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Are
Conservative really just
Liberals Dragging their Feet?
After
listening to Sarah Palin's very impressive acceptance speech at the
Republican Convention, I was struck by a revelation.
One
of the Republican advocates, who herself had been a vice-presidential
possibility, was complaining about the treatment Mrs. Palin had received
by those who were against her. She charged them with sexism.
Sexism?
She made a good case for it, but I never thought I would hear a feminist
word like sexism come out of the conservative camp. It got me thinking.
Back
in the 60s and 70s, conservatives were against civil rights of minorities
and the equal rights of women. Over the decades, they came around and
can now champion these rights without disturbing the sensitivities of
their base supporters. Most of them.
More
recently, they were strongly against environmental protection, global
warming, and energy conservation. With this election, their views have
reversed. To hear them speak, you might think they had led the charge.
This
led me to conclude something I had never considered before. On many issues,
conservatives were merely liberals who are dragging their feet.
You'd
never know this by their resistance to change, their constant, know-it-all
banter that derides liberalism every chance it gets. But the proof is
there to see.
You
might point out that conservatives advocate for smaller government, while
liberals are tax and spend. Such are the recurrent themes, but if you
look closely, what you find is that conservative leaders have spent considerably
more than their liberal predecessors. When they lower taxes, they merely
increase our deficit, which has a trickle down negative impact on us all,
and weakens the entire nation.
Now,
if both parties spend ridiculously, and we have to pay for it with our
hard earned money through taxes, which party should we support? The one
that says they want to spend less, but never do? Or the one that gives
average people more of what they put into it? That's the real question.
Shall we pay huge amounts of money to support corporations who then invest
in overseas businesses? Or try to protect our own people with universal
healthcare?
What
is really both insane and expensive, as Medicare's latest prescription
program proves, is when conservatism and liberalism unite. We end up with
a program that actually does help needy people, to an extent, while providing
huge giveaways to private businesses. That just does not make sense. Why
should helping needy people bring corporate windfalls? Why doesn't rugged
individualism apply to them?
Another
proof that conservatives are liberals dragging their feet. When Sarah
Palin announced that she would be an advocate for children with cognitive
disabilities, we witnessed how conservatives change when challenging situations
befall them. No talk about cutting programs to the disabled in order to
lower taxes here. That's because she understands the need, first hand,
of something that most people do not. And her audience cheered! This reminds
me of conservatives I've known in the past who actively derided social
services programs, until they lost their jobs, or had a child out of wedlock,
or with special needs. Their rugged individualism becomes ruggedly aggressive
trying to attain the very services they previously would deny others.
Now,
you might conclude that I am against conservatism. I am not. As with liberalism,
I would like conservatism to find its proper place in this society. Not
as a kneejerk foil to everything liberals try to accomplish, but as partners
who slow liberalism down and protect what we already have that is good
as progress continues. That does not call for rancor or division. It calls
for reason, honest, civilized debate and cooperation. Liberals, for their
part, have to recognize that our nation consists of diverse people who
may not like the change they have to offer, or would like it to come at
a slower, less disturbing pace. Many people do not look upon our nation
as a grand, on-going experiment that our founders envisaged. They look
upon it nationalistically, rather than idealistically. They feel pride
for what they have, and want things to stay the same. This is not only
a legitimate concern - living in a free society, they see it as their
right.
To
differentiate themselves from one another, we all know that parties have
scrounged together some basic philosophical differences. Conservatism
tries to balance the leftovers of social Darwinism with religious fundamentalism,
with its Calvinist overtones. Liberalism carries the idealistic torch
of our Enlightenment Age founders (equality as their mantra), but lack
their wisdom. Neither seem to care about balance, about which our founders
were so meticulous .
Partisan
differences have been so hardened through childish bickering that their
stances on issues no longer make sense. Conservatives, who place a lot
of emphasis on keeping government out of people's business, seek to limit
women's rights to reproductive choice, and want to regulate social benefits
such as marriage. Liberals, who look at themselves as champions of the
disadvantaged and helpless, fail to protect the lives of the unborn, and
never brought up the issue of gay marriage in the first place (that was
a conservative ploy to rally their base, which kind of backfired). Could
it be that there are just some issues that are just too complicated to
be squeezed into party lines?
The
parties do not reflect the images that the public holds of them. President
Bush sent generous help to Africa to combat the spread of AIDS. President
Clinton supported welfare reform and fiscal responsibility. They might
have seemed in the wrong party according to the usual stereotypes.
It
is time, therefore, that we wake up to media-hype and the spin of political
strategists, and realize that partisan politics is blinding us to truth,
and steering our votes according to purposeful misconceptions.
We
need to change the way we see things and think for ourselves.
