Liberal? Conservative? Let’s Talk

Mark Greathouse

(1/2021) What’s a conservative? What’s a liberal? Should we care? And what of the political bumper-sticker clap-trap labels and niche beliefs that get stuffed into the mix? Resistance! Collusion! Impeachment! Deep State! Swamp! Defund Police! Cancel! Social Justice! Black Lives Matter! White Supremacy! It’s a sad state that our nation has come to, when opposing points of view are smothered by emotion-driven ideological sloganeering. Fear of political opponents is rampant. Reason is cast aside. Trust is virtually non-existent. The very definitions of conservative and liberal have become blurred. We only intuitively recognize that they’re different, and it’s likely that half the population doesn’t know or care. We need to talk.

Full comprehension of the difference between the conservative or liberal label demands the opportunity to freely express well-reasoned positions. Our nation’s founders recognized the critical importance of free speech by enshrining it in the Bill of Rights. It’s especially notable that those same founders counted on the exercise of reasoned thought both pro and con to preserve our freedoms. Little wonder that eliminating free speech is an essential tenet of totalitarian governments.

Labels are terribly inadequate to convey the depths of reason behind them. The conservative label is generally associated with ‘traditional’ values, the Republican Party, tried over untried, fact over mystery, patriotic nationalism, and faith-based morality. By contrast, the liberal label – a perfectly good but misunderstood word – is associated with globalization, the Democrat Party, unproven solutions to complex problems, abstract thinking, retreading of failed governing systems, and secularized morality. Liberal is a great word with a great history, and ought not be further sullied. ‘Progressive’ is a grossly inaccurate label, so we’ll call today’s modern liberalism ‘leftism’ or ‘leftist.’

Leftists are generally perceived as seeking to control the nation through large central government authority akin to totalitarianism. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, ostensibly the ‘bible’ of leftism and akin to Marx’s Communist Manifesto, is integral to a leftist rubric comprised of centralization and de-personalization of healthcare, destruction of traditional family, and disarming citizens of their guns while sustaining vast dependent-laden welfare programs; dividing society by race, class, and gender; suppressing religion; maintaining large central bureaucratic economic control; seeking to protect the environment through economically disastrous means; fostering fetid cesspools of poverty and homelessness; controlling the nature and access to information; promoting open borders; corrupting education as a megaphone of leftist dogma; seizing private property, and building an unsustainable national debt. Before you leftists go ballistic, there are many Republicans that have enabled those radical initiatives for their own selfish gain. Power, after all, is heady stuff. Arguably, it’s why most folks view the power and control by a central authority as espoused by socialism as the gateway drug to authoritarianism…or often, Communism. These folks scare me big time. I don’t trust them.

Conservatives perceive government as bestowing privileges, not rights. They hold that there are transcendent God-given – as opposed to government-given – values of which free will is foremost; liberty is indivisible and cannot exist without economic freedom; government is established to protect those freedoms, not govern them; a free market economy is the optimal method of enabling citizens to pursue happiness and maintain a strong nation; foreign policy should always be in our nation’s best interests; concepts like loyalty and patriotism are sacred; and the U.S. Constitution is the optimal arrangement for governance.

Religious faith is a key component of conservatism. In his consummate Democracy in America, the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville saw public opinion in the form of a mass movement or unbridled voting majority as an all-powerful force whereby that majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginalize individuals. Tocqueville viewed religion – much as our nation’s founders had – as one of the foundational aspects of American democracy. This was especially so because of religion's capacity to generate a morality that supported social order, discipline in the workplace, obedience to democratic laws, and spiritual desires that could mitigate democracy's incentives towards pure individualism and materialism.

Niccolb Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher, general, family man (six children), agrarian, and writer best known for The Prince written in 1513, advised his Florentine prince that a nation state would exist long-term only with strong laws, strong defense, and strong faith. Imagine those three fundamentals as likening government to a three-legged stool. Can anyone think of a single nation that survived very long with one of those three legs missing? Nope. A government built upon the rock of religious faith was and is an underlying manifesto of our nation.

Often, it is not so much the what as the how and why. Let’s be clear, a huge drawback to government control of anything is its inability to respond quickly and effectively to change. The status quo is far too often the easiest and most often chosen path. For openers, I suggest that big government is a leviathan, a behemoth, a shapeless metastasizing cancer on the folks who are governed…unless you are one of the elites in charge. And once folks realize they can access the public money trough at will…well, it’s like pigs to a slop party. The how and why get corrupted. Keep in mind that the motto on the Great Seal of the United States is E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One), not Ubi Est Meum (Where’s Mine?).

Both political parties seem to constantly drive divisive wedges as the convenient political pablum of the day. They are substitutes for well-reasoned thought. Ergo, we endure cancel culture, campus protests, riots, lootings, and more as the unknowing are led naively in pointless conflict. It’s reminiscent of a method used by the Plains Indians to kill buffalo by stampeding the dumb beasts over cliffs to their ultimate end. Good eating for the Indians. Today, politically elite leftists send their useful idiots running wild in the streets and stampede them over imaginary cliffs at their bidding. The hollow outcome makes for a very sparse meal.

Leftists appear to be stuck in the decidedly untenable position of having stirred emotion-driven supporters with such hatred of opponents as to be unable to pull back in the face of reasoned thought. Opposing argument is often shut down for fear of revealing inconvenient truths. Leftists often reflexively belch forth at conservatives with palpable disdain and condescension. Unfortunately, it’s virtually impossible for these leftists to recognize that conservatives can and do exercise reasoned thought. Conservatives are often well-educated despite some having dirt beneath their fingernails and driving pickup trucks. I dare say, there is insufficient space here to adequately dispel the myriad biases, lies, and half-truths spewed in overwhelming amounts by media, academics, entertainers, politicians, and other special interests. In the Far East, there used to be a concern with saving face; offering opponents an honorable way out. Not so in America.

Leftist leaders call for unity? They appear to confuse unity with conformity. In any case, one must ask why the leftists would want to unify with a bunch folks they perceive as gun-toting, Bible-thumping deplorables. Each side garnered well over 70 million votes in the recent election. Will the side with slightly fewer votes corrupt its own principles or ideologies and support the other side? Nope. As the political wars go on…well…paybacks can be hell. Impeach Biden for collusion with China? LOL. Leftists must learn that transcending reason does have its consequences. Enough is enough. How about trying something novel like well-reasoned argument? Indeed…let’s talk.

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