Jesus Was A Liberal

I usually don't have any response to Jesse Jackson's column in the Chicago Sun Times. It's very partisan, which is boring to me, regardless of the position he takes. The fact that I tend to disagree with him only reinforces my non-reaction. Today's article got a rise out of me. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's entertaining. And that's what counts. In There's No Shame In Being A Liberal, Jesse makes his case that all the major actors in the Bible and throughout history were liberal and that the people opposing them were conservative. So by Jesse's estimation, Jesus was a liberal while Herod was the conservative. Moses was a liberal; Pharaoh was conservative. Washington and Jefferson were liberals; King George was conservative. That's some fun stuff. Of course, I don't agree with attaching contempory political labels to historic figures, especially Biblical ones. Even though in this construction we know and understand "liberal" to mean "agent of change," it's still tantamount to a conflation of terms. I don't remember if I've seen a conservative writer come out and say it quite like this, but there this type of forged historical cosignature is not endemic to the liberals or progressives, though. It's just as bad to intimate that Jesus or Moses or whoever would be with us because [insert reason] as it is to say it outright. Really though, what's the point of labeling and name-calling in the first place? (Well...name calling...there's always a place for the Dozens) Even if you disagree with Jesse's assignments, it seems that there are always some people who exist to force paradigm shifts in the face of those who prefer the status quo. So would that make a Black conservative...a liberal?