Prager University: Are You a Liberal?

@rich wheeler:

No, Rich, it is simply a twisting of words involving stances conservatives have taken, much as antics’ list is a twisting of words involving positions that liberals have taken. Both are kinda funny, but to take any of them as serious, and certainly to claim as you did, that “Duvall’s list is what Conservatives believe”, is to marginalize the issue stands taken.

@Cary:

I want to address your ‘moderate’ description. In current political jargon, the conservative label is often mistakenly interchanged with Republican, just as the liberal and democrat labels are held as interchangeable. For the democrats, the majority of the party has moved more and more liberal with each election, almost as if they are trying to outdo their last campaigns in moving the country to socialism, and getting braver about their socialist stances.

For the Republicans, it hasn’t been much different, but it has been moves in the opposite direction of what the liberals would have us believe. Why do I say that? Because while some stances taken by the Republicans are described as being the opposite of the democrats, they really are not, and in fact, are often just a different means to the same end.

Take welfare, for example; liberals believe that feeling charity towards your fellow man is not only ‘good’, and not just for the ‘common good’, but is something that should be legislated. Republicans believe in a different sort of charity, that of ‘corporate welfare’, which is essentially a bastardization of the ‘trickle-down theory’, and that it is for the ‘common good’ of the country, and that it should be legislated. Both of those entirely different welfare mechanisms lead to the same end, that of giving unearned benefits to those who haven’t earned them. So what, liberals ask, stating that at least their method benefits those ‘less fortunate’, those who ‘never had a chance’. Like I said, it boils down to the same thing, in the end, with unearned benefits being the goal of life, seeing who can get the most benefit for the least industry(defined here as a person’s ability and productiveness). In the end, both lead to destruction of that which made this country great, with the only difference being that one starts from the poorest working to the richest, while the other starts from the richest working to the poorest.

Now, how does the liberal and conservative tags play within that issue? Simple. Both methods of welfare stem from liberal beliefs, and the modern democrats, and much of the Republican leadership, both practice these ‘welfare politics’. Conservatives, on the other hand, and I’m talking about true conservatives, do not believe in this kind of politics. We believe that it only ends in the destruction of America, by taking a country founded upon individual freedom and liberty, and taking it to a country of servants and the served, of masters and slaves, with people working not for their own goals, aims, and “pursuit of happiness”, but for those of his fellow man.

And yet, you claim to be a ‘moderate’ on some issues. In other words, and as you stated yourself, you haven’t taken an “absolute” stance on an issue. Why not? I don’t believe in ‘grey areas’, where a middle position can be taken. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, are we not? Where the law is supposed to protect individuals from the encroachment of their liberty and freedom from their fellow man, and justice is the result of that protection. In law, there is no ‘middle ground’, at least, there isn’t supposed to be. That’s why justice is represented by a scale, one side being wrong and the other right, and by a blindfold, representing objectivity of the process. Those believing in a ‘middle ground’ or ‘moderate’ stance upon issues then must hold the belief that there is no right or wrong, and hence, that the issue is one decided by man, and not law, and results not in objective justice, but in arbitrary feeling, as to what is right and wrong on any particular issue. Our Constitution does not hold to that, and as it is the supreme law of the land, any legislation must then follow the justice set forth within that document, if we are to remain a nation of law, and not a nation of rule by men. An issue has then two sides, one that follows the law of the land, and one that does not, and any attempt at remaining in the ‘middle ground’, as ‘moderates’ like to believe, is not possible, as any stance taken, other than that of standing with the Constitution’s requirements, removes justice from the equation.

Now, getting back to Republicans and Democrats, they have been, as parties, two sides of the same coin. Only those who are pure conservatives get my support, no matter which party they belong to. Without a government that stands behind principle, with justice as it’s aim, and the Constitution as law, then we are nothing more than a nation ruled by men, with every arbitrary decision made at man’s whim, with whoever has the pull at that particular moment, and no one receiving justice, and their Constitutional protections against the encroachment of their liberties and freedoms at the mercy of those arbitrary decisions.

I mean this as no ‘slam’ against you. It is purely as a discussion of the term ‘moderate’, and the relation of liberal and conservative, and Republican and Democrat. My belief is that many who interchangeably use the terms conservative and Republican are doing so by mistake, and that many positions described as conservative, simply by being a position of the Republican leadership, are, in essence, liberal positions, simply with a different means.