November 22 2007

Many people who know me think I'm a liberal.  They're mistaken.  Liberals believe that  the existing political and social systems can be reformed.  In my opinion, they will have to be torn down and rebuilt.  I suppose such thinking makes me a radical, though I'm such a mild mannered guy that the notion seems ridiculous.  What frequently surprises me is how much common ground I can find with conservatives.  Real conservatives, that is.

What's a real conservative?  If you look up the definition of "conservative" in a dictionary, you'll probably find something like this: A person who is suspicious of change, believes in financial restraint and wants to preserve the status quo.

Suspicious of change?  Any intelligent person would be because change is not always for the better. 

Believes in financial restraint?  It's hard to argue with that after seeing the enormous waste created by governments and corporations due to their stupidity and greed. 

Wants to preserve the status quo?  That's where conservatives and I part company because I don't find the status quo to be so peachy. Still, I can respect their desire to preserve institutions and concepts that have served us well over the centuries. It's just that we might not agree about which valuable institurions and concepts are worth preserving. The notion that a person accused of crime should be considered innocent until proven guilty is one I'd like to keep.  Current tax laws that favor the rich?  Not really.

If I don't share all of the principles of real conservatives, I'm grateful that they at least have principles. Also, people can be conservative and yet still be capable of compassion for others who are less fortunate than themselves.

Unfortunately, conservatism has been hijacked in recent years by two groups of people who call themselves "conservatives" when they are really something else entirely.

The first group wants to force all of us to share their moral beliefs and to go back with them to a golden past that never really existed.  In the world they want to build, everyone will be white and Christian.  Men will run things and women will do what they are told.  You will worship their God or suffer the consequences.  Any expression of sexuality will be a crime.  Members of the Christian Religious Right (and fundamentalists of all faiths) claim to be conservatives, but they're really dangerous reactionaries.

The second group isn't so interested in controlling your morals, so long as they control everything else about you. They will decide who forms your government, against whom you go to war, what you buy and what you think. Their only gods are money and power. Members of this group call themselves "conservative" because that sounds much nicer than "fascist". The current Bush Administration in the United States is a good example of such a group, but people like them exist all over the world.

If I were a real conservative, I'd be furious and heartbroken about what is being done these days in the name of my beliefs.  Maybe it's time for conservatives to take back conservatism.

Do any of you conservatives out there agree?  I'd like to hear your opinions.

 George