Is compromise an option, when America’s survival as a free society hangs in the balance?
One characteristic common to both Conservatives and Liberals is that they are both completely convinced of the correctness of their own ideas.
Now to be clear, we are not referring here to those individuals who show no interest or appetite for the world of political ideas – those who manifest the naivete of thinking that political concerns are matters they can take or leave, without meaningful consequences for how they live their daily lives. These are the people who like to refer to themselves as “moderates” or “independents”. In an ideal world, none of us need concern ourselves with abstract political or philosophical theories, or expend precious time and energy studying the details of our own legal, economic and social histories. Be we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world in which people we have never met can gather in a city we have never visited, conduct deliberations in which we are not welcome to participate, and reach conclusions which will determine where we may live, how freely we may travel, how our children must be raised, what work we may do, which employees we must hire, what portion of the fruits of our own labor we will be allowed to keep, and soon perhaps even when we must die. In such a not-so-ideal world, indifference to political matters is inexcusable.
While they may share a common level of commitment to their core principles, the Conservative and Liberal camps could not be further apart in the approaches they take to carrying their beliefs into action.
Conservatives operate from the basic premise that the world is, or at least should be, a fundamentally rational place. Consequently, they approach the task of advancing the Conservative agenda on the assumption that they have a responsibility to develop and articulate reasoned arguments, which lead open minded listeners to rational conclusions. In this respect, conservatism is very much in keeping with the theistic rationalism of the nation’s founders. Conservatives, in accordance with the principles which define conservatism itself, believe that America’s founders were correct in their assertion that each individual, endowed with immeasurable faculties of reason, fortitude and resourcefulness, has not only a right, but a moral obligation to govern himself in all things, and that the proper role of government in a free society is to ensure that each citizen’s opportunity to govern his own affairs is not improperly impeded by the unlawful intrusion of another.
Liberals do not see the world in quite this same way. They envision a world that is neither reasonable, nor rational, nor inhabited by a populace of functionally reasoning individuals, amenable to the suasion of logical argument. Indeed, a central tenet of the modern Liberal view of human nature, is that an incredibly small percentage of the population is possessed of the intellect or discipline necessary to formulate a meaningful opinion of how the world ought to be. This very stratified view of humanity is at the core of the modern Liberal instinct for collectivist government in all its forms. Communism, socialism and fascism, all movements which emerged from the ideological left, each in its own way reflects the same core assumption: that most people are not capable of governing themselves, and must, therefore, be controlled and manipulated for their own benefit and for the benefit of society as a whole.
The notion that ends always justify means is absolutely endemic to the process of Liberal activism. Achieving the goal of moving “the People” to a point that is deemed better for them and for the country is considered equally legitimate, whether the means of arriving at that point are honest or dishonest. The important thing is that you get them there, and the means become incidental. The Liberal politician or policymaker will tell the voters and the general public whatever they need to hear to act as they are expected to act, or to stand passively aside, while others act in their name. Fidelity to the truth will never stand in the way of a compelling story the voters might be convinced to swallow. Legal restrictions will never stand in the way of an electoral victory, honestly or dishonestly obtained. For this purpose, no tactic is morally out of bounds. District gerrymandering; voter intimidation at polling places; misappropriation of taxpayer funds; solicitation of illegal campaign contributions; voter registration fraud; ballot tampering; judicial activism, bordering on judicial misconduct; and suppression of dissenting opinions in print, over the airwaves, on the internet and in our public spaces — all are deemed appropriate means to the “right” end, and all were employed extensively by Liberals in the last election cycle.
Let us be clear about the purpose of this article. The point here is not to bemoan the fact that one side tends to be honest while the other habitually shades the truth and abuses the system. It is not to, once again, illustrate the obvious challenges of delivering an unadulterated message through the willful distortions and propagandistic fervor of established media outlets, which simultaneously offer shameless promotion and fawning protection to the opposition. None of that matters if such complaining is used as a ready excuse for allowing tyranny to prevail. One cannot withdraw from the contest on the excuse that the referee has sided with the opposition. Surrender is not an option, when America’s survival as a free society hangs in the balance. The purpose of this argument is to understand how Conservatives have failed to champion their ideas in this environment, and suggest more effective strategies moving forward. What follows are three broad suggestions, but opportunities for their implementation are manifold.
