Why We Hate Conservatives

As I said at the beginning of my previous article, Why We Hate Liberals, I am a moderate. I am of the majority of Americans who are downright fed up with the bickering, nattering, and perpetual (and childish) either/or false dilemma posed to the people by conventional politics. I hold some liberal views, such as homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and I hold some conservative views, such as government shouldn't try to regulate what citizens do in their personal lives.

It is that very contrast that throws into sharp relief exactly why it is that Conservatives are so deeply despised by so many.

Unlike the Liberals, Conservatives have no problem with themselves. Their hallmark is Pride, whether deserved or not, and their deep self-love gives rise to ethnocentric behavior. They tend to adhere to tradition for tradition's sake alone, doing things the way they've always been done for no reason other than the fact that they have always been done that way.

Where Libs often make the mistake of putting other peoples' views and values before their own, to the point of excess, the Cons demonstrate an equal faculty for deliberate ignorance in the opposite direction: they will often put their own values ahead of everyone else's. Both of these are all well and good on an individual level, but are a terrible way to govern a nation that boldly proclaims "Liberty and Justice for all"; either way we choose, somebody gets the short end of the stick. It is literally an "us or them" situation, a false dilemma made real by our lack of viable alternatives.

But it is the Conservative tendency to perceive one's own view in any controversy as automatically correct, often for no other reason than it is one's own, that ultimately leads to the biggest problem with Conservatism: Hypocrisy.

Conservative talker Glenn Beck, of radio and television renown, provides us with the key principle of Conservatism, upon which the group's entire platform is built. By his definition, Conservatism is the belief in the Individual and the ability to make his or her own decisions. It is the ideal that each person should be free to live his or her life as he or she sees fit; to be able to achieve success without penalty, to make personal choices without worry of governmental interference. It is essentially the ideal that government should not attempt to dictate how its citizens are to live their lives.

As a thinking citizen myself, who has a vested interest in his own continued freedom, I happen to favor that notion. I don't like "for your own good" laws and regulations, though I must admit that some are necessary, and I certainly stand opposed to any law that limits the freedom of any American without good reason.

Politics is a slippery slope, though. Sometimes it's hard to tell how we got from where we were to where we are. For example, a law banning murder is an obvious necessity - none of us want to be killed, and we are willing to trade our freedom to kill in exchange for protection from being killed ourselves. But, once we've banned murder, we have set a precedent of regulating the allowable behaviors of individual people for the common good. From there, it's just a hop, a skip, and a jump to mandatory seat belt laws, anti-drug laws, and even laws that tell you which methods of parenting you're allowed to practice on your own children.

In each of those, some people are for them, and other against - and both sides think the other is populated with idiots who, clearly, have no idea what they're talking about.

But it is primarily laws that regulate personal choices that have no effect on one's own safety, or the well being of another person, that are at issue. While the Libs make a case for restricting public access to guns - which, right or wrong, IS a public safety matter - the Cons want to ban other things: things that don't coincide with their own personal values.

Conservatives, the people who rail against any kind of legislation that restricts their own freedoms, the people who believe that every individual should have the right to make his or her own decisions in life, also want to regulate public morality.

Radio host Michael Savage makes the point perfectly. Speaking about the recent California State Supreme Court decision to throw out Prop. 22 (the "Defense of Marriage Act"), he said: "It can't be allowed!"

This so-called Defense of Marriage Act reads: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." It is literally a ban on homosexual marriage, enacted through the linguistic trickery of "defining" marriage as something other than a legal union representing an existing spiritual bond founded on love and mutual commitment between two individuals.

But, "Allowed"? Conservatives are in an uproar over people being "allowed" to do something that has absolutely nothing to do with them (but happens to conflict with their "values")?

This effort to legislate personal values - by the same people who say they believe in the right of the individual to choose for him or her self - is far from the only instance where Conservatives strive to enforce their mores on everyone. Conservatives, in general, also want to ban abortions, ban drug use, ban pornography, and ban all manner of other things that are absolutely none of their business. Whether you agree with these positions or not, you have to admit that they are nothing less than efforts to restrict the freedom of individuals, and thereby legislate personal choices.

In all fairness, many of those issues, like drug use, do go to matters of safety for the hapless participant. But having matters of morality, like gay marriage, dictated to us by the same people who oppose the restriction of firearms, on the grounds that it infringes on personal liberty, is a tough pill to swallow.

I like to call this kind of contradiction "hypocrisy".

It is a paradox that the group that claims to value individual liberty above society as a whole would then turn around and use oh-so-loathed "I know what's best for you better than you do" laws to tell all of us what is immoral (not "unsafe" or "unfair" or "unjust", but "immoral"). It goes beyond arrogance for these same people to actually participate in the enactment of a law that does absolutely nothing but take away the rights of others, as we saw in California.

These people, who say that it is not the place of government to take away their rights, are actively using government to take away other peoples' rights. It flies in the face of "liberty and justice for all", and puts the lie to their "core values".

Where Liberals might hate themselves for hating others who practice hatred (see Why We Hate Liberals), Conservatives seemingly hate everyone who doesn't share their personal values. And they're out to fix it - by giving you no choice but to conform.

Today's Cons make it the Libs look like the Pro-Freedom party: Libs want to give everyone hot-button "rights", while Cons want Amendments that actually take rights away - and for no reason other than they aren't the way things have always been done. If they get their way, the group that "says" government shouldn't regulate how people live their lives will add a Bill of Not-Rights to the Constitution bigger than the original Bill of Rights!

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if the 'alternative religion' controversy ever came to a head. We might see Conservative-backed legislation that reads: "Only religion between a person and Jesus Christ is valid or recognized in California." It would probably be named the "Defense of Free Religion Act", and it would ensure that everyone is free to practice the religion of his or her choice, as guaranteed by the Constitution - as long as it is Christian. It would be yet another way to "defend traditional values."

Apparently, "traditional values" don't include individual freedom.

Now, many people might say, "I'd rather be ____ than ____," because at least (the Conservative have values) / (the Liberals aren't close-minded bigots). But the biggest lie of all is that it is an either/or choice.

Personally, whenever I'm confronted with a choice between two idiotic extremes, I choose neither, and I find a third option - one that makes sense, and one that I can live with.

That's why I'm a moderate. I hold some liberal views, and I hold some conservative views, and I vote based on MY views every time. I don't toe any party line, and I don't believe that being in favor of gay marriage automatically makes anyone in favor of abortion, or vice versa. I don't believe that anyone who doesn't think in a Red State mentality is a traitor, and I don't believe that anyone who doesn't think in a Blue State mentality is a moron.

In fact, it seems to me that the people whose thoughts are color-coded are both traitors and morons, because they both, through self-blinding arrogance, undermine the penultimate American principle of the free and rational exchange of ideas by assuming that their way is the only correct way.

I say the time of absolutist ideologies is long past. The Conservative attitude of "Me first," "Mine is better," and "Death to dissenters," is every bit as damaging to our country as the Liberal notion that 'the other guy's' "feelings" are more important than our own. Neither of them has a care for anything anybody else has to say, let alone keeping a 'free, rational, and open discourse,' the most important, most American value of all, foremost in their minds.

Both sides have forgotten that we are all Americans, but that doesn't change the fact that we are - and we deserve better. We can do better.