For too long, conservatives have allowed the left to define them. With more Americans becoming disillusioned with Obama, it’s time to counter the media’s portrayal of conservatives as radical, illegitimate extremists, concerned only with amassing wealth and kicking gays. Here’s a quick guide to help identify the basic differences between leftists and conservatives.
Conservatives understand that the system of capitalism is the greatest engine of wealth creation the world has ever known. They don’t think profit is a dirty word. Leftists argue that feelings, not the bottom line, should be the motivating factor in all of life’s decisions.
Conservatives believe that a man’s fate is determined by the life choices he makes. Leftists believe if they’re not successful, its because racist capitalists are hogging all the wealth. And that’s not fair!
Conservatives know that life isn’t fair and never will be. Leftists think that it should be, and that if you vote for them, they can legislate fairness. After they redefine it.
Conservatives know that throwing money at a problem usually ends up making the problem worse. Leftists believe that money can solve any problem. Preferably someone else’s money.
Conservatives believe Thomas Sowell’s assertion that there are no solutions – there are only trade-offs. Leftists believe that there are still free lunches, that rights trump responsibilities, and victims are more ‘valid’ than producers. And if you don’t agree, you’re just a big ol’ meanie.
Conservatives applaud merit. Leftists applaud intentions. Conservatives believe words have meanings. Leftists believe they have the right to redefine whatever words they care to.
Leftists believe if a theory looks good on paper, it will work. Conservatives understand that reality doesn’t work that way, except in ivory towers.
Conservatives know that, these days, government is the problem. Leftists believe more government is the solution. And they will willingly create and/or exacerbate a crisis in order to prove it. (See link)
Conservatives believe in accountability, that actions speak louder than words. Leftists have succumbed to the herd mentality that sanctions bad behavior as long as it is done in the name of whichever leftist policy is most popular, be it global warming or the belief that everything bad that happens to the Obama administration is George Bush’s fault.
Conservatives believe in individual rights, not group rights. They know that leftist words like ‘social justice,’ diversity’, and multiculturalism, whose meanings are purely subjective, are used to divide, instill guilt, and put conservatives in the impossible position of having to spend their lives proving a negative.
Most conservatives believe in the rule of God. Leftists prefer the rule of man. As long as they are the man.
Leftists believe that life is a zero sum game. If someone wins, that means that someone has lost. They believe there are only so many pieces of the pie and the more pie someone has means someone out there has less. Conservatives know that this is just not so.
Conservatives are more inclined to do what they feel is right, even when no-one is looking. Leftists prefer to have their compassion recorded, preferably by TV cameras.
Leftists actually believe that world peace is possible. And the only thing standing in the way are those darn conservatives who have earned more money than they have a right to. Conservatives meanwhile, know that the utopia the left envisions is neither realistic nor possible. Thus they focus their efforts on more attainable goals, like making a living, raising their families and contributing to their communities.
Conservatives know that, no matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides. Leftists have been taught that their side is the only legitimate side and any other point of view is invalid because it is motivated solely by hate, racism, homophobia, or greed. End of story.
It is very easy to concentrate on what divides us instead of the many more things that unite us, as this author is doing. But neither leftists or conservatives can refute the fact that we are all Americans. And I choose to believe that all of us want what we think is best for our country. We just disagree on the way to achieve it.
Crossposted from Right Bias
My husband of over 40 years likes to note that Obama and his Leftist supporters seek to guarantee the right to an equality of outcome.
Conservatives would rather stick with the guarantee that we each have an equal right to pursue happiness.
Sure, it might not work out.
But it kills incentive when you promise to take away from successful strivers only to give to the “Peggy’s” of the world who wait with a hand sticking out instead of even trying.
Nan G, yes your husband is right, and the “Peggys” sure knows how to get their hands stiching out.
bye
The other day my 13 year old daughter and I had one of “those” discussions (those that is, which teach you wisdom as coming from the unfiltered, innocent yet powerful young minds) : Daddy, she said, capitalism is a system that rips you off, and socialism is a system that robs you blind – there surely must be one that does none of that retards’ crap; Yes, I responded, there must be one; please tell me when you find it, my little girl.
