Short political statement

I can't be leftist or liberal because they trust government too much. They're far too statist.

I can't be libertarian because the trust the individual too much. They're far too relativist.

That leaves me as a traditional thinker, a conservative. We might quibble that what I'm calling conservative is the classic liberalism of the American Revolution. But, whatever. It's conservatism in today's United States.

Just my quick philosophical thoughts on a cold, snowy Friday in February. Does that warm your heart at all?

Hold your wallet

When someone tells you that with their brains and your money they'll change the world, hold on tight to your wallet.
You can attribute that quote or something similar to many people. I heard it first from me Grandpa Joe, repeated years later by me Pops. And it's basically why I distrust government and am a political conservative.
It is essentially how the progressives, the government planners, think. With their brains and your cash they'll save the world. This isn't to say that every idea they have is a bad one. Nor is it to say that we don't need government and that governments need money. But it is to say that, no matter how good of an idea you think something is, when you intend to spend someone else's money you ought to be very certain that your idea is a legitimate public good requiring a public commitment. Otherwise, you're simply a petty tyrant forcing others to like something merely because you do.
To be sure, conservatives have their pet government schemes. Yet by and large it is our friends on the left who promote government interference in our lives and demand our - your - cash for it. And they just don't seem to care what your selfish little self thinks about their hands on your wallet.

Conservatives aren't the controllers

As a conservative, I am often accused of trying to run everyone's lives. I quibble with such presumption. To be sure, there are aspects of conservatism which may well seem to dictate to people; abortion and same sex marriage come to mind. But do conservatives try to run the lives of the others so much as their friends on the left do?

We ask: who is telling you how much soda you can drink? Who is on the march against trans fat? Who is telling you that you must get health care insurance? Who is telling you what days you may cut your grass or gas up your car? Who wants you to take the bus rather than drive your own car? Who asserts that the environment is more important than the person? Who wails the loudest over urbanization, or the preservation of rather mundane places as the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? I'll tell you this: it ain't the conservatives.

Yes, the few issues through which the right does try to dictate terms are big ones. Yet they aren't actually about control. They're about preserving the dignity of the person in very important areas, areas which would help to make a better society. What dignity for the person is there within the nanny state?

The government is not our mother. Conservatives know that. Liberals don't. And that may well be the key difference between those broad groups.

No Labels Mean to Deceive

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, along with a host of other political workers and aspirants, are behind what is supposed to be a bipartisan group, No Labels. The organization wants to form chapters in all 435 Congressional districts, with its goal being an end to political polarization, electoral reform, the federal deficit and energy independence.

Where to begin? For starters, no group can exist without a label. Labels, quite frankly, tell us who or what we are and what we support, at least within general parameters. So in this case, No Labels stands for centrism, whatever that may be. The issues listed above seem to hit the mark as to that concern. Those issues are, by the way, more liberal than conservative, although there surely is a conservative flavor mixed into deficit questions.

Add in the fact that the vast majority of the organizers are Democrats, and it is easy to see that the new group is no honest cross the aisle organization. What they are doing is trying to play on the presumed will of certain Americans who are further presumably sick and tired of partisan politics and want the bickering to end. So they hypocritically, ahem, label themselves No Label to attempt to seem out of the mainstream.

It is interesting to note that Mayor Bloomberg, having spent more of his own money than anyone else to win and keep his office, indeed having had the system changed in NYC so that he would not be term limited, should be one spouting electoral reform. That by itself hardly strikes us as nonpartisan. It seems like a man with an agenda, which is exactly what marks most certainly any political movement. The No Label thing betrays itself by its own actions.

So what we have is a center/left partisan group deigning to call itself nonpartisan in order to attract attention and, in some way, it would seem, votes. The question then becomes, why doesn't the left want to be called liberal?

Conservatives don't mind being called conservative. Indeed, they quite insist on it. They don't mind people knowing who they are and what they mean. They don't hide behind political showmanship. They like their label.

Do the No Label people like their more generally accepted label, again, liberal? Apparently not. From what, then, do they wish to hide?

Liberals Aren't Tolerant

Consensus as consensus is not particularly appealing. It isn’t that we don’t recognize the need for sometimes disagreeable agreement in order to move things along; it’s simply that most people who preach ‘consensus first’ really aren’t ready or willing to concede anything substantial at all.

Liberals are great at this game. They want consensus on abortion or gay rights, for example. Yet they are in favor of both; conservatives are not. They talk about tolerance: they want us to tolerate both. That’s easy for them as they find both issues tolerable. They aren’t moving towards consensus in any way shape or form because they aren’t conceding anything. Yet we right wingers are essentially being asked to give up entirely on core values which we believe in very deeply. In short, it isn’t consensus they request. It’s the total and complete acceptance of their world view.

