Wednesday, May 24, 2017

The fallacy of conservatism (#3036)

     Think about this. What has conservatism done for you? On it's own, nothing. Now if you think about what both liberal and conservative policies have in common, we can find unity. Both are for free enterprise, although liberal philosophy of free enterprise is a system of checks and balances that look to equalize the effects of free enterprise across the whole of society, instead of just to favor those who have power, like with conservatism. What else do conservative and liberals have in common? Private ownership. Now liberals know that private ownership is a treasured value but it is not the whole of what a democracy can succeed from. While conservatives believe that private ownership is above democratic values and more in line with a survival of the fittest doctrine that holds no such esteem for democracy.
     I tried to be fair here in giving conservatism a foundation that has value but even I could not accomplish that. So it is fair to say that nothing of real value from conservatism is not already part of what liberalism and progressivism offer. Now what else does conservatism trumpet? It is in opposition to change and or innovation. Look at how we as a nation and world are trying to adapt our technologies to climate change but cannot get most republicans to even agree that there is a problem. As to traditional values being a conservative mantra, I give you untold and told scandals by the hundreds with just republican politicians violating oaths of marriage to oaths of allegiances. So no, conservatives do not uphold traditional values unless of course they can be exempt from themselves. Liberals on the other hand believe in tradition as well as evolution of thought and behavior.
     So in the final analysis, it can be easily concluded that conservatism is a subset of liberal progressive thought. A far more crude and unfair model on it's own to be more precise. It is my contention that in reality we are mostly all liberal progressives, it is just that some of us, by degree, are more conservative in our approach and some are more expansive. Either way change and innovation only come about through liberal progressive thinking. Not only that but society benefits on whole because there are safeguards and procedures for applying our talents to all of what we do. Nothing of a societal benefit has ever come from conservatism while everything has advanced our society because it is and was a liberal progressive thought.

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