Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Conservatism As Disease

Following is an excerpt from a post outlining the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals. It is worth a read for sure.

Quoted from http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2008/02/bush-is-symptom-conservatism-is-disease.html:

Last Left Turn Before Hooterville: Bush is the Symptom - Conservatism is the Disease

...Conservatives revere and revel in the label 'conservative' in a way that liberals ceased to do in the sixties, when conservatives began blaming liberalism for every evil under the sun. Before that, the majority of Americans self-identified as liberals; liberalism represented the things in society that Americans valued - equality, diversity, making sure that everyone had a chance at the "American Dream". The economic programs that gave us a middle class - strong unions, the GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare - are liberal programs. Liberals believe that you can't sacrifice people so that corporations can grow fat. Liberals know that the 'trickle down theory' is, as Dubya's father once rightly said, 'voodoo economics', and that the only boats that a 'rising tide lifts' are yachts. Liberals believe that we as a nation have a responsibility, not for, but to all of our citizens (there's a difference) and that government is not the enemy, but 'We the People'. It's not 'them', it's 'us'. But when conservatives, backed by the limitless coffers of Big Business Republican think-tanks who saw their vision of conservative financial and social dominance slipping away, decided to attack liberalism as the symbol of all that's wrong with America, liberals did not challenge this assertion and it became part of the national narrative without liberals quite knowing what happened...

1 comment:

Alicia Morgan said...

Bob - thanks so much for the link. I hope that we can start discussing this before the election, so that people can look at more than the corporate/fundamentalist view when they think about what's best for our country.