Yet there are issues on which we cannot make concession without violating our basic creed. To allow abortion is so abhorrent that we cannot tolerate it. To allow gay marriage speaks so ill of our society that we cannot tolerate it; society has the right to define marriage in the pattern which best represents what an ideal society should be.

Yes, conservatives are being obstinate on these and other questions. That is, no doubt, in part because they are such important questions to our most essential beliefs; but more, they are issues upon which a stable society cannot long survive without their being addressed properly. They must be answered in accordance with what is really right, what is really needed for a wholesome and decent nation to become and stay wholesome and decent. We strive to follow the natural moral law.

Not so with liberals. We are pariahs, neanderthals, if we do not go beyond tolerance (which, when we do tolerate things such as the legalized abortion we deal with these days, truly is only a recognition of error which we can not, at a given time anyway, overcome) and embrace their ways. There is no room, in their actions or in their philosophy, for us to be us. They are hypocrites who sound like they’re being inclusive when they are in fact less considerate of beliefs anathema to theirs than they accuse us of being. As we've said many times before: you want tolerance? Tolerate us. Short of that, admit that you aren't all that tolerant. It's obvious enough anyway, left wing, that you aren't.

Moderate: Because Being Liberal Hurts

Recent polling suggests pretty heavily that the Democrats and President Barack Obama need the so-called moderate vote in order to win elections, while the GOP can rely on the conservative vote quite readily. This can be interpreted in several ways, but perhaps the most insightful is this: moderates aren't really moderates, as a group, but, rather, lean towards more traditional and familiar thoughts whenever in doubt.

That makes sense, in the end. For when there is a crisis, don't most people act based on what they know? When President Reagan was elected back in 1980 to stem the tide of Democratic and hence more liberal leadership, what was his appeal? To make America great again, based on the traditional American values of individualism and hard work. When the GOP ran the tide last November, what was the big question: nothing less than obtrusive, interfering government trampling the rights of the people.

The moderates responded as they knew how, by throwing out those who did not support real American values. That's why conservatives don't have to appeal too overtly to the presumed middle: they aren't actually in the center after all. They are in fact more moderate to conservative rather than being between the left and the right as they are generally portrayed.

Given the fact that so few people, about 20 percent or one in five, call themselves liberal, and it seems that what we truly have in our nation today is an overall aversion to liberalism. Even the presumed center appears to harbor similar doubts about the left, seeing as the Democrats need to get about 60% of the middle of the road vote to win major elections. It is a telling statistic, and does not bode well for any long term success for the party of Jefferson and Jackson.

Of course, the Democratic Party left the beliefs of those American stalwarts behind eons ago. But that is a tale for another time.

No Label? No Point.

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, along with a host of other political workers and aspirants, announced this past Monday the founding of a new political group, No Labels. The organization wants to form chapters in all 435 Congressional districts, with its goal being an end to political polarization, electoral reform, the federal deficit and energy independence.

Where to begin? For starters, no group can exist without a label. Labels, quite frankly, tell us who or what we are and what we support, at least within general parameters. So in this case, No Labels stands for centrism, whatever that may be. The issues listed above seem to hit the mark as to that concern. Those issues are, by the way, more liberal than conservative, although there surely is a conservative flavor mixed into deficit questions.

Add in the fact that the vast majority of the organizers are Democrats, and it is easy to see that the new group is no honest cross the aisle organization. What they are doing is trying to play on the presumed will of certain Americans who are further presumably sick and tired of partisan politics and want the bickering to end. So they hypocritically, ahem, label themselves No Label to attempt to seem out of the mainstream.

It is interesting to note that Mayor Bloomberg, having spent more of his own money than anyone else to win and keep his office, indeed having had the system changed in NYC so that he would not be term limited, should be one spouting electoral reform. That by itself hardly strikes us as nonpartisan. It seems like a man with an agenda, which is exactly what marks most certainly any political movement. The No Label thing betrays itself by its own actions.

So what we have is a center/left partisan group deigning to call itself nonpartisan in order to attract attention and, in some way, it would seem, votes. The question then becomes, why doesn't the left want to be called liberal?

Conservatives don't mind being called conservative. Indeed, they quite insist on it. They don't mind people knowing who they are and what they mean. They don't hide behind political showmanship. They like their label.

Do the No Label people like their more generally accepted label, again, liberal? Apparently not. From what, then, do they wish to hide?

