How to tell if you are a Liberal in America in 2011

This is a no-brainer for both political parties.

You like cake, right?  I know you do.  I do too.

Here is the deal on that word Liberal.  It means generous.  You are probably the type of person at a party who wants to make sure that everyone has a piece of cake, aren’t you?

In fact, I bet if a child didn’t have any cake — you would give yours up.  Wouldn’t you?  Most Americans would because we are a generous people.

Where does that word Liberal come from?  The French!

What do those words mean?  Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood, or death.

What does cake have to do with all of this, you ask?

Well, once upon a time in France there was a very selfish aristocrat named Marie Antoinette.

The people in her country were starving, and she made a famous statement.  “Let them eat cake.”

Well, that made the people angry.  Very angry.  Because she was not showing any Christian Charity at all.

Or Catholic Charity.

Imagine having the nerve to say something like “let them eat cake,” to the starving people.

All she did was sit around and stuff herself on cake.  It was horrible.

You know you are a liberal if a story like the above bothers you and doesn’t seem fair.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others.^[4] A key element of the Golden Rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people with consideration, not just members of his or her in-group. The Golden Rule has its roots in a wide range of world cultures, and is a standard which different cultures use to resolve conflicts.^[2][5]

The Golden Rule has a long history, and a great number of prominent religious figures and philosophers have restated its reciprocal, bilateral nature in various ways (not limited to the above forms).^[2] As a concept, the Golden Rule has a history that long predates the term “Golden Rule” (or “Golden law”, as it was called from the 1670s).^[2][6] The ethic of reciprocity was present in certain forms in the philosophies of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, Judea, and China.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of statements that mirror the Golden Rule appear in Ancient Egypt, for example in the story of The Eloquent Peasant which is dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2040–1650 BCE): “Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do.”^[7]Rushworth Kidder states that “the label ‘golden’ was applied by Confucius (551–479 B.C.), who wrote, ‘Here certainly is the golden maxim: Do not do to others that which we do not want them to do to us.'” Kidder notes that this framework appears prominently in many religions, including “Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world’s major religions”.^[8]

If you are a person who believes in The Golden Rule, you are a liberal.  It’s just that simple.