"Son of a gun!"
david henman said:
...thanks, bill. i agree that liberal policies too often end up as feel good legislations.
although i despise what conservative politics has become, especially in the USA where its all moral hypocrisy and hate and enemies and evil, i am finding more and more that i like the essence of conservative politics, IF they were turned upside down. in other words, sure, lets make it every man for himself, survival of the fittest, but ONLY after we have levelled the playing field and provided free education and health care for every individual.
i also believe in individual accountability: YOU make a mess, YOU clean it up. you father a child, that child is your responsibility in every aspect until it is of legal age and self supporting. you, as a civil servant, squander tax dollars on a carribean vacation, you pay back every penny. you steal a car and cause $100,000 damages, that debt follows you to your grave and then gets passed on to your children. you run a stop sign and t-bone a car killing family members, you are CRIMINALLY responsible.
etc...
-dh
Geez louise, David! You're 90% a Libertarian!
I agree with you about the corruption of the American conservative movement. Sadly, when conservative politicians down there were looking for a power base that was up for grabs they decided to appeal to the religious right and the social "conservatives". These are people who believe that first of all they are the "silent majority" and second that they have not just a right but an obligation to pass laws and hire cops to force people to live as the social "conservatives" feel is proper.
This is just about as bad as many liberals who believe that people should have the freedom to do whatever they wish with their lives - as long as it's a choice of the liberal trendy persuasion. It's like when there was all that controversy about some cartoons that offended radical muslims. By our society's standards this was a freedom of speech issue. We saw many liberal talking heads on the telly who said that of course we had freedom of speech but if it might offend someone we should not be allowed to express it! So essentially you have freedom of speech as long as everyone approves...
I guess there's a streak of human nature that just loves to tell their neighbour what to do. Ever spend some time with a militant anti-smoker? Or a true "bible thumper"? Given a chance, these types will cheerfully enact lifestyle laws for "your own good".
You describe civic responsibility, but sadly today we have a situation where NO ONE is ever responsible. It's society's fault, our ancestors' fault, bad upbringing (but the specific parents themselves are NOT to blame!) - always someone else but never YOU!
There's an old story about a pair of twin boys who had an abusive, alcoholic father. One boy grew up just the same and defended himself by saying "With a father like mine what would you expect?"
His brother took the straight and narrow and became a successful citizen and great neighbour. When asked why he gave the same reason as his brother!
It's not what life deals us so much as what we choose to make of it. I go livid when I hear someone blame crime on poverty. My folks were classed as poor and so were many of the kids I went to school with but we never even considered becoming criminals! It's really a very patronizing attitude, when you think about it. If you're poor then it's expected you'll turn out to be a crook...
Classic conservativism would never suggest every man for himself, David! Rather, a conservative would believe that everyone has a responsibility to his society. You might have heard stories about how young men from the upper crust in Britain when WWII broke out immediately signed up in droves to the military, especially as pilots even when there were such tremendous losses. Or captains of industry who took on government contracts at a salary of $1 a day. This really happened! It was a very conservative attitude that if your country had been very good to you then you owed it even your very life in return. We seem to have lost that on this side of the pond when rich American parents like Bill Clinton's father could keep them out of the draft and let all the poor kids stand in the line of fire.
If anyone's interested I could come up with a few quotations defining classic liberalism, conservativism and socialism but it could get rather long and I'm bad enough at being long-winded. The important thing is that we really shouldn't label people with some cartoon political misconception of what they believe in. In academic debating circles it's called the "straw man" technique, where you build your opponent into a straw man that YOU define for his beliefs, making them extreme enough that he looks ridiculous. Like saying that Harper would do anything Bush asked of him. Harper has not done any such thing or is likely to. He HAS agreed with Bush on some issues and disagreed on others. Any Prime Minister of Canada is well aware that he is responsible for the well-being of Canada first and foremost. By building him into a straw man his political opponents can attract supporters with smartass humour or fears of betrayal, without ever having to take a logical position on an issue. They just have to say "Everyone knows a conservative will do this" or "Everyone knows a socialist will do that"...it's enough to make one cry.
I miss the Rhinoceros Party...