Conservatives versus Liberals...

Every day on the message board and on the blogs we see the us versus them mentality played out. The accusations that liberals are so full of hate usually followed with hatred expressed about liberals. Then the equally inane insults back at conservatives. "All" liberals are this "All" conservatives are that. So let's take a look at something interesting.

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

Let's look at the first one and see what has happened recently in the news. We have a Whitehouse where not the Jeff Gannon story happened but prior incidents of this administration using "covert propoganda" (the GAO's own term) which is illegal.

Let's look at the second one, the Patriot Act can't be viewed as creating equality or stopping prejudice. Deception? Well we've had our fair share of that as well.

So why do so many seem to not see the "big" picture?

This article is long but it's well worth reading, it states exactly why conservatism has survived and what we as liberals need to do if we really do want to bring about change. One of my favorite suggestions and one we can easily do, each of us....

* Stop surrendering powerful words

Many liberals abandon any word that conservatives start using. That means, since conservatives systematically lay claim to every word of the English language, that liberals have been systematically surrendering powerful words such as family, nation, truth, science, tradition, and religion. This has made it increasingly difficult for liberals to explain what they believe. There is no alternative: if conseratives have been twisting a powerful word, then you have to explain in concise American English what the word really means and how the conservatives have distorted it. Contest the signifiers. Use the words.

So let's use the words....and let's make changes happen....

http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html