Culture and Liberalism are NOT Synonyms

I have always thought it interesting – and frustrating – how liberals never separate culture from politics, as if only they can have any taste for music, or dark beer, or Southwestern pottery, or tie dye shirts, etc.

Politics and culture do have the ability to influence one another, but they are not the same thing and, in a free society, should be mingled rarely if ever. Jay Nordlinger included this tidbit about the subject in his recent “Impromptus” column for National Review:

You know how liberals assume you’re liberal because of what you do, or the way you are or something — like if you read, bathe, or don’t have horns and a tail? A reader of mine recently visited his cousin in Oregon. The cousin is an artist and psychologist. And he lives in a neighborhood filled with Obama signs. My reader asked how he was holding up. And the cousin answered, “Well, they assume I’m a socialist too because I paint, I suppose. So I just let them.”

Perfect. I couldn’t have said it better, at least in so few words.