Am I Becoming a Conservative?

A drunken politician once opined, "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - Winston Churchill

Almost all the people that I know read this blog are firmly liberal by American standards, with at least one large, hairy exception.  We believe in lots of human rights, supporting the poor, trying not to blow people up, and generally letting people do what they want as long as it doesn't involve being hateful or violent.  This description would confuse the righter rights in the USA who would describe liberals as trying to control everyone, creating a lazy underclass with their tax dollars and hating people.  I'm going to go with my description.

While I don't believe in rights as anything more than an idea I have always liked the idea of some of them, but I don't believe in some of the more recent expansions of rights.  I think a decent society makes sure that everyone has food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, free speech and some system preventing the government arbitrarily locking you up.  I don't think that people have the right to dignity, to squat on private property, to a job, to be free of being insulted, to own things for efficiently killing other people.  I think I have been pretty consistent through my life with these ideals.  I think that makes me a luke-warm liberal in ideology.


As an aside, while I was becoming a US citizen there was a question asking, "What is the most important right in the constitution?"  The official answer was "the right to vote" but that seems ridiculous to me as freedom from being taken by the government and shoved into a concentration camp seems far more important.

With the years of GW Bush as president the people I know have generally become much more militantly political.  This fits the overall climate in the USA where shrill shrieking in outraged horror seems to be the primary form of political discourse.  While my ideology has not changed I find myself spending much of my time in such conversations trying to point out that conservatives are not necessarily crazy, evil people and that their positions are generally self-consistent.  I also am prone to pointing out that a fair number of liberal demands/ideals/methods are simply not practical or aren't really reasonable when considering their own ideals.

In practice this means that I point out things such as wishing to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible so that you can choose what to do and who to help with your own money isn't nuts.  Not wanting to pay for people to sit around doing nothing is reasonable.  Being outraged that the owner of Chik-Fil-A supports anti-gay organizations but not being outraged that someone else supports Planned Parenthood is inconsistent, either there is free speech or there isn't.  Finally I have said that there is a process in the USA for enacting change (voting) and that no matter how much you want it, if there are a greater number of those who think you are wrong it ain't gonna happen (and if you think it still should then you don't believe in democracy).


Now, (and it is sad indictment of the times that I need to say this, and it usually isn't listened to) I believe in lots of taxes, a very robust welfare state, that being against gay rights is primitive and idiotic, that women should have access to health care, and that the financial system needs a major overhaul to be fairer (and more efficient).  The previous paragraph does not negate this one, and vice versa.  


Overall I think my ideals have not changed.  I still want peace, safety, and freedom.  However, my understanding of the real world has altered what I think should be done and how I think about people.  

I think the general public are generally ignorant and stupid, and this is true at a higher level than most people imagine.  There are many, many people with college degrees and good jobs who don't understand basic economics, or science.  I think that both people on the left and right are very often knee-jerk outraged bigots.  For every "militant gays are trying to force their lifestyle on me because they hate what made America great" there's a "those ignorant, red-neck, southern racists don't even know they are being brainwashed into voting for those doing them the most harm!"


Despite thinking people are ignorant and stupid I support democracy which means that you have to accept that often things are going to happen that you detest.  If you want things to be different then get up off your arse and change it.  If you can't change it, tough.


I don't think corporations are inherently evil, or even grasping for material gain is evil.  Corporations sometimes do evil things but they are also the source of most of the technology that has improved things for most people around the world.  Monsato may attempt to stop regulation on their products, try to circumvent the law and try to produce monopolies, but they also produce herbicides and genetically modified crops that greatly increase production helping to stop millions starve around the world.  It is the role of government to regulate and the role of corporations to innovate, and distribute.  This tension is the same concept as a plaintiff and a defendant in a trial.


Am I becoming a conservative?  No, but I am becoming much more prone to understanding some conservative positions and noticing the sometime idiocy of liberals.