By: Ben Kepple
I guarantee that the day after the election, Clinton will be making a very sharp Left turn. Many Democrats are inwardly grinning upon realizing this fact (they take your tax money, smile, and disappear), but they've realized that To Make "Progress", Clinton not only has to win, the Democrats have to control Congress too. If they don't win Congress, the Dems thought, they can't implement vast new government programs for the benefit of all. But how to win Congress? The question was a tough one, for the Democrats first had to mask the fact that they a) have no constructive political agenda, b) have no solid plans for confronting the nation's problems, and c) generally hasn't done anything right since the Civil Rights Bill of 1964.
Then, in a sudden burst of clarity, shining through the storm clouds of Left-wing ignorance like a sunbeam, the Democrats Got An Election Gimmick. You can imagine the resulting chaos.
"LEON! Come here, quick!" said the senior staffer to the slow, ponderous bulk that is Leon Panetta,White House Chief of Staff. "We've got this great idea! Let's paint all Republicans as uneducated, intolerant fools who are Christian Coalition members that want to intravenously inject small children with tobacco while forcing them to say the Lord's prayer in schools and brainwashing them to believe in God, the Pledge of Allegiance, Elvis, and the right to own a grenade launcher!"
"BY GOD, THAT'S IT!" cried Leon, jumping out of his chair and running to the kitchenette where George Stephanopoulos was working. "George! WE'RE SAVED! Start those phones working! And put lots of sugar in the Sanka!"
I doubt the plan to Save Liberalism really started like that, but with the way many liberal propagandists are acting, you would think that the Order Of The Day is to paint all Republicans as extremist zealots who are bent on establishing the Unholy Order of Pain and Suffering if they are elected. Conservatives have been described by liberals as evil, ignorant, homophobic, cruel, toothless, and slaves to big business. And this is where you come in.
Don't believe them.
Admittedly, there are conservatives out there who are intolerant, stupid, ignorant, and so on. However, these are traits that are not subject to political affiliation. There are intolerant, stupid, and ignorant liberals as well. Come on. Don't they think we know any better? I'm positive the Left is betting on the fact that most of us (i.e. college students) won't try to get unbiased or right-leaning information.
One reason a good many liberals will whip up popular sentiment is because they don't feel students will try to make an informed decision. The Left isn't encouraging us to support liberalism because they think we care, they're encouraging us to support liberalism because they think we are easily led, mindless, and sponge like when it comes to their propaganda campaigns and lies. Why else the scare tactics? Where are their plans? Where are their numbers? Instead, you're force-fed "Bob Dole. He's Cutting Medicare and Social Security, throwing Widows into the Street. He detests children and cut their AFDC aid while giving TAX BREAKS TO THE RICH. Your collegiate loans will be SLASHED! BURNED! IN TOTAL RUIN!" How stupid do they think we are?
That frame of mind is why the Democrats take you for granted. It's why a liberal politician is only around at election time. Students are smart enough to make an informed decision on their own, and they (hopefully) aren't going to be influenced by a flood of ill-thought out, poorly written opinions or the "Choose And Lose" bus. We're adult human beings, not three year old children. For when you really think about it, what do Democrats have to offer the student population? Nothing.
What? Well, OK, not as such. They do offer more of the same failed government programs, so I suppose they offer that. The problem they face is that no one sane wants an intrusive government running their lives, wasting their tax monies, over-regulating business, and strangling the American worker as it is doing now, thanks to thirty years of failed Democratic policies. No one disputes the fact that a lot of government programs are simply not working. A logical person would note that liberals have instituted and managed most of these failed programs, and scrap the programs as they aren't doing the job. That's just intelligent, not cruel or calculating.
When Calvin Coolidge said that the ideal was "As little government as possible for the lowest possible cost.", he wasn't just whistling Dixie. He knew that the best way to run things was to keep the government uninvolved in personal affairs and private business. Conservatives realize that the government that governs best is the government that governs least (although what constitutes least produces many an argument.)
Liberals are correct in pointing out that many social conservatives do want to legislate morality. However, the prudent conservative will realize that attempting to legislate morality was tried once before, during the Progressive Era, and that failed miserably. Social legislation is impractical due to mainly to the fact that the moral climate in this country has changed, and it is futile to hope for a giant spontaneous leap back to 1954 when Things Were Apparently Spiffy. Machiavelli wrote that those who pine for those good old days tend to forget the problems that went with them, and I believe that this insistence on morality legislation is similar -- and the one big failing of social conservatism. If one is a social conservative, he should do his best to live his life and/or to raise his family in the way he chooses, not attempt to interfere with the lives of others. But regardless of the state of social conservatism, it does not merit the kind of demonisation currently manifested by the Left. For that matter, a majority of Republicans are not even social conservatives. Two thirds of the Party consists of moderates, economic conservatives, libertarians, and even a few liberals. Good heavens, a full half of the Republican Party is pro-choice. Isn't that at least some sign that "all conservatives" are not made up of these liberal stereotypes of demonic social conservatives with little schooling and less rationale for their arguments?
It is only logical that the main reason Democrats are throwing up this smoke screen, this sham of the stereotypical conservative, is to scare students into thinking that if they support conservative principles some of these horrible things they claim will happen will actually come about. And of course, the fact that liberals are using the scare tactics shows that they are worried that if the voters actually find out conservative principles are different, unscary, and actually work, the voters will naturally shift rightward.
So far this term the liberal response to conservative ideas has been to either criticize them repeatedly, or to implement them and feebly attempt to take credit for the results later. Where are all the liberal plans and solutions? They're on the ash heap of history, that's where. If liberals had workable ideas and solutions, they would have brought them forth by now. They've had thirty years. But they have nothing. I've got a challenge for the Left out there: instead of bashing the Right with your childish barbs, incessant criticism, and pathetic scare tactics, why not actually try to form solutions? This campus has hundreds of people who constantly bash conservatives yet cannot form solutions. Why not?
The major reason is that most of the proposed solutions have been tried, have failed, and are waiting to be discarded. History has proven that many institutions and programs favored by liberals work only on paper, and to be sure, some had genuinely good intentions. But as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. To continue down that road would be an extremely poor decision, not only for ourselves, but also for our children. But the right road lies before us. For being a conservative is not about intolerance, it is not about ignorance, and it is not about stereotypes and lies. It is about about common sense and personal responsibility, and about practicality and logic. Compassion, love, freedom, and caring are conservative values too. Unfortunately, there are some who would have you think otherwise. They have forgotten that partisan politics is not the determining factor in whether one is a good and upstanding person. MR