Mississippi's First Congressional District

In an area almost universally considered conservative by political pundits, a Democratic incumbent, Travis Childers, faces a campaign for re-elections in what is often described as a toss up district. He has more money than his Republican opponent, Alan Nunnelee, at this moment. Yet more than that, Childers is one the so-called Blue Dog Democrats: he is pro-gun and anti-abortion, for example, positions not readily found among the Democratic elite. What can be learned from this case?

Firstly, that the GOP doesn't necessarily have to take the whole of Congress to gain an effective control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. There are enough conservative Democrats that a majority of conservatives may exist in reality where they don't on paper. This line of reasoning adds to the woes of the left as November 2nd approaches. Majorities may be formed along philosophical rather than party line.

But more than that. It demonstrates quite readily the lack of true party discipline within the two major parties today in the United States. Why a Democrat should have captured a seat from a solidly conservative bastion of the country shows how little party identification may actually mean in our nation. When you can file as a Democrat or Republican and win a primary election despite having a relatively small direct experience within whichever entity, something which has happened often in our history, then party affiliation be damned. It begins to mean nothing as raw political indicator.

The point is this: look beyond what party a candidate says he belongs to and actually look at what he says. You will have a better idea of who you are voting for, and a clearer view of where the nation is heading. Meanwhile, don't be too quick to use party identification as a bellweather. You will only confuse the issue.

Conservatives on Other Planets

The journal Nature reports that circling a nearby star is a planet with some earth conditions, specifically an atmosphere and water. While too hot to likely support life, as it has a surface temperature of about 250 degrees, the discovery bodes well for those who hope that there may be sentient life on other planets. Apparently there are at least two other so-called 'Super Earths' which have also been detected.

That these are exciting discoveries cannot be disputed. But where we have an issue about them is in the interpretation over how finding other life in the galaxy would shake our core beliefs here on our own good Earth. It has been said that we would have to completely rethink our philosophies, and even our religion, should there be other life forms similar to ours somewhere else in the universe.

Why? Would not the same God have created them too? Why would they not be as subject to sin and failure, the whole universe being imperfect, as we are? Further, why should we presume that the challenges they face aren't any different from ours? Getting food and shelter, worrying about how the kids are growing up; why should alien daily life be so much different than ours?

The best guess is that they would still have personal, political, and social struggles akin to ours. Granted, they may be superior or inferior to us in myriad ways and forms, but there is simply no reason to think that the cultures of another world would be, at their core, any different from ours.

So while finding Earth-like planets is certainly exciting, it should not change our outlook on the relationship between God and Man. It only means that He has seen fit to share Himself more generally than some may have thought. There would still be conservative and liberal viewpoints vying for attention, and their conservatives would still be as right as our liberals are wrong.

Improper use of Religious Icons

It seems, at a glance, to be much ado about nothing. There is a poster circulating which encourages Latinos to participate in the upcoming 2010 Census by pointing out that Christ was born was born while his parents were participating in the Roman census of the time. The point is to be unafraid (because of language barriers and the like) and to get yourself counted.

The Census is of course important; probably too important anymore, seeing as it has essentially become a pawn in the game of political power. As so much government cash depends on population, and, more critically, the distribution of House seats at the federal level and legislative seats in the several States being decided by its results, the every ten year count affects everybody.

It's kind of shame, really, that politics have become so important that a simple count of the citizenry creates such gamesmanship. Government shouldn't be so influential as to make the census such a fuss. But money and power come of it; especially the power of who gets what, so it's important that as many as possible in a given area belly up to the bar.

The admittedly inadvertent comparison of modern America with Imperial Rome is a sticking (perhaps) point to those of us on the right, but that is surely minor. As to the use of the religious imagery, the truly sad thing is that it is being used essentially to ensure that cash and influence are distributed, shall we say properly, to the various regions and groups within our borders. I had though Christ tossed the money changers out of the temple, but perhaps He's had a change of heart. Maybe the socialists have gotten to Him after all.

It reeks of a liberal attempt to be sure that they and their minions get their way at the ballot box and the coffers of the public treasury. Whoever came up with this idea should have been more respectful of the religious feeling of Christians generally rather than the few who see government as a religion.

Pigs With Lipstick

I do not think highly of consensus as consensus. It isn’t that I don’t recognize the need for sometimes disagreeable agreement in order to move things along; it’s simply that most people who preach ‘consensus first’ really aren’t ready or willing to concede anything substantial at all.

Liberals are great at this game. They want consensus on abortion or gay rights, for example. Yet they are in favor of both; conservatives are not. They talk about tolerance: they want us to tolerate both. That’s easy for them as they find both issues tolerable. They aren’t moving towards consensus in any way shape or form because they aren’t conceding anything. Yet we right wingers are essentially being asked to give up entirely on core values which we believe in very deeply. In short, it isn’t consensus they request. It’s the total and complete acceptance of their world view.