Now, we of course know quite a bit more about the subjects involved in that pure, abstract, bare-bone type dualism and their respective evils (their so-called socio-economic-political “failures” and what remedies we have been smart – or dumb – enough to come up with in attempting to “correct” them). The billions of pages that have been written about them over the past two and a half centuries, along with the blood shed to protect, defend and expand them, certainly attest to that. But that basic dichotomy still exists and most likely will, as far as the intellectual eye can see. We haven’t been simply smart enough to produce another and better to both alternative, period. At the same time, we have come to recognize that their “failures” are so severe, and the “corrective” policies so ineffective and short-sighted, that we are left with an unfilled practical and theoretical vacuum.
Religions, both real (like Christianity and Judaism) and imaginary (and that’s where I place islam by the way) have been at best weak at worst miserable springboards in attempting to deal with these socio-cultural issues. Obviously, they have failed to a large extent as well.
The World thus is caught in a quagmire of failures, large in scale – no longer of the small types that used to involve a small number of people. Partly due to the total human population size (close to seven billion now), the huge amount of resources involved in the production and consumption processes undertaken, the size of the economic failures experienced (with economic debts and deficits in the multi-trillion dollar categories), unavoidable and inherent conflicts have been encountered of a scale unfamiliar to the human experience and existence. It would be boring to enumerate the multiple wars, on going as we speak along with a potpourri of regional conflicts in all major Continents, mirroring deep and mega-scale divisions. Coupled with monumental failures in managing their outcomes, as well as their root causes, these conflicts are so close to getting out of hand.
One must at the end confront the sharpness in and depth of the divide between the two polar ideological extremes (capitalism and socialism) in organizing and managing human societies. Having survived the Cold War era, this conflict did not disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Neither was it over with the almost collapse of the capital markets during the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008, which brought an arab kenyan crypto-muslim to power in the US. Except for one difference: the Cold War was pretty much colored by a “communism vs. capitalism” ideology. The current one that replaced it, is only superficially more complex as it involves islam plus a few other ingredients to be listed below, but deep down in its simplicity it’s identical to the old one.
An incision into the sick body of contemporary political discourse, on top of all the above-mentioned economic and religious gap forming regions, one discovers what is extraordinary these days: other geo-political/economic as well as social dimensions have chiselled this almost bottomless divide in tandem: the phenomena of “globalization,” borderless countries and a breakdown of national sovereignty, illegal migration, homosexuality, abortions, “climate change,” atheism, arbitrary and edict-based, aimless and Constitution-less jurisprudence, political and economic corruption, to name a few. That term “in tandem” is the key and of paramount importance here: these, seemingly diverse, social issues are not acting as buffers cancelling out or decelerating social divisons. Instead of easing up, filling and bridging such divides, they have been offerred and accepted as agencies of widening, deepening and accelerating socio-economic rifts.
Purity tests for the Conservative movement, here and abroad, have been brought up to the fore. They haven’t come from institutional quarters, political Parties, weak and corrupt political leaders and machines; but instead they have sprung out spontaneously from the masses, collectively and individually. They have come from an impatient electorate that has been burned repeatedly, disappointed provoked and betrayed immensely by almost all elected officials, and has become very angry as a result. To each and every one among them potential voters, any SINGLE deviation thus from a strict Conservative interpretation each voter carries on ALL the subjects listed above is enough to throw any one politician under the bus in a jiff.
Consequently, it has been a vastly divided electorate out there, consisting of individuals with very strong positions, and unwilling to compromise any more. Almost all of us realize that at the end, what got us here and now was an unending chain of ridiculous compomises. Enough is enough, it’s about time to face reality and commence the noble fight – fully cognizant that only a small determined minority will at the end carry the day.
JAMES F: WOW, SR you touch it all,with vibrant words, those which move MOUNTAINS
I SO love this BLOG which get the best . thank you, bye
Thank you ilovebeeswarzone; btw, I like your Name.