Monday - October 29, 2007

Core Beliefs

From the American Thinker, we have a list of core beliefs of both conservatives and liberals.  Interesting opinions put forth.

I’ve recently read two articles that have as their theme the fact that liberals, while currently riding the anti-War, anti-George Bush juggernaut, are defined by negativity and, in fact, offer no new ideas to replace the doctrines and people they seek to defeat.  In that regard, modern liberalism (or, as liberals have restyled the movement, Progressivism) is a political movement akin to the person who rips down an ugly house, but has no idea how to rebuild a new one, leaving the former residents homeless.  Nevertheless, for all their anti-this and anti-that attitude, Progressives at least have the virtue of offering an ostensibly powerful and well-funded united front to swing voters who are often confused or disinterested.

Conservatives seem to face the opposite problem.  They’re awash in ideas, but can’t seem to cobble together a platform of ideas that appeal to the largest numbers of people.  Instead, they’re like high school cliques, with the Pro-Life crowd holding itself aloof from the Hawks, who, in turn, want nothing to do with the Fair Tax group.  Cliques are great, of course, if you actually belong to one, but to the American voters, looking at these disparate groups that can’t seem to find a common bond, they don’t look like a great bet to win either the White House or Congressional in 2008.

Since I would like to see a Conservative win in 2008, it occurred to me that it would be a useful exercise to examine myriad hot button issues to find core beliefs that will appeal to the greatest number of conservatives.  That is, I wanted to find lowest common denominator beliefs that, I think, still define the way most Americans think.  You can layer on the details later, but I do believe that there are certain conservative ideas underlying most issues that will resonate with the greatest number of voters. 

Obviously, since I’m just one person, I couldn’t undertake this task alone.  I started a post with my idea about Conservative and Progressive beliefs regarding core issues.  I then asked my readers to contribute, which they did, intelligently and vigorously.  I’ve now worked their ideas and mine into this article, and hope to take it to the next step, with contributions from the larger pool of readers available here - or, at least, with a larger group of people thinking about positive, unifying ideas to counter the relentless nihilism that characterizes today’s Progressives.

So, without further explanation or ado, and in no particular order, here’s the list:

He then goes on to compare and contrast the Conservative and Progressive beliefs on a number of topics:

• Immigration
• The Supreme Court
• Abortion
• The Iraq War
• Islamic Terrorism
• Taxes
• Religion
• America
• Government
• Gun Control
• The Nature of Human Beings
• Multiculturalism
• Climate Change

Posted by Drew458     on 10/29/2007 at 02:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Philosophy • Politics •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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