Bogus liberalism in full force

Conservatism values natural human instincts while liberalism respects reasons. Conservatives strive to uphold historical traditions while liberals believe in historical progress. Liberalism is open-minded and has its eye on the future. It is why it stirs and motivates the young mind with its boldness.

The honorable trajectory of the liberals in our history has been tainted by a bogus party disguised as liberals although it really was a group of low-class, pro-North Korea activists. The way Lee Jung-hee of the Unified Progressive Party talked and acted in a recent primetime TV debate made viewers and voters angry and ashamed that such a person is running for president. Parents had to send their children to their rooms for fear of exposure to the nasty comments.

Lee and her party already tarnished the liberal name with their violence, misdeeds, lies and recklessness. The party smeared the liberal value of openness with vulgar language and reversed progressiveness with pro-North Korea statements.

The presidential hopeful cut off conversation when she was posed with negative questions and bluntly told nationwide TV viewers that she participated in the debate solely to defeat the ruling party’s Park Geun-hye. Many were stunned by her coarse language. Even as Lee Seok-gi - de facto leader of the UPP - publicly said he didn’t accept the national anthem, Lee lied that she and her party members sing the national anthem.

She also sidestepped questions about North Korea’s planned launch of a long-range missile and its past attacks on the Cheonan naval ship and Yeonpyeong Island and once referred to the government as “the South,” which she immediately corrected as Daehan Minguk, a name South Koreans usually use to address their nation.

A candidate with a support rate of less than 1 percent was not only disrespectful to Park and Moon Jae-in, but also to the entire public.

Her party’s narrowness and obsolescence is influenced by the North Korean Workers’ Party guidelines based on its dynastic rule and distorted historical perspective. It is not the first time. A UPP member let off a tear gas canister in the National Assembly and saluted the North Korean leader. But the nation has been subsidizing the party with taxpayers’ budget of more than 2.7 billion won ($2.5 million) a year because it is a legitimate political party with more than five members. The country’s miraculous legacy of industrialization and democratization is disgraced by a phony group that calls itself liberal. Korean liberals should re-examine their principles after having been led astray by the UPP.