As part of my continuing examination of my extremism – because Janet Napolitano believes that as a conservative pro-life low-tax second-and-tenth-amendment activist, I must be an extremist – let’s look at our culture.
“Culture” is a huge topic, and it’s hard to even define where the left and right diverge, or on what each side actually believes, to say nothing of what their opponents believe.
For example, one of the putative big battles in the “culture war” twenty years ago was the campaign by Tipper Gore, wife of then-future lisping fraud and Vice President Algore, to put warnings on music that had “offensive” lyrics. Was it conservative? Was it liberal?
Perhaps a little bit of both – and who cares? Because while that particular argument, like many, mixed elements of both sides of the aisle – conservatives fretting about the downfall of civilization, liberals about the system that’d make young males write the kind of rap and metal lyrics that’d make them be so antisocial in the first place – it was fairly irrelevant.
Because while there are many facets to what both conservatives and liberals believe what our culture is, and what is should be, it really boils down to two major differences of opinion:
- Conservatives believe that our society is a free association of equals who create a government that governs by consent of the people, and should generally operate within restrictive boundaries – the Tenth Amendment, for a quick example. Liberals believe that society is – I’ve heard an amazing number of liberals use this exact description – a parent, riding herd on his/her unruly or needy children, trying to help them grow up to be good citizens, kissing their owwies and putting them in time-out and keeping them out of trouble until they’re ready to take over for themselves.
- Conservatives believe that while mankind is deeply imperfect and utterly imperfectible, the concept of the United States is in and of itself one of immense nobility; it is a “shining city on a hill”, a place where government is a useful subordinate to the nobility of the individual. It’s an ideal toward which most of the world – the sane part – aspires. Liberals tend to believe that our society is perfectible, through the graces of a benevolent government rather than any intrinsic virtue in the American system.
Now, the battle is usually expressed through an endless series of group ad homina; liberals slur “Tenthers” as advocates of slavery; conservatives see liberals as hive creatures, Borg with no identity outside the larger organism.
At any rate – I believe that America works best when we not only do see ourselves as a free association of equals, but act like it. And when government limits itself, rather than you or me.
Yep. I’m a radical!
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