Sunday, December 12, 2004

What if America was a Conservative Nation?

Perusing the Liberal Left blogs and miscellaneous political forums one notices a striking inability of many on the left to understand that the US (like the rest of the West) is socialist at its core. Yet, recently I read a post where a Leftist was attempting to convince the rest of the readership that "US politics are just shades of right wing conservatism". This, of course, is an absurd assertion on it's face. The U.S. is demonstrably a moderate socialist state.

True, it is more conservative than the rest of the Western nations of the world but being on the right side of the left side of center is still LEFT. Like the frog put in a pot of cold water while the heat is turned up until the frog boils to death, most people have just gotten used to our liberal politics to the point that moderate politics appear right-wing.

If US politics were just shades of right wing conservatism here is what I think we might look like:

1. Law abiding citizens would be free to defend themselves with a gun without restriction.
2. Children would be free to be born without risk of being murdered.
3. There would be no income or property tax.
4. People would be free to send their child to a school of their choice (on their own dime of course but they wouldn't be paying property taxes so they could afford paying their own way).
5. Universities would hire conservative professors.
6. CBS, ABC, the NYT, NBC, and CNN would be to the right of Fox News and would have huge audiences as a result.
7. The U.S. would be ardently pro-Israel with no pretense about "roadmaps" or negotiating with the PLO.
8. We would have nailed UBL during the 90s rather than passing on nabbing him 13 different times.
9. Schools would teach Design Science side-by-side with other theories on origins.
10. Children would be free to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public.
11. The rule of law would trump personal judicial philosophies.
12. Ex-California governor, Gray Davis would be in jail for massive corruption (of course, in a conservative America he would never have been elected in the first place).
13. Clinton would have not only been impeached but removed from office, tried as a rapist, and, if convicted, sent to jail (of course, in a conservative America he would never have been elected in the first place).
14. You could say "Merry Christmas" in any venue you wanted to without being censured.
15. A Republican president would not be pushing a liberal agenda (like increasing federal education budgets, prescription drug benefits, lax immigration policy, etc).
16. There would be no such thing as welfare (for individuals or corporations).
17. Individuals would gladly rise to the challenge of meeting the needs of the poor through private charitable giving.
18. Religious symbols (of every religion) would be allowed on state property.
19. Judges would take a strict constructionist view of the Constitution.
20. No one would pay attention to Janeane Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts, Mike Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Ed Harris, Richard Gere, Woody Harrelson, Ed Norton, David Clennon, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jessica Lange, Woody Allen, Johnny Depp, Kate Hudson, Harrison Ford, Dixie Chicks, Barbra Streisand, Eddie Vedder, Madonna Ciccone, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Stipe, Chris Martin, Chrissy Hynde, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Neil Young, Bono, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, Howard Dean, Paul Begala, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Ken Livingstone, Henry Waxman, Bob Graham, Janet Reno, Patrick Kennedy, Charlie Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee, Fritz Hollings, Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Gray Davis, Hans Blix, Ashleigh Banfield, Norman Mailer, Mike Tyson, Bill Moyers, Ted Turner, Martha Stewart, or Jesse Jackson (but they would still be free to be idiots).

If these 20 points were true about America then I would agree that American politics were conservative. This is not to say that the populace is not conservative for a look at the county by county Presidential election map supports that. But inacted policy is a different thing altogether and, in my mind, that is what counts.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have you looked at the stats of ppl who keep guns for self defence, and the number of shootings that occur with these guns in self defence over the number of shootings that occur as careless accidents!

It seems to me that guns aren't designed for 'law abiding citizens to defend themselves with', guns are designed for experienced killers to kill with.

1/4/05, 1:26 AM  

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