I define conservative as resistant to change. As reacting against things all the time, and trying to squelch the different, the new, the challenging or the uncomfortable.
Liberals of an earlier era—going back to the 1980s or before—used to define conservatism largely the same way.
So how did liberals get to be so conservative?
Think about what liberalism—now called leftism—does. It seeks to hook people on the government. Whether it’s welfare, public education, or government-run retirement or health insurance, leftism shuts out competition.
You HAVE to join Social Security and Medicare. You MAY NOT buy anything else in the marketplace. Anyone who tries to compete with these programs will be discouraged, fined or even jailed.
It’s pretty much the same with public education. Private schools are not against the law, but almost nobody can afford them because government commands and controls government-run schools and demands that parents send their kids to them unless they can afford expensive private schools. No choice, no freedom of competition and no innovation in education are allowed, unless it first goes through the government. And government suffocates innovation every time it’s tried.
Advocates of public education don’t want competition. They don’t want school choice, not even tax credits for education. Well-off advocates of public education almost never send their children to public schools. This tells you all you need to know about the state of public education. It’s conservative in nature because it resists challenge to the prevailing, one-size-fits-all orthodoxy and shames anyone who dares to suggest an alternative.
That’s another thing about today’s liberals-turned-progressives. They are shamers. Big time. It’s just a psychological fact. They do not attempt to persuade or reason with you. The moment they find out you want choice in education, free market solutions in health care, lower taxes, less government spending or – perish the thought – that you voted for Donald Trump, you are subject to nastiness, ridicule and shame. They seem unable to grasp how foolish and inconsistent it makes them look, and how unpersuaded their adversaries remain.
Command, control, compulsion. We’re now seeing it with the First and Second Amendments, territory that earlier-era “liberals” left alone. But now they’re talking about criminalizing what they consider toxic speech and saying things like, “Why does your right to free speech trump my right not to be offended?” Canada and Great Britain are passing laws to criminalize criticism of movements or religions (e.g., Islam) that leftists like, while leaving people free to condemn and criticize religions or movements leftists do not like.
Islam’s staunchest defenders are to be found in the group that used to be called liberals. Yet Islam has brought us the most ferocious degree of intolerant religious conservatism of any seen since the Middle Ages. What are leftists defending when they attack critics of Islam? It’s certainly not the principle of free speech, because it’s that principle Islam explicitly seeks to destroy, first through intimidation (terrorism) and ultimately through the imposition of Sharia law (that would result in the extermination of most leftists, by the way). No better proof exists of previous liberals now being ultra-conservatives than their defense of Islam, a defense so fervent they’re prepared to kick you off Facebook and Twitter, and possibly even fine or jail you, for daring to critique this ultra-conservative ideology.
Psychologically and ideologically, the positions of contemporary leftism—what used to be called “liberalism”—are all about constraint, command, control, restraint and the smothering or suffocation of innovation, at least whenever that innovation threatens the politically authorized order.
This is as conservative as it gets.
Free markets are liberal, in the true sense of the word. Freedom of competition also means the freedom to innovate. The freedom to keep what you earn, rather than have it redistributed as leftists deem fitting, is eminently liberal and just. There is no social justice without justice for the individuals who comprise the society, generate the wealth and create the jobs. If we deny individuals the right to keep what they earn, and spend, save or invest it as THEY see fit, then there will be no social justice, because wealth now is in the hands of the swamp—you know, those corrupt bipartisan officials in the D.C. Swamp we all claim to oppose but we can’t get rid of, because they’re ultimately doing what the majority of the people must want them to do. Because otherwise, why would they still be there? And why would our budget be the most massive spending bill ever despite having President Trump and a Republican Congress?
The right to function and operate in a free economy is liberal. The right to own weapons of self-protection, so long as you’re not a criminal, is liberal. The right to speak your mind on your own time, property or Internet connection is an individual right that true liberals always embrace, and liberals of an earlier era usually did. But no more.
Under today’s perversion of liberalism, there is no permission to breathe – at least not without the permission of government. Today’s leftists seem prepared to allow you access to a blow job (if you’re a gay man), a free abortion and unlimited puffs on a marijuana joint. But that’s about it, from what I can tell. The rest is control, restraint, compulsion, command and obedience.
There’s nothing liberal about it. And those on the “right” have created some unlikely coalitions to fight it all. Those of us who value liberty and individual rights are not going down without a fight.
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