Conservatism Basics

***Originally posted on 3/18/08***

A trio of writers at Townhall lay out some great examples of the differences between conservatism and liberalism. Key excerpts are below.

The High Cost of a Free Lunch by Burt Prelutsky

Prelutsky traces most of today's ills back to the Democrat hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Though FDR is widely credited with bringing America out of the Great Depression, his policies were very socialistic and actually helped prolong the recovery while dumping loads of power into the hands of government:

The end result of his 12 years in the White House is a hodge-podge of Washington bureaucracies and an economy that finds the federal government being far and away the single largest employer in the U.S. Couple that with his personal fondness for Joseph Stalin, his filling his administration and the State Department with like-minded idiots, and you have a perfect blueprint for disaster. For as Thomas Jefferson recognized, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."

As the result of FDR's policies, we now have millions of Americans (and illegal aliens) who expect the federal government to provide everything for them, including guaranteeing their own home mortgages and health insurance. Prelutsky questions if these people understand that the government doesn't magically make money, but rather that it takes money from taxpayers like you and me and re-distributes it. He suggests that "it probably makes no difference to them, for, as some cynic once observed, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, don't expect Paul to object too strenuously." The federal government spends over $10 billion on 'free' breakfasts and lunches for millions of school children each year. Prelutsky asks the pointed question:

And what I, as a concerned citizen, would like to know is why they're forcing the parents to be responsible for putting dinner on the table. Okay, I admit I'm joshing. But how long will it be before the leftists demand to know why the feds are shucking their obvious responsibility just because the sun has gone down? And just how long before FDR's heirs in Washington launch their own version of the New Deal called Three Square Meals?

His point is well taken. Where will the entitlement stop? Congress has proposed all manner of gifts for almost everything, including retiring, going to school, dropping out of school, food stamps, having babies, not working... The list is endless. Republicans are guilty of it to some degree, but the worst offenders by far are the current crop of Democrats. This is the entitlement generation, and they are quite literally being bought by those who promise them the most benefit despite not being able to pay for it...without taking away YOUR money first.


The Hidden Cost of Good Ideas by David Strom
Strom apparently has a bit of a personal grudge against Daylight Saving Time, but he uses this example to illustrate the negative unintended consequences of too much government meddling in our daily lives. The premise of DST was to save energy during WWI, but no one actually bothered to do the math and figure out if it actually would accomplish that objective. If anything, DST causes more problems than it eliminates:

- Daylight savings time likely increases energy use, despite the fact that Americans use somewhat less lighting than without it. It turns out that heating and air conditioning usage goes up - Billions of dollars were spent by individuals and companies change the DST rules in computer programs when Congress decided to tweak the rules, creating a mini-Y2K problem - Americans spend, conservatively, about $1.7 billion in time wasted changing their clocks and watches to reflect the springing forward and falling back each year - DST causes deaths, as more pedestrians are hit in the fall after the return to standard time, and more car accidents happen due to tired drivers in the spring

While Strom argues that DST should be eliminated, he also makes the broader point that "[t]he law of unintended consequences makes it unlikely that the good anticipated will come about, and ensure that all sorts of bad things not anticipated will come to pass. The world is imperfect, as are we. But with few exceptions it is better to let people muddle about in relative freedom than to try to socially engineer them into some preconceived and probably impossible better world." You can apply this to any number of liberal notions of progress, but a good rule of thumb is that more government intervention is always bad. Just think about it: when you think of the government running anything, don't you automatically assume it will take longer and cost more than if private organizations did that same thing? Our government has a way of bankrupting or red-lining every monetary program it's touched, from Social Security to the overall budget of the largest economy in the history of the world. Do we really want to give them more control? Take, for instance, the topic I blogged about a couple months ago, where a new law is being considered in California that would require state control of homeowners' thermostats. Seriously?? Why in the world would we want to let some nameless, faceless bureaucracy that can't even effectively manage a DMV line control the temperature in our own homes? The government is way, way, way too big, and we need to start actively trimming it back.


Why I am a Conservative by John Hawkins
This is a great piece that illustrates the mindset of conservatism. I think that most people prefer to live as a conservative, even if they don't believe they are one in a political sense. Hawkins lists a number of the reasons that prompted him to adopt conservatism rather than liberalism - see if you agree with any of these statements:

* I don't think some politician in Washington who has never held a job outside of politics in his entire life, has a better handle on what to do with my money than I do. * I don't resent wealthy people. To the contrary, I want to become one of them one day. * Government policies should be based on whether they work or not and whether they are constitutional, not on whether they make the people advocating them feel "nice" or "mean." * I am a citizen of the United States, not a citizen of the world. As such, my loyalty will always belong to this country and its people, not to any other nation, group of nations, or any sort of world governing body. * I believe women and men are different, should be treated differently, and are not interchangeable. There are jobs women tend to be better at than men and vice-versa. There are ways a man behaves that women shouldn't behave in and vice-versa. * It isn't the job of the federal government to make us successful; it's the job of the federal government to create an environment that allows us to make ourselves successful. * The market and private industry almost always do a better job of allocating resources than the federal government could ever hope to do. * Morals do matter. "If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." If that ever happens, it would be a tragedy not just for us and our children, but for the whole world. * Our tax rate is too high as it is and if it's not producing enough revenue for Washington, D.C. then they should start trying to live within their means instead of asking us to pony up more money. * I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. * There is a meaningful difference between tolerating behavior and deeming it to be acceptable or good. * If we lose our freedom in this country, it won't be because of a foreign invader; it'll be because our own government took it away from us a bit at a time with one law after another designed to "help" us.

There are many more in the article. I would imagine that you probably agree with most of them, don't you? Now, for those of you who think of yourselves as liberal (whether you're a Rep or a Dem), your agreement shows that you may actually be a lot less liberal than you think. These statements come back to the fundamental philosophical question of who knows better and should have the power: the state or the individual? Conservatism says the individual can best use his or her resources, manage his or her family, and find financial success; liberalism says the state should do those things. Conservatism says the journey is as important as the endpoint; liberalism says the end justifies the means. Conservatism says life, freedom, and responsibility should take precedent over stifling regulations and trifling legal wrangling; liberalism does not.

These philosophies color every aspect of our lives. I think that if most people stop and think about it, they'll agree that conservatism is the way they prefer to live, even if they don't want to admit it. Those who don't are probably the same people who FDR ensnared with his entitlement mentality. Someone needs to free them from their self-imposed, self-limiting bondage to entitlement, and conservatives can do that.

There's my two cents.