OK, there's a challenge running around the blogosphere to articulate a new Liberal vision, and I wasn't going to take it up, but I started writing a short comment in response to Anne's thoughts and couldn't stop. I'm reminded, a bit, of the now half-decade old attempt to create a new non-partisan progressive vision and organization, the Organization to Liberate Society.

Vision needs focus. And the greatest successes of the conservative movement have been in hijacking liberal issues. I say we return the favor.

VALUES: civility, honesty, responsibility, humanity.
Make them our watchwords. Don't cede ground to the conservatives or the corporations: hammer them with the label"uncivil","irresponsible","inhumane","dishonest" every time they deserve it (and they do, often), until they cry for mercy and begin to speak our language instead of theirs. Oh, yeah, we have to live by them, too, instead of being sucked into the hyper-partisan, hyper-greedy, me-firstism which is our current cultural morass.

METRICS: peace, justice, quality of life, sustainability.
Everything we do should move in one of these directions, preferably several of them. Every policy should be examined against these metrics and every past policy should be reexamined against these metrics. Short-term self-interest must be attacked at every turn, culturally, politically, economically. Our measurements must be both quantitative, where reasonable, and carefully qualitative, where appropriate. Sometimes different people will produce different qualitative evaluations of policies: those must be examined, not dismissed.

METHODS: Intelligent flexibility. Creativity. Firmness of purpose. Coalition without cooptation.
No potential solution, no matter whom or where it comes from on the political-economic spectrum, should go unconsidered. No policy should be implemented half-heartedly, and all policies should be evaluated rigorously (but not necessarily quantitatively) but fairly. We must make common ground where possible, without allowing issues to be hijacked. Institutions and policies cannot be allowed to become enshrined and untouchable. Single-issue campaigns must be a thing of the past: every issue must be connected to the relevant legal, economic and social realities, so that solutions can be realistic and comprehensive. Policy is not politics, and politics is not policy. We must remember that, always. Good political moves do not always make bad policy, either.

That's my first draft. This is pretty radical stuff, given the current rhetorical and legal and political situation. But it will move us forward in good directions.

Update: My wife, reading this post, commented,"It's so Quaker." Apparently the only things I'm missing are silence and the inner light.

Update: Hugo Schwyzer, our new Anabaptist Cliopatriarch, thinks I'm missing a few more things.