Danalog the Vengeful Programmer wrote:
What's the Conservative view on Iraq then? Since we're going in and radically changing the status quo in another country, supposedly for their benefit and for our own, would that be a Liberal movement?
The issues apply in terms of government "power", and to what extend you are giving that government more. You also have to do some historical studies in terms of the "responsiblities" of a government. Maintaining a set of laws, borders, securing those borders (ie: military), foreign affairs, and enforcing foreign affairs (ie: military), are all very basic and accepted "powers" of a government.
Feeding the hungry is *not* a normal power of the government. Public education is not a normal power of the government. Creating after school programs for inner city kids is not a normal power of the government. Adjusting for "unfair" wage differences is not a normal power of the government.
You can't mix up foreign and domestic issues. There're totally different. A government is *supposed* to represent the people's interests abroad. It's *not* suppoosed to do so on it's own people. Heck. That's why we have laws against using the military as a police force (rules which have slowly been eroded, but not by conservatives). It's one of the reasons that the often stated argument: "Why are we spending money helping people in Iraq, when there are people who need help here", is such a laughable argument. The government is not supposed to help people at home. That's the job of the people themselves. The government is supposed to help them by securing their borders so that the people can find their own ways to succeed.
And that, in a nutshell is another key difference between conservative and liberal thought. Liberals believe that the government should help the people by providing them with things (programs, money, whatever) so they can succeed. Conservatives believe that the government best helps the people by not entangling itself in their affairs.
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Also, that liberal vs conservative thing makes your typical reactionary - moderate - progressive (too tired to think up the real words, but you know what I mean, right?) seem to be liberal - conservative - liberal, since the main goal of both ends is to radically change things to the way they like them, the 'right' side to smush everything back to the 'good old days', either religiously, morally, war-illy, or whatever, and the 'left' side wants to change everything to be more, er, progressive or whatever, legalizing gay marriage, not going around randomly attacking countries, and going gung-ho with welfare that I don't personally agree with.
Well. Reactionary can still exist. The problem here is that the Religious Right (or at least some parts of it) aren't being very honest about what the "good old days" were. In the last century, religion has gained ground, not lost it. The RR likes to claim that it's reacting to a secular movement by the "evil" Liberals, but the reality is probably more of a push and shove match between two Liberal groups who each want to pull the country in a different direction. Prior to the late 1800s, Religious symbols were rare in the public world. We started adding them after the civil war to try to "mend" the country. In the 1950s, we changed the US motto from "e pluribus unum" (out of many, one; a statement of the unity of the states), to "IN GOD WE TRUST", placing that on every bill printed from that time forward. Within a year of that change, we also slipped the phrase "under God", into out pledge.
These were "new" changes. They were not reactionary. They were Liberal. Pure and simple. The problem is that the common perception in this country (and elsewhere) is that Liberal means secular to some extent (I imagine most of that perception comes from Europe where they were moving from monarchies sustained by the religious "right of kings" to more secular republics, so liberal always meant a move from religious empowered rule). In the US though, we *never* had a concept that executive power came about as a right passed from a deity. Thus, trying to add that back in becomes a Liberal movement, not a Reactionary one. (I'm having a flashback to Holy Grail right now... ;) ).
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But both are advoctating sudden, sweeping social change based on federal laws forcing a situation.
Yeah. Both really are Liberal. It's just confused though because the Liberals in the Democratic party want to define Liberal as "secular" and by assumption therefore "rational". And the Religious Right definately would rather be called reactionary then Liberal (both because they don't want to be associated with the "other side" *and* because reactionary allows them to imply that they are just making things like they used to be). It's a convenient lie for both sides. It's the same lie you'll hear about the degree of power the RR has in the Republican party. To hear Democrats say it, the RR controls the republican party (heck. Some on this board will say that as well). And of course, if you ask someone in the RR, they'll say the same thing. The Dems want people to believe that because it allows them to scare moderates to their side. The RR wants people to believe that because it makes them feel that they have more control and power then they really do (and they're too stupid usually to realize that this hurts them). Meanwhile, the other 75%+ of the Republican party, which is *not* part of the Religious Right, just kinda sits back quietly allowing the vocal RR to take all the hits, while we go about being convervatives.
Remember. Conservative is about maintaining status quo (as much as possible anyway). If you've got two big "sides" arguing about stuff, then neither is going to make huge headway, are they? Argument and debate is always in the favor of the conservative. It means that change is occuring slowly, and hopefully as a result of significant discussion. When conservatives start to get worried is when everyone agrees on something. Such mandates, while they may push forward many positive changes, also inevitably end up including some really dangerous changes in domestic law as well. When "the people" agree on something, they're often very willing to give their government too much power in order to get that thing done. Power that they almost always regret giving away once they come to their senses...
At the risk of invoking Godwin's, virtually 100% of all fascist and communist/socialist governments came about as a result of just such "mandates" from the people. That's exactly the kind of thing conservatives don't want. We're about reducing the amount of power the government has over it's own people. Everything else is secondary to that.
