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A Few Good Problems With Conservative Values
By Curt Day (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Curt Day - Writer Conservatives pride themselves on being the vanguard for
what is great about America:
its values and liberties. Problems, however, arise when one examines both
conservative values and the methods they use to defend them. Perhaps a closer
inspection of both their values and methods is in order to verify the
Conservatives' self-proclamation. The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author 
First, what is a conservative? How do we distinguish a conservative from a
liberal? A quick summary that I have seen conservatives use before can be found
at click here
Conservative Beliefs
vs Liberal Beliefs
Natural
Law
Positive Law
Established Institutions
Progress
Liberty Over
Equality
Equality Over Liberty
Suspicion of
Power
Benevolent Government
Exceptionalism
Human Perfectability
Individualism
Community.
Of course the above list can be misinterpreted and false views of both
Conservatives and Liberals can be easily arrived at by the reader unless one
delves more deeply into the characteristics with which conservatives love to
adorn themselves.
Natural Law
Belief in Natural Law, according to the above conservative website, is
belief in both the existence of good and evil and that the source of all laws
and liberties are from God or are Platonic, as opposed to originating with man.
Man might recognize these laws, such as in a just government, but the
Conservative believes that these laws exist regardless of man's recognition.
Here conservatives distinguish themselves from liberals by describing liberals
as believing in progressive law. The difference between the two can be seen in
the absence/presence of the term from the Declaration of Independence:
"self-evident." The liberal, according to the conservative website,
believes that rights originate when they are recognized by the government.
Thus, according to many conservatives, liberals believe that man is the source
of rights vs a higher authority. This jeopardizes our rights because just as
rights can easily come through man, they can easily be taken away by man.
However, there might be a fly in the ointment for conservatives here. That fly
consists of the possible differences between the set of laws and values
recognized as coming from a higher authority vs the ones that conservatives
recognize. Here, size matters for the Conservative claim to fame regarding
values. The smaller the difference between conservative values and rights that
are self-evident, the more the conservative can say he/she is walking the talk.
However, the bigger the difference between these two sets of values, then the
more the conservative can be seen as accepting a self-aggrandizing delusion.
One can discover the size of this difference as we continue to examine
conservative values.
Established Institutions
The next comparison consists of the Conservative trust in Established
Institutions vs the Liberal pursuit of progress. For conservatives, these
Established Institutions already have name tags. These institutions are the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Anglo-Saxon view of law and government,
church and family. Here, Established Institutions are, without explanation and
justification, identified. Do American conservatives wish to say that
conservatives world wide hold to these institutions or just American
conservatives. And if the latter, are American conservatives the only ones who
cling to the correct institutions while conservatives from other parts of the
world and liberals are wrong? If so, the implications are both obvious and
ominous. The American conservative must not only be distinguished from all other
conservatives, American conservatives must now unite for they are now engaged
in a us vs the world battle for justice.
Here, liberals become an anathema to Conservatives because liberals see
mankind's hope in how well they can tinker with, tweak and even
replace the institutions that have been given from on high.
Here, of course, the Conservative must show how secular institutions, like the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, can be considered as coming from on
high. The problem for the Conservative though is that the only sources
for acceptable institutions are
culturally and even racially defined: the American Christian religion,
documents from the American founding fathers, and Anglo-Saxon tradition. What
is presupposed here is a cultural and even racial superiority. Pointing out the
latter will no doubt produce a defensive reaction. But when established
institutions are identified with an ethnicity, what other conclusions can be
drawn? The Conservative belief in Established Institutions is a self-proclamation
of cultural and ethnic superiority.
Of course, American Christian conservatives will use the Bible as their defense
of Established Institutions. They assume that their recognized Established
secular Institutions are Biblical ones as well. It is at this point that
American Christian Conservatives feel pressured to draw close ties between the
Bible and the work of our nation's founding fathers. The pressure becomes so
great that obvious discrepancies between the two are denied. This pressure also
moves some conservatives to defend unconscionable institutions from the
past such as slavery because such was seemingly endorsed by the Bible.
Liberty
The next Conservative vs Liberal value sound off comes on what to put the most
precedence, liberty or equality. Conservatives believe that, with the exception
of equal rights and opportunity, one must choose between liberty and equality.
To choose equality is to limit freedom.
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