What's a Liberal Winning Strategy in 2012? Moral, Humane Courage

I have some good news today for our liberal-minded Washington leaders in need of a big dose of moral clarity: What ails our democracy can be fixed by adopting ancient Chinese political thought from wise men such as Mencius, Xunzi, and Confucius. Their roadmap to political power and success, basically, favors the adoption of "moral humane governance" over "economic imperialism" and "militaristic intervention" at home and abroad as its core concept, according to Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University.

The Chinese philosophers arrived at their crucial insights, Yan writes in today's New York Times, after studying the histories of those three governance types and concluding that the pursuit of moral humane authority at home and abroad inevitably wins the hearts and minds of the people. When followed with singular focus, this roadmap should make plain what liberals stand for and how our idea of morality and humane governance differs profoundly from the ideologies of our conservative opponents. A few examples:

• Liberals, by which I mean Democrats and most Independents, seek to create a desirable environment and standard of living for all its people by promoting benevolent policies favoring the general welfare while controlling the excesses of free markets. Conservatives, though, seek to govern in a militaristic fashion both in domestic and foreign affairs, promoting the fragmentation of our society and leading to vast gaps in political and economic power between the haves and have-nots.

• Liberals believe government promotes the greater good, and accept the responsibilities and costs that that belief infers. Conservatives believe government itself is problematic and are incapable of admitting to both the causes and costs of massive bank failure, growing income inequality, and steep, long-term unemployment that resulted from their political mismanagement.

• Liberals realize that our country's moral authority in international affairs demands humane treatment of our enemies even if that moral stance is not reciprocated, because exercising strong moral authority wins friends and inspires people around the world. Conservatives disparage those rules of international engagement and insist on the right to follow immoral practices, such as the Bush-Cheney lying about weapons of mass destruction as justification to invade Iraq and their water boarding of prisoners of war, carried out despite strong objections by American citizens and the international community.

• Liberals in touch with morally informed leadership are able to differentiate between nuanced government control and intrusion into personal privacy. Thus, liberals advocate the protection of women's reproductive rights as far more humane than the intrusive anti-abortion hardliners, who would let their moral rectitude on this issue result in our country going back to the era of back-alley procedures while never taking responsibility for the certain deaths and unwanted births that would result from ending a woman's privacy rights as currently embodied in American law.

Liberals in the past have let themselves be redefined ad nauseum with "tax and spend" and "big government" labels created by the right-wing oligarchs who now hold our society hostage both in Congress and in state governments. It's time we become the change we seek. Our country can no longer afford Republican-supported militarism, violence against its own citizens, and class warfare that has left us on the brink of economic and moral insolvency. This should be the laser focus of the Democrats and Independents seeking office in 2012.

Let us look ahead, then, aided by the wisdom of ancient Chinese political  philosophy, to the strong, courageous leadership that only liberals will deliver, and the renewed sense of America's strength and harmony that once made us the envy of the world. Past political warfare shows that only the party that embraces moral humane policies, not financial or military dominance, will thrive, and so too will our country.