Posted by
TheRationalRight on Friday, April 03, 2009 10:57:48 PM
I think I finally understand why conservatives are less effective than liberals at voicing our philosophy.
Conservatives want to live independently, working to achieve our own definition of success so we can support our families and the causes of our choosing. Liberals want to live in unity with one another, pooling their resources together to ensure that everyone has an equal level of some arbitrary definition of success.
So it only makes sense that liberals who enthusiastically depend on others are more effective at pleading their case together than conservatives whose fundamental desire in life is to be left alone.
How odd it is that liberals have been so effective at painting conservatives as a sort of moral police force who wants to ensure that everyone lives by conservative rules. From my vantage point, it is the liberals who want to enforce sameness in our behavior (smoking is bad, so it should be banned even from privately owned establishments) and sameness in our results (failure is bad, so success should be punished in a fruitless effort to eliminate failure).
And since liberals have been so effective at stereotyping conservatives, I should point out to you that I fit into an economic demographic that would lead most people to guess that I am a liberal voter. I live paycheck-to-paycheck. I say this with no sense of pride. However, as a conservative, I recognize that I alone am responsible for this. To believe my personal economy is the fault of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Congress, or any other individual or entity is to cede power to that individual or entity. I refuse to surrender my autonomy to anyone this way.
Conservatism is rooted in a strong belief in the power of the individual. I am responsible for my own success or failure, regardless of circumstances. Those who willingly relinquish this authority to others have no appreciation of the word “liberty.” Ironically, they label their philosophy “liberal,” which is the etymological cousin of “liberty” but has come to represent an entirely antithetical meaning.
So, in order to preserve liberty, conservatives need to adapt the liberal strategy that has proven effective. We need to band together to ensure that our freedom survives long enough for our progeny to enjoy it. Our ancestors did this for us. We owe it to their honor to pass their legacy on to future generations of free Americans.