- Get off your knees — Maintaining enlightened civility in the public forum is a laudable goal, but when that impulse descends into an obsequious deference to individuals and ideas that are intellectually and morally inferior, it is a cowardly act of political, ideological and cultural surrender. Like a dog who licks an abusive master’s hand in the hopes of avoiding an unjust beating, Conservatives who grovel and pander to their inferiors should expect neither respect or affection in return. Let us dispense with the delusion that we face a philosophical dispute among congenial fellow citizens. Liberal politicians, their most rabid supporters and their embedded media allies do not just disagree with you, they despise you. They despise all the aspects of American history, philosophy and culture you most fervently cherish. They not only seek to defeat you today, they intend to exterminate any hope that people who believe the way you do will infect the thinking of even a small percentage of the population in the future. To quote recently departed “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones, in describing Republicans for an audience in Berkeley, California, “They’re a**holes!” Far from shocking the sensibilities of his partisan audience, this witty rejoinder was instantly met with an outburst of laughter and applause. Make no mistake, their opinion of you never gets any more sophisticated or any less hateful. Throw aside the Stockholm Syndrome that keeps you searching for ways to earn their friendship, and pick up the gauntlet they have thrown down. Act decorously, but act! Conservatives may not instinctively look for a fight, but running from this one is a certain recipe for extinction.
- Stand for something — Stand on the principles historically proven to make America a strong, prosperous and just nation. Stop cowering behind the empty platitudes and calls for consensus favored by beltway consultants and career politicians. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once said, “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” The insane rush towards unrestrained statism now gripping America can only be reversed by individuals who believe in our founding principles, and are willing to fight for them rather than apologize for them. Don’t run from them — articulate them, defend them and adhere to them. Countless Republican political hacks, calling themselves Conservatives, have counseled that candidates must appear more Liberal to have any chance of election. Operating on this false premise, election after election has seen milksop, mealy-mouthed “centrist” Republican candidates go down to defeat. It seems that, given a choice between a Democrat and a Republicrat, voters prefer the obvious villain over the calculating fraud — every time. Contrary to disastrous conventional wisdom, voters are not looking for compromisers, willing to jettison all convictions in the interest of shoveling legislation, any legislation, out the door. Voters are looking for candidates and elected officials who declare their beliefs, without evasion or equivocation; and then live their beliefs, without surrender or opportunism.
- Identify opposition propagandists — Identify main stream media personalities, who consistently engage in distortion and deceit, and call them out — name by name, point for point, day after day. These people the are Kool-Aid drinking, standard bearing, propaganda apparatchiks of the Democratic National Committee. In a nation which values freedom of the press, they are at liberty to publish fiction as fact, if that is what their audiences prefer to ingest, but you have no obligation to help them close the deal on the snake oil they’re selling. Stop lending them the unwarranted credibility of treating them like legitimate journalists. There are certainly tireless and dedicated independent critics of “mainstream” media bias, notably the Media Resource Center and Accuracy in Media, but how much more effective would it be if elected officials themselves began routinely punctuating public appearances with good natured, light-hearted comments like, “I’m glad to have the chance to offer the truth behind that whopper Katie Couric told the other day.” To be sure, if you’re going to call someone else a liar, you’d better have unvarnished facts at your fingertips. But how difficult is that, when the distortions these people routinely practice are blatantly obvious to all but the most closed-minded partisan, once they are dragged out into the light of day? If this sounds too peevish or picayune to serve as an effective stratagem, consider that Barack Obama demonized Rush Limbaugh, to great effect, with nothing more than generalized character assassination, in complete absence of fact. How much more compellingly can Conservatives seize the initiative, by illustrating one lie at a time, each in its sleaziest detail. Remember, these are the same media outlets who have consistently denigrated Fox News for telling the truth. By what rationale should questions of their integrity be placed off limits? Some will decry the necessity of stooping to such crass measures to further a political cause, but such hand wringing is ironically reminiscent of His Majesty’s generals railing at American Colonists for their unseemly refusal to stand on open ground and fight like gentlemen.
None of this suggests that Conservatives resort to the sort of legally questionable and morally bankrupt “political action” that has become the bread and butter of the American Left. However, if Conservatives continue to practice the sort of political pacifism which has characterized their decline in recent decades, they invite not only short-term political losses for their party and their movement, but the permanent loss of individual liberties for all Americans.
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.King Henry V Act 4. Scene III
