrew Fletcher]

I think it is a function of WWII. We're really suspicious of extremism in any form, right or left. Jews have traditionally been anti-communism, no matter what some people say.

I went to a public high school and currently a small working-class college in Central PA. My education has been itneresting, but I never had a liberal teacher who forced their views on me. In fact, my main memory from high school is a very conservative teacher who did not like me at all. I actually wasn't a liberal until very reccently-- I was a "radical", sometimes even called myself a socialist. It wasn't until I started really reading books about socialism and communism that I realized that I hated everything communism stood for.

But I also knew I wasn't a conservative. I started reading more about the history of liberalism-- not the Fox News or ultra-left paradoy of liberalism, and came to my senses. It's been an interesting journy. What about you?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Jews have traditionally been anti-communis[t], no matter what some people say.

[/ QUOTE ] Israel itself was founded on socialist ideological premises. (Kibbutz anyone?) Which is why the Soviet Union was among the 33 votes in the 1947 UN decision that went in favor of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

Jews were heavily represented in the Bolshevik leadership that took ovee Russia in 1917. A fact that has been used by right-wing anti-semites ever since, as proof of "the evil" that the Jews continuously spawn on the world...

And the guy who wrote The Communist Manifesto was a wee bit Jewish, last I heard. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
I actually wasn't a liberal until very reccently-- I was a "radical", sometimes even called myself a socialist.

[/ QUOTE ]Good for you. What other than a radical can a young man be?


[ QUOTE ]
I started reading more about the history of liberalism ... and came to my senses.

[/ QUOTE ] What have you read, if I may ask?

Liberalism, like a lot of political labels, means different things in different places - and times. (Churchill was a Liberal, for instance.)

[Andrew Fletcher]

Ok, since I think you might be European...

I am actually reading Schlessenger and Galbraith. In your context, I suspect they would be called Social Democrats.