Liberalism & Conservatism: A Socio-Political Dichotomy

Throughout its history, America has oftentimes been a turbulent place to call home and so it is today. Our populace seems to be divided into two almost equal numerical groups with differing social philosophies. On the one hand we have the followers of liberalism and on the other, we find the believers in conservatism. Barack Obama’s election to the presidency and the Democratic Party’s control of both Houses in Congress has placed our nation’s future into the hands of a single political party with a distinctive taste for liberalism. As is often the case, we are all left wondering if ultimate power will corrupt? Time will tell but, what of the differing social views between social philosophies? Are their viewpoints irreconcilable? Thomas Jefferson feared factionalism, and along with others, he did not want the United States to see the development of political parties. Much to his chagrin and though guilty of factionalism himself, his wishes for a more civil discourse in politics did not survive the end of President Washington’s second term. The centrists amongst us are the golden goose that both political parties hope to convince to follow them into power.

Naturally, there are many differences between liberalism and conservatism however; if you break it down into its simplest form, the dichotomy between both philosophies starts with the importance of individual responsibility. Liberalism tends to pay little mind to the relative importance of individual responsibility in human society while conservatism places the importance of individual accountability as the foundation upon which its social philosophy will be built. How many times have you heard a liberal politician speak of an individual’s accountability to society? Rather than holding individuals to account for their behavior, they are more concerned with the welfare of the group and hope to enact social policies on a national level to change society and I believe that this is a fatal flaw in their reasoning. Most liberal politicians will never assign any sense of responsibility to the individual for the plight which he or she finds themselves in. In their view, there are always outlying conditions which disallow the individual to become a cohesive part of society. For brevity’s sake, let’s look at education and guns.

According to statistics, our children are intellectually falling behind the world’s other developed countries. Okay, but why? A horrendous crime occurs with a firearm and for liberals the cause of the crime was the gun and not the human finger which pulled the trigger. Individual responsibility and an innate sense of right and wrong are the bedrock of human society and they must be taken into account and encouraged to develop if any human culture hopes to survive.

Liberal politicians are always demanding that more money be spent on education while claiming the virtues of America’s public education system. Could it be that our educational system is indeed flawed and has more to do with how money is misspent rather than the amount of money spent? Children have to take responsibility for their own actions and attempt to learn. If they begin to wander off course then it is the responsibility of their parents to bring them back into line. Who allowed the teacher’s union to become the sacred cow which cannot be touched? Give me any other occupation where it is next to impossible to be removed for lack of productivity? I’ve known teachers who have no right to be in a classroom and yet, their tenure and the power of their union make them virtually untouchable. Here’s another idea, if dollars are tight, lets evaluate the disparity between the salaries of personnel in educational management positions and the salaries of the teachers. For example, why would a blue collar community close to where I live in tight economic times have to come up with a mid six figure salary for the procurement of a school superintendent? I’m taxed too heavily on the local level for education as it is and yet, I’d be willing to pay higher taxes for education if the local school board would construct a pie chart depicting the spending breakdown of a single dollar procured through taxation. Of course, the school board has said that it is too difficult to analyze the breakdown in cents for every dollar spent thus proving my contention that the real issue is how money is misused and not the lack thereof. Money isn’t the issue and it is merely a liberal placebo meant to obfuscate the responsibility of each individual involved in the educational process.

Being conservative, I am endlessly amazed at how the liberal viewpoint has no difficulty espousing the virtues of the 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments to our constitution and yet, they seem unable to wrap themselves around the simplicity of the 2nd amendment. The Bill of Rights was developed and implemented as a safeguard against any government intrusion into what the founders saw as inherent individual rights in a republic. Let us take a close look at the gun. A firearm is a tool, nothing more, and nothing less. In order for it to operate, it always requires the manipulation of a human finger empowered by a human mind. If a gun was loaded, chambered, cocked and then laid on a table, it would remain in that position until corrosion set in and caused a mechanical failure. In the liberal view, some miscreant from our society harms or murders someone with a firearm and what we need are more laws limiting public access to guns. Have you ever wondered why gun crime statistics are always higher per capita in our urban areas than in rural ones even though the number of guns per capita in rural regions is much higher than in our metropolises? If it is the prevalence of guns that is the culprit then, this statistic would be contrary to common sense. Do we need common sense regulations to keep firearms out of the hands of nutcases? Yes, however, these laws also need to correct human misbehavior if a crime is committed with a gun. Jail sentences for gun related crimes need to be severe. For example, the sentence for an armed robbery conviction with a knife should be far less than the same felony committed with a gun. If people knew that a gun related crime would have a drastic impact on their freedom for the majority of their life, they might actually think twice about picking up a gun with criminal intent. We will reduce violence in our society when we no longer tolerate gun crimes and not by taking a placebo and believing that we can actually remove guns from our landscape.

