Liberal Conservatives

A friend replied to my “Epiphany” post of a few days ago, agreeing with my view of Las Vegas.

‘It makes me shudder,” she wrote. “Everything I want to avoid.”

Although she has self-identified as a lifelong liberal, after reading my blog, she’s beginning to understands that, like me, she might also be truly conservative in many respects, such as family and (truly conservative) family values.

“Family is where love and charity grow,” she said. “Family is at the very core of our society and needs to be strong, supportive and connected. Family does not have to be husband, wife and children, of course. It can be any close-knit group or even couple.” 

I stumped her, though, in asserting that in many way, people who embrace today’s concept of conservative (not!) ideology and label.

“Can you explain more?” she asked.

Sure.

In many areas, people who are called conservatives these days advocate the liberal application or use of a number of methods, tactics, policies, practices and options, which illustrates just how topsy-turvy, even meaningless, the terms have become. Here are some examples:

• The death penalty.  So-called conservatives are generally in favor of imposing the death penalty for certain types of crimes and even expanding it to include even more categories. That seems like a pretty liberal stance. E.g., the liberal application/use of the death penalty versus the rare and conservative use of imposing the death penalty.

• Military intervention.  Today’s conservatives are far more likely to support military attack and/or invasion and maintaining a military presence in foreign affairs, as opposed to those considered liberal in today’s parlance who favor the very conservative use of military force, only in the most dire circumstances in defense of our country and not pre-emptively. Just today a nouveau conservative commented on a Facebook status update I posted about a blog post titled “The Shock Doctrine Push To Gut Social Security And Middle Class,” comparing it to the run-up to Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “The"run up" to the war was as popular 8 years ago as Obama was 3 years ago,” he wrote. Perhaps with his crowd, but it sure wasn’t with mine and millions like us.

• Religious beliefs and practices. Modern-day conservatives—particularly those who profess to be Christian and even more particularly the more ostentatiously Christian—are not the least bit conservative about imposing their religion onto others, into political discourse and into public/policy. They have nery liberal views of how much their religion can be inserted into and influence government, the First Amendment to the Constitution not withstanding.

 Those are just a few areas. More later.