Stumbled across this on Andrew Sullivan's Blog, which was taken from this blog by Tony Woodlief.
Read. Digest. Give feedback.
"A real American conservative, to me, is someone who understands that markets are the best means of allocating resources, that liberty is essential to human thriving, and that man is sinful and in desperate need of checking and elevating institutions like the Church and marriage and childrearing. A real American conservative believes in aspiring, at the very least, to truthfulness and humility and thoughtfulness, which means he can’t help but cringe when he hears the likes of an Ann Coulter bellowing about her enemies being traitors. A real American conservative understands that the ills of mankind will not go away if we could only just have a lower tax rate and less regulation."
"A real American conservative is not, I’ll submit to you, at home in the maneuvering and manipulation of state capitols, and certainly not in Washington, D.C. A real American conservative does not trust large government or mass democracy or even himself, certainly not himself, which is why he wants to keep undivided power out of any man’s hands, including his own."
[I sat on the roof and kicked up the moss]
Thursday, February 25, 2010
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Hmmm...tricky.
ReplyDeleteIt reads like a man just trying to clarify that being a conservative is not the same as being a republican. Well, in this context, a raging republican the likes of Rush Limbaugh for example. It's a shift in thinking so drastically different from what is going on today that this idea of conservatism seems like a myth out of the old west. Try explaining this idea to someone without them asking 'yeah, but who manages it? Who regulates it? Who sits around to make sure that everyone is even and that everything is FAIR?!?'
I'm very attracted to the vision of living in a democracy where there's advancement out of our basic human need for competition and evolution. A place where politicians thrice your age don't bicker across aisles. A place where the government doesn't have their hand in every pot.
However, I look around and lately I don't see anything but regulation. I see people who have been scammed and cheated and who don't have any faith left in the person sitting next to them. I guess that I see myself alot in his last sentence, someone who hasn't seen any shining examples, inside the government or outside, who is worth my trust. Now if that makes me a conservative, great, but I'd rather just call me skeptical.
For the most part I have a hard time calling myself a "conservative" anymore without having to add twenty explanatory sentences after I say that. Simply because I feel like the definition has gotten lost throughout the years.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the biggest problem conservatism is facing today is balancing religious belief with political stances. Conservatism doesn't equal follower of Christ and being a follower of Christ does not equal standing for everything the conservative movement does. Political groups do not have the final say on personal belief (for Christians) God's Word does.
I'm ending this now...before I get too carried away.