As you can see, we all are the commanders of our own vessel. Nobody can truly force us to steer off course. The sacred freedom which each of us has to follow our own path brings with it the high cost of permanent personal responsibility. I believe that if we are to ever improve our society it will only occur if it begins one person at a time and not on a large scale filtered down to the individual.

De Oppresso Liber

President Obama and The Age of Revisionism

President Obama's recent trip abroad to meet with world leaders and his attendance at the G20 meeting allowed us to watch him in action overseas for the first time as our nation's leader. So, how did he do? As usual, he was charming and quite eager to let everyone he met know that he is not George W. Bush. Did he actually realize many of his foreign policy objectives? If we use Afghanistan as a measuring stick, I think that any critical thinker will come to the conclusion that he achieved almost nothing. Once again, European leaders have chosen to sit on their hands instead of offering them to us in our fight against the Taliban and Al Quaida. The administration, in an attempt to lower expectations, has argued that a shift in European cooperation will take time because the Obama team must repair the damage made by the "arrogant" unilateral foreign policy decisions of the Bush Administration. How long must we endure the Obama Administration's finger pointing? Can his White House and the democratically controlled Congress ever come to terms with the fact that continually painting George W. Bush as the bogey man will grow tiresome and achieve nothing for our nation's interest?

There is alot of truth to the old saying, "When in charge, take charge!" President Obama would do well to more closely study our nation's history vis-a-vis Europe. Almost since our inception as a nation, Europe has despised our country's rising influence on the world scene. Europeans have generally and often continue to view us as a somewhat uncivilized and uncultured "colony" that somehow managed to break away from European control. Alexis de Toqueville wrote in the 1830s that our nation was lacking in the disciplines of philosophy and the arts. Many of us look to Europe for providing us with refined culture instead of looking at and admiring our own distinctive American culture. This desire to emulate Europe is nothing new and Ralph Waldo Emerson thoroughly chided his fellow citizens for not expending their energies on developing a unique American culture. President Obama, for some reason believes that a subordinate approach to Europe will cause us to be more liked on the world scene and will assist in the realization of our foreign policy initiatives. Europeans love a subordinate and fawning America because it inflates their own feelings of self importance even though, everyone knows that since the end of World War II, the European continent has been basically impudent when it comes to enforcing any type of reaction to the repression or genocide of people around the globe.

President Obama has chosen to follow a common theme in his dealings with the world. His conciliatory approach to foreign nations and public recognition of our nation's transgressions is also a common theme taught in the classrooms of our nation's university level American History courses. I am a history buff and it amazes me just how many new American history books have taken a revised approach at describing our nation's turbulent past. Many historians seem to concentrate on our nation's warts rather than objectively looking at these warts and accurately describing their effect on our country's body. All nations on this globe have a dark side to their history. If I'm not mistaken, Africans are still paying for the high cost of European colonization on their continent. Why does the president seem willing to publicly hang our nation's head in shame? I believe that he is merely a product of the academic environment in which he has spent the majority of his adult life. Such a disjointed view of our nation's history does us a disservice and contrary to his intentions, will not endear us to the world.

At times, has our nation failed to achieve the self realization of it's founding documents? Have we hopefully learned from our missteps? Will we trip up yet again? The answer to the preceding sentences is yes however; I believe that we still are a nation of great possibility and endless horizons and, as an American citizen I will not hang my head in shame or offer our nation's dirty laundry as evidence to the world of our country's less than stellar past. I will eagerly place our country's record against any other country on the globe.

De Oppresso Liber