CONSERVATIVE COMMENTOR IN A BIND

This morning I sent about one hour reading Bob Livingston’s Liberty Digest, especially the comments associated with the articles. This is the usual thing for me to do; it is my way of getting my daily dose of right wing poison. As I was browsing through the comments, it dawned on me that I have read all of this yesterday as well as the day before and the day before that. The conservative opposition press has several recurrent themes but so do the comments from either side.

The liberals all say or imply, in on form or another, that they want the government to play a part in their lives. Poll after poll tells us that by a wide margin, most people want social security, affordable health care, food stamps, unemployment insurance, environmental protection, etc. The polls also tell us that the people do not want to pay taxes—again by a wide margin. Therefore, circumstances put liberal commentators in a position of defending paying taxes. In contrast, conservatives say they want the government to play no part in their lives; thus, they face the dilemma of denying the population what they want; simply put, people actually want the government in their lives but do not want to pay for it. Thus, the articles and comments, written for the most part by radical from one side or the other, take on a distinct flavor, of course, the flavor of the article or comment depending on the side of the political spectrum the authors sit. In part, I am referring to that “flavor” in this blog post, but mainly I am referring to the manor in which they state their positions. It is not surprising that this means liberals tend to refer to most government actions in a positive way while conservatives denigrate most government actions. The curious thing is that conservatives seem to focus on individuals in government while liberals focus on the actions of the individuals. At first blush, this is surprising but it should not be; after all, the underlying theme of conservatism is individualism and that of liberal is altruism.

Of course, there are the exaggerations peculiar to conservatives; it seems difficult for them to use the word ‘socialism’ without adding ‘communism’ to the sentences just as it seems hard for them to speak of a democratic president without the added a comment about Hitler, Stalin, or Chairman Mao or using the word dictator. They cannot mention welfare without saying it is due to liberals “sealing their money”—a commonly used phrase. They cannot see distribution of wealth, in the form of taxes and salaries, but only see it as someone “stealing their hard-earned dollars”. In addition, and aside from their innate stance against collectivism on which we “collectively” built this country, they awkwardly try to cash in on public opinion. For example, the Republican controlled House of Representatives has essentially blocked government action of any kind, which fits exactly the conservative belief of no government but because public opinion is 7% approval of Congress they claim to hate all politicians yet they support the political faction in congress that is responsible for causing the government shutdown to happen. Conservatives claim to hate money used in politics to buy congressional votes but are adamantly opposed to campaign finance reform. They seem not to be able to understand that many things, such as paying corporate welfare, or not paying minimum wage, etc, is the result of “not reforming campaign financing.

When all of this is added up, apparently conservative see them selves in a bind; they can only openly support cutting taxes because what they believe about social programs is a minority view; therefore, the only say the oppose social programs but will not name the program in front of a general audience they want to destroy. You have to hear that in a republican convention. Therefore, they are reduced to name-calling: Obama is a Muslim, or he is a communist, or he is not an American, or he is this or that while avoiding discussing what is politically significant. I realized, as I read all of the comment this morning that not one author made a substantive argument, or even seem to try to makes a sustentative argument for what they believe; nor was there a substantive argument made against liberal programs they claim to hate other than no one wants to pay for them; which is true. However, there was plenty of piling on to what both liberals and conservative believe even though what they were saying was clearly counter to their activities as a party. Invectives and pejoratives were thrown about recklessly, but nothing of substance—zero.          

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