The Liberal versus Conservative Philosophies

I noticed that the Democratic Congress is talking about another bogus stimulus package. Everyone who paid attention knows that the first stimulus package was not intended for stimulus or, if it was, it was only a peripheral goal. The idea of that package was to use the crisis to advance liberal programs which would not have been passed through the normal appropriations process. By bundling them up in the package, the Democrats could get a lot of their long stalled programs into law. It was a total scam. President Obama used the Bill Clinton tactic of running as a moderate but has since shown his true colors as a far-left liberal. Let’s look at some of the fundamental differences in the philosophies between liberals and conservatives.

The overwhelming viewpoint of liberalism is arrogance. The view of liberals is that the population needs guidance and caring from the government. They are maternal in attitude. The liberals feel that the government has to be maternal because the liberal officials in government are so much smarter than the population. The fundamentals of conservatism include the concept that people can think and choose for themselves and that an individual or family will know better what they need for their own situation than program directors in the government. You will notice that states where there are large numbers of farmers, ranchers, and others who are used to living independently and making their own decisions are almost exclusively conservative and represented by conservative Republican or moderate Democrat officials. The states primarily in the north east and in the rust belt where people primarily live in large cities and depend more on government infrastructure tend to be Democratic. Much was made of the recent Democrat wins in 2008 but if you paid attention you would notice that a lot of the newly elected members of Congress were moderates, like Rep. Heath Shuler in North Carolina. I find the liberal attitude insulting and demeaning. The idea that someone who has never met me, knows nothing of my own or family situation, and has less education than I do, can tell me how to run my life because they are smarter than me is insulting and arrogant. The government is supposed to serve the people, not control their every day life. If you read the Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, it is clear that while there are clear reasons to have a strong central government (military, commerce, treaties, etc.) the Constitution is primarily there to define what government is NOT supposed to do. Liberalism thinks that the government should constantly guide your decisions because they know so much more than you do. It is offensive.

Both liberalism and conservatism attempt to improve the financial standing of the general population. There is a great difference in the ways that the two philosophies go about it. In general, conservatives feel that the road to economic success lies in opportunities and restricting the amount of personal or business income that the government takes from the population in the form of taxes. The idea is that people, when provided opportunity, will improve their own situations based on their merit and work ethic. By allowing individuals and businesses to achieve success based on their own ideas and effort, people have incentive to work harder and innovate. By allowing people to keep more of what they earn and by providing opportunities for people to succeed, those at the lower income levels can improve their situation with hard work. Liberals go about this differently. Liberals feel that people of lower incomes are “victims of the system”. The way that liberals will improve the plight of those at the lower end of the economic spectrum is to take income away from the upper income earners and give it to the lower income group. It is denigrating to those who would like to improve their situation on their own. It is tantamount to saying that those without success are incapable of achieving it on their own. It is a philosophy of victimhood and once again shows that the overarching liberal philosophy is that they are smarter than everyone else. Conservatives want to raise the lower end of the economic spectrum and liberals want to lower the upper end by giving their earnings to the lower end. They call it “fairness”. It is a disincentive to work and innovate. How many times have you heard someone say, “Why work? The government is going to take it, anyway.” Of course, the liberal philosophy leads to socialism and eventually communism. The only difference is how far you are willing to go.

Recent program proposals by the current administration are evidence of the differing philosophies. The proposal for government-run universal health care demonstrates the arrogance of the liberal elected officials. I have written a number of pieces about it. The idea is that in order to reduce costs, the government is now going to tell physicians how to practice and to take away the right of successful earners to individualize their coverage. It is demeaning. While everyone agrees that reduction of carbon emissions is a worth while goal, the last ten years have shown a cooling trend on the Earth. Despite data to the contrary, the current administration wants to put in place a “cap and trade” system which will substantially impact the American economy. Their justification is “global warming” despite all data to the contrary. It is because they are smarter than the scientists.

The real common thread of liberalism which differentiates the philosophy from conservatism is control. Everything about liberalism allows the government to obtain power over the population in their daily lives. Once again, the reason that they want that power is because they truly believe they are smarter than the population and therefore should tell the population how to live. If you look at the very populations that the liberals have identified as those they are "lifting up" in the last fifty years, there is little to no evidence that the liberal policies have done anything other than to further the dependence of those same people to government assistance. It is a Bernie Madoff scam of the highest order. Conservatism allows people to be left alone and gives more individual freedom to the population and therefore cedes control away from the government.

The idea that people are incapable of taking care of themselves, working hard and earning based on their own merits is arrogant and insulting. I am constantly amazed how liberal politicians can routinely insult people and still manage to acquire their vote by buying them off. It certainly is easier to just sit back, claim to be a victim, and have the government give you some free money that someone else earned, than it is to work hard for yourself. The problem with that is that if enough people do it, no one is left to earn. Then the economy collapses and you end up in the Soviet Union. Conservatism is the philosophy which drove people from Europe to the United States and drove the movement of people during the western expansion of the United States. It is a fundamental quality of the American people which will prove popular if elected officials who purport to be conservative would actually govern as conservatives once they are elected.