AN HONEST CONSERVATIVE
CBS News aired a brief interview with a Marine Colonel who is also a conservative Christian recently. What he says about the Bush Administration is eye-opening. Have a look:
HERE
I have many problems with conservative doctrine, problems I could talk all day about as you know. But I have also always felt that conservatism, at its most honest and honorable, does originate from a plausible world-view.
The best conservative argument, boiled all the way down, goes someting like this: 1) The world is cruel and chaotic by its nature. 2) Human beings are sinners (or if you want the secular version, human beings are hopelessly flawed animals constantly prone to mistakes in judgement and fits of cruelty toward each other). 3) The only way to combat this is to batten down the hatches: organize yourself in a small traditional family unit, in a small manageable community, with a clearly defined set of laws backed by tradition, habit and if necessary, well-reasoned force. 4) Once you've got everything manageable, you can focus on your own personal righteousness and be witness to the benefits of that righteousness.
I disagree strongly with this world-view for a number of reasons I won't get into now (gotta go pick up the kids at school in a minute) but its certainly not ridiculous and I think many of the people whose beliefs bascially conform to what I've sketched out here don't have a malicious bone in their body.
As the Marine Colonel in the video I've linked to here reminds us, there is nothing the least bit conservative about the Iraq War: making boneheaded, improvised, wing-and-a-prayer policy decisions based only on a few human beings' complete and total conviction about their own righteousness and infallibility; blowing $300 Billion on the adventure and justifying it by utopian fantasies about the better world on earth you're creating for people you dont know. What in the hell's conservative about that? It seems to me many conservatves are starting to ask this question.
If you are a true conservative, you might think about doing what this Marine Colonel says he'll be doing in November: voting Democratic across the board to deliver a Democratic congress that can stop this administration's madness in its tracks. Once a real conservative emerges again you can always return home.
If you're a liberal but know any conservatives, please pass this along.
HERE
I have many problems with conservative doctrine, problems I could talk all day about as you know. But I have also always felt that conservatism, at its most honest and honorable, does originate from a plausible world-view.
The best conservative argument, boiled all the way down, goes someting like this: 1) The world is cruel and chaotic by its nature. 2) Human beings are sinners (or if you want the secular version, human beings are hopelessly flawed animals constantly prone to mistakes in judgement and fits of cruelty toward each other). 3) The only way to combat this is to batten down the hatches: organize yourself in a small traditional family unit, in a small manageable community, with a clearly defined set of laws backed by tradition, habit and if necessary, well-reasoned force. 4) Once you've got everything manageable, you can focus on your own personal righteousness and be witness to the benefits of that righteousness.
I disagree strongly with this world-view for a number of reasons I won't get into now (gotta go pick up the kids at school in a minute) but its certainly not ridiculous and I think many of the people whose beliefs bascially conform to what I've sketched out here don't have a malicious bone in their body.
As the Marine Colonel in the video I've linked to here reminds us, there is nothing the least bit conservative about the Iraq War: making boneheaded, improvised, wing-and-a-prayer policy decisions based only on a few human beings' complete and total conviction about their own righteousness and infallibility; blowing $300 Billion on the adventure and justifying it by utopian fantasies about the better world on earth you're creating for people you dont know. What in the hell's conservative about that? It seems to me many conservatves are starting to ask this question.
If you are a true conservative, you might think about doing what this Marine Colonel says he'll be doing in November: voting Democratic across the board to deliver a Democratic congress that can stop this administration's madness in its tracks. Once a real conservative emerges again you can always return home.
If you're a liberal but know any conservatives, please pass this along.
posted by Montana at 12:19 AM
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