Posted by
Illyias on Friday, August 03, 2007 6:20:57 PM
One of the greater achievements of the modern political game was the successful Republican campaign to make the word 'Liberal' akin to an insult. The campaign was so successful, even die hard liberals couldnt even say the word without flinching or explanation. Only very recently have liberals begun to recover and take back the word as something to feel proud of. I found the whole thing quite amusing, admired it as a coup of marketing and PR. I'm not so amused now that the Republican party has turned on me and begun to make my label an insult and denigeration as well. I'm talking about the 'conservative' label. I am a conservative. I always have then except for a brief period in middle school, but you know what Churchill said..
I meet many people in my line of work and life, and conversations often turn to politics. Inevitably, the question arises, "Well, what are you?". "I'm a Conservative", I reply. "What?!?", is the general response. From here, things tend to go downhill fast withme frantically trying to explain to the what this really means. I hear it all. Why do I hate gay people. Why do I hate non-christians. Why do I want to invade every country in the world, ad nauseum.
I wait a bit. I Listen to thier littany of questions about how can such a nice guy be one of *them*. Eventually they calm down enough to let me explain myself. I'm getting tired of explaining myself. I'm tired of explaining to them that no, Jerry Falwell was not a conservative. Sorry, nope, Niether is George Bush. I can read off a list of public figures associated witht he label 'Conservative' none of whom are. Well, if those people arent conservative, what IS a conservative they ask. First, I tell them to read the collected works of Abraham Lincoln and Barry Goldwater. However, being a realist I know they wont, so I launch the explanation. I'm going to reiterate said explanation here and hope perhaps just maybe I can get my word back.
Summary of the General Principles of True Conservatism
And how they relate and differ from the so-called conservative leaders and issues of today.
1) Conservatives believe in individual freedom and liberty above all other principles. In order to restrict a freedom or liberty, the overall positive impact of that restriction must be unquestionable and significant.
2) Conservatives believe the role of government is to provide the services and functions that the people cannot do themselves. Defense. Infrastructure. Law enforcement. etc.
3) Conservatives believe the government closest to the people is the government best suited to do most jobs.
The above three principles are the heart and soul of conservatism in the political sense. Individual liberty and freedom to live as one feels best is paramount. Freedom comes of course with the caveat of responsibility, in that our free actions must not have a detrimental effect on either other individuals or society as a whole. When certain behaviors are deemed by the majority to be harmful, such actions become within the authority and responsibility of government to legislate and regulate those actions. Theft, murder, etc are the easy ones. There are many many issues we wrest with that fall in strange grey area's not so black and white to easily determine what the Federal governments role should be as determined by conservative principles. What is clear is there are many many issues tackled by the federal government, or that so-called conservatives of the day lobby the government to tackle that are not in its pervue according to conservative principles. For example, currently it is in fashion to create a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The people at the forefront of this movement call themselves conservative. Such a movement clearly violates key provisions of conservatism. Foremost it represents an infringement of liberty without overwhelming proof in that granting such a liberty represents a clear and present harm to other individuals or society as a whole. Regardless of your feelings about homosexuality, its morality or the viability of such marriages, it is not the role of federal government, based on these principles to outright ban such a thing without overwhelming evidence it causes harm. There are a whole host of social issues trumpeted by the so-called religious right, some of which I agree with and some I dont that fall into similar circumstances. No matter the merit of a particular issue, you cannot call yourself a conservative when pursing federal government intervention on issues that are not clearly a detriment to society and individuals as a whole.
I will continue this post in another blog entry shortly. Please leave any comments as I will be combining a series of blogs into a larger work with help from comments.