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The Liberal Glacier
The Liberal Glacier
I started to write a case for conservatism when my husband kindly pointed out that a very succinct article written by George Will dated May 31, 2007, by the same title - appeared in the Washington Post. What a pity that his article was not picked up by the McCain operation and used in his now failed campaign because they did not adequately articulate the conservative message. That's not to say that Sarah Palin did not energize the base-she did in spades. But McCain needed to draw more democrats further to the center and center right, which clearly did not happen.
By today's 'everything is relative' standards John F. Kennedy was a conservative. But I don't want to espouse the relative speak except to point out the relative distance our new president elect is from the principles of JFK.
Two of many defining values JFK advocated were that Americans should 1. Serve a cause bigger than themselves e.g. don't ask the government what it can do for you, and 2. Americans should not be considered on the basis of race, religion etc. Yet those two values have been turned upside down and twisted by his party today. The Dems have redefined "ask not" and "affirmative action" which, ironically he coined.
I find it a conundrum that liberal politicians reject values, which JFK embraced yet all the while portray an alliance with him. George Will hit the proverbial nail when he wrote that, "You serve your country by embracing a spacious and expanding sphere of life for which your country is not responsible". I would add that the Dems embrace ideology, which partly rests on the premise that everything must be fair. That fallacy unfortunately is to some degree permeating the independent and conservative base and feeds the entitlement mentality. Everything is not fair, nor can or will be because fairness is NOT an entitlement. It's a tall order to distribute fairness. How is it that any party should have such hubris to proclaim it should be administrators of it? Furthermore, it is evident where a party's values lie when it implies spreading wealth is the epitome of fairness. It is repulsive to debase Americans with such poppycock. Indeed some liberals are redefining the values JFK supported.
George Will nailed the arguments as one of freedom versus equality. It may be an over simplification to assert that if you are more concerned about freedom than equality you are more conservative than liberal. But, it might be an easy way to gauge where you are on the political spectrum. I believe that we have an intrinsic level of equality just being Americans, such that I do not need to be as concerned about equality because to some extent it already exists.
If I compete in a business endeavor against you and I do not succeed, from the liberal perspective - it's likely due to inequality rather than my general skills, abilities or capitalization. And, if I belong to an ethnic group, blame it on polarization, a magnification of the plight of my 'people'. If affirmative action perks are not the crutch to balance the playing field, perhaps an entitlement is because I am now told I am disenfranchised. The disenfranchised needing entitlements become a 'going concern' for communities and eventually Americans at large.
The notion Americans cannot achieve success without the necessity of a government handout or hand up is slowly blotting out the legacy of our founding fathers-who argued whether the federal government should provide for the common defense. If the liberals somehow provide equality they will have to do so at the expense of the outcome. As with any competition someone will do better, and since the criteria liberals use for inequality is one of outcome they will not be satisfied until there no longer is competition and socialism reigns supreme. Conservatives need to illuminate the base and Americans if they hope to push back the slow deliberate liberal glacier.
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