Friday, September 24, 2010

America is Not a Conservative Nation

Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed. - Morris Raphael Cohen

I am so tired of this false meme that America is a conservative nation that occasionally flirts with liberal principles. The truth is that the majority of Americans favor those so-called liberal policies that have defined this nation. The policies that created the largest middle-class the world has ever known and allowed many people the opportunity to better their lot in life. So if this is the case then why do we hear so often that this is a conservative country?

I believe that the reason this false premise is allowed to persist is because the true conservatives are the wealthiest amongst us, it is only in their interest to keep the status quo. After all what are the tenets of conservatism? Adherence to the Constitution is one of their favorites, a document that was written by a group of all white male property owners. Imagine if we had not amended the Constitution the state we would be in. Another one they like to espouse is smaller government, which is a euphemism for lower taxes. Then of course there are family values, but those values are “their” family values. Which anyone familiar with the family histories of the rich and powerful would almost surely scoff at the idea of emulating.

If we dig beyond the rhetoric it isn’t hard to see who the main beneficiaries of the conservative platform are. It isn’t the minorities, the immigrants, or the poor it is those who are already established and wealthy. Here is the strange part; this group only comprises about 2% of our population. So how has 2% of our population been able promote and embed this notion of conservatism into the larger population? It has been done systematically and at great expense on the part of the wealthy. We see this scenario being played out today if we look at those “grassroots” groups who are promoting this agenda. If we pull back the sheet we will see that the majority of them are being manipulated by these super rich puppet masters.

Even so you say people should be able to see through this ruse. That is where the folks I like to call the middle managers come in. These middle managers who include the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and the others are paid quite handsomely to pretend that they are just regular folks speaking to other regular folks about the evils that surround them. How is it that whenever we begin to ask the wealthy among us to pay their fair share that we hear the term socialism thrown about by this crowd? What the wealthy have done is hand selected these once regular folks who have the skills of manipulation and believability and promote them as people to be listened to while paying them handsomely to dupe the people. These people do not possess any real expertise on anything but the power of persuasion. How is it that they are constantly being shown to be wrong, misinformed, and outright liars and yet they continue to find a place to disseminate their garbage?

Over the course of the last few decades we have seen an erosion of the media into this obvious propaganda machine and all have played a role. Even those stations that claim to be unbiased have played a role by legitimizing these charlatans in the interest of equal time. There is no compromise or middle ground between right and wrong and good or evil. These outlets are being controlled by conservative wealthy people who behind the scenes manipulate these same outlets into offering up these ridiculous ideas and theories as legitimate alternatives. If this were not true then whenever anyone appeared on any news show and began to speak about tax-cuts and deregulation they would be lambasted. They would be lambasted not because of a disagreement between two competing and viable alternatives but because we have history and data that shows these ideas to be dishonest. But we continue to play this game every election and each newsperson pretends that they have never heard these arguments before and that they have no independent data to quote to demonstrate the outright deceit being perpetrated on the American public.

In the end what we have seen is the inexorable shift to the right based on this constant and unending refrain that we are a conservative nation by nature and that these conservative ideas have been proven true or at the very least untested. How can anyone with a straight face claim these ideas are true or untested? But no one in the media wants to lose their status or job by calling these clowns out for who they are and so the game continues. How anyone can say that America was a conservative country by nature is beyond me. It is obviously someone who is unfamiliar with their history. If we were a conservative people we would still only have 13 states. Conservative people do not explore and homestead in the wilderness. Conservative people do not leave their safety and cross mountains, deserts, and rivers.

It is unfortunate that we have allowed our spirit to be broken by these charlatans and the wealthy. Conservatism by its very nature is a fear of the future and the unknown. It prevents us from being innovative and flexible in shaping a new destiny for all Americans. The reason there has been no innovation in America in decades beyond the entertainment industry is because of this conservative attack on our spirit, the very nature that made us America. The sad truth is that the change or breaking of these shackles won’t come from some media call, but will come from the remnant of Americans who still yearn for freedom of expression not for the gilded few, but for all Americans. Oh and by the way those aren’t the teabaggers.

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. - Benjamin Disraeli

2 comments:

Bella HaHay said...

Media whore like Fox news just couldn't stop but keep attacking Obama and manipulate the mindset of nation. It happened before where I live and it's still a turmoil who set our nation apart literally.

Eric Hong said...

They are not attacking Obama as a person, they are attacking his and Democrat controlled congress's policies. The policies that set forth high taxes, high spending and large government. What Democrat are pushing is anathema to American value. You can find the American value inscribed in very US coin:
a) "E pluribus unum" - translation "Out of many, one". What that means is we need Americanism; i.e. hard working individualism that stand and fight evil not multiculturalism that stands for nothing.
b) "In god we trust" - a religious nation with secular government so people can be moral from within so we needs less laws to guide us.
c) "Liberty" - small government so people can have freedom to choose, including freedom to smoke, freedom to use incandescent bulbs, freedom to shop for their own health care without government interference. People become better person when they help each other not relying government's help that devoid individual's charity. Just look at Western Europe, they have big government and their citizen do very little charity work because they think government is the solution. "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen". People become worse person when there is a big government.

Yes, check your coin. It's all there.

BTW, while checking your coin, please check out the following as well:

Liberty Bell - The inscription on Liberty Bell was from Leviticus 25:10 - "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

Declaration of Independence - we are all endowed Liberty by our "Creator".

So why all these references to bible and creator (or God). It's simply that we are a nation based on Judea Christian values. The Democrat's multiculturalism, big government and anti-God policies are being attacked not Obama.

 
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