Yet there are issues on which we cannot make concession without violating our basic creed. To allow abortion is so abhorrent that we cannot tolerate it. To allow gay marriage speaks so ill of our society that we cannot tolerate it; society has the right to define marriage in the pattern which best represents what an ideal society should be.

Yes, conservatives are being obstinate on these and other questions. That is, no doubt, in part because they are such important questions to our most essential beliefs; but more, they are issues upon which a stable society cannot long survive without their being addressed properly. They must be answered in accordance with what is really right, what is really needed for a wholesome and decent nation to become and stay wholesome and decent. We strive to follow the natural moral law.

Not so with liberals. We are pariahs, neanderthals, if we do not go beyond tolerance (which, when we do tolerate things such as the legalized abortion we deal with these days, truly is only a recognition of error which we can not, at a given time anyway, overcome) and embrace their ways. There is no room, in their actions or in their philosophy, for us to be us. They are hypocrites who sound like they’re being inclusive when they are in fact less considerate of beliefs anathema to theirs than they accuse us of being. They are, to use Barack Obama's phrase from last year's campaign, pigs with lipstick. We need to step back far enough that we may see the sty they wallow in.

Knee Jerks and the Moral Imperative.

Yesterday I spoke a bit about how many shallow thinkers are knee jerk, and that liberals take advantage of that. I suppose it is only fair to allow that there are knee jerks across the political and philosophic spectrum. Of course there are; but the more conservative, more traditional thinking ones, however shallow their reactions may be, are safer than the rest.

Those who react to stimuli rather than act on principle, the ones who respond in selfish ways to the conditions in their lives instead of really thinking about what they might truly need or what may be best for society in general, pose a threat to everyone's well being. This includes, yes, right wing reactionaries. But they at least have principle on their side, however tenuously the connection may be. They are, dare I say it, on the right side. We must keep them in our camp for two reasons.

First, if someone is starting from the correct point of view there is a greater chance of leading them into holding the right attitudes for the right reasons. If the foundation is there, a sturdy building may be built. Second, in holding to the best principles they are themselves more likely to lead others into the fold. Perhaps their obstinacy may demonstrate to others that they might actually be on to something, especially considering that truth is its own best calling card, one which can be read even in the dimmest light.

Liberal knee jerks, however, on their own level teach selfishness. They may occasionally lead someone onto the path of righteousness, but that would be incidental in the way that a bad example is good as a lesson in error. Poor thinking by and large only leads to poorer thinking.

We see that in the sexual permissiveness of our society. One of the reasons, for example, that gay marriage is wrong is that acceptance of one type of error easily leads to acceptance of other errors. Once a taboo is broken, and that could be any taboo mind you, it is easier to break more even in seemingly unrelated areas. For we are creatures of habit, and poor habits in one aspect of our lives may lead to poor habits in others. If sexual morality is off the table as liberals wish, then it really is a short hop to wondering whether stealing is wrong. For the moral imperative, the Tao of C.S. Lewis if you will, is a whole. Disease in one part of society is bad for the entire community just as a cancerous lung threatens the whole body.

True, conservative knee jerks may drive people away by their callousness, and shame on them for that when and as it may happen. Yet even then, if we are to believe that we are actually responsible for ourselves, the person driven off is no less responsible for seeking the just and true. For we are still obliged to seek the true and the just and act accordingly. It is how we become better people.

So cut the right wing curmudgeon a little slack. He at least has tradition on his side. The left have only the shallow pool of selfishness. It can dry out in the sun. A pool of good thought is more readily able to become an ocean of justice. It will withstand the heat of the moment.

Respect Barack Obama

Barack Obama, for the Democrats, is now the man. That’s okay; he is a Democrat and he’s who they want. So let’s keep it that way, and not let anything detract from it. For you see, what we are going to hear a lot about in the coming months will be his pedigree, and how that gives us the chance to make history. But why should that matter? If Dr. King is right, we should be judging him by the content of his character as we decide whether to vote for him or not. Becoming President of the United States is history making enough without sidebars regarding what are supposed to be insignificant matters. You want to respect and vote for Barack Obama? Respect and vote for him as a man, period. You want to not vote for him? Then don’t vote for him because of his stands on the issues and on what he says and does rather than for knee jerk and indefensible reasons. That’s respecting him as a man as well. Don’t vote skin color pro or con: when we can do that, we will have matured that much more as a nation.