Not too long ago I was setting up my Facebook page, filling the personal information section with my birthday, hometown, etc., until I came upon the “Political Views” section. I stopped and wondered for a moment. I know I am a leftist at heart, but exactly how to put that without inciting unnecessary implications briefly escaped me. I finally settled on the following: “Liberal,” followed by a parenthetically phrased “Not To Be Confused With the Democratic Party.”

When I hear Obama describe his agenda, reforming health care, more stringent government ties to the economy, I am frequently baffled out how easily the Democrats capitulate to right-wingers in debates. The facts are the facts. Just once when some conservative tells an Obama supporter (other than myself, for I will adamantly make this all too clear) that conservatism is what essentially kept Texas safe from the economic meltdown, I would love for that liberal to respond with “At what cost?” Texas is 48^th in the nation in literacy, we have the most uninsured in terms of health insurance, and we are the number one polluter in the nation. In other words, “Business is good but we cannot read, we are sick, and we are a very real contributor to global pollution on a massive scale.” What can account for this lack of fight? Why are the liberals so easy to knock over? Are conservatives simply more intelligent than liberals? Are Democrats, as some would put it, spineless?

Hardly. It would seem though, that liberals intrinsically have a much more difficult ideology to argue for. It is as Camus said “Explain to me everything or explain to me nothing.” It is much easier to explain why something cannot work (conservatives and the government) than to explain why something could.

Consider the scientific community with respect to evolution. There is a palpable amount of evidence to suggest that evolution in association with natural selection was the primary driving force for the existence we know today. More evidence was found than scientists ever thought necessary to prove that humans have descended from apes. But why does the majority of the populous simply refuse it? It is because there are blips in the data here and there. Compared with this vast amount of evidence their remains a few unanswered questions, and these seem enough to cast doubt on everything else. We are skeptical creatures and this is not always a good thing.

Returning to government, it will always remain a profound simplicity to point to a waste here, a waste there, to tarnish what is otherwise an otherwise implacable job or plan and immediately embark on ways scrap it altogether, than to simply reform it. This is why Democrats cannot settle for merely being as intelligent as their conservative counterparts. They must be more intelligent and become better debaters if they want to maintain intellectual validity on a grand stage.

How the Republicans can defame what is otherwise a fairly impressive health care plan (though preventative medicine is conspicuously absent) is the current example. The Republican machine can rely on platitudes to argue their point. Unfortunately Democrats have done the same, with no such luck.

What is demanded of them? Democrats need to do buckle down and point out that we are 50^th in life expectancy and 37^th in health care efficiency. I want them to make clear that the French, as much the conservatives love to pan them for reasons I still cannot fully explain, live three years longer than we do, despite the fact that we have better facilities and better trained medical personnel. What is their secret? They have a better health care system than we do and it is neither shameful nor a lack of the “American Way” in wanting to steal it.

Obama is a liberal all-star, frequently able to outwit his opponents without looking up from the bills he signs to the laws. He is impressive at the lectern because he upholds a prudent and discerning mind above all else. The man works harder than his opponents. He does not like to be wrong. Democrats would do well to emulate him.