Beyond Hard-Core Conservativism

It's hard to argue that I'm a hard-core conservative, but you can't exactly say I'm pro-liberal either. Modern liberalism is defined by values of anti-Americanism, pro-wastefulness, anti-values, and anti-white racism. This is unfortunate and ought to change. Likewise, when you criticize liberalism with politically incorrect positions, you create shock and the repudiation of others.

We must advocate for a more moral society, one that sees beyond the 'rational' models of today, realizing that there is more to life then just capitalism and measurable dimensions. Science should not define society alone, but it should be considered in a framework of love of mankind and nature as a whole. Likewise, many technologies extend our freedoms but we must work work ensure that such technologies do not hurt ourselves in their ways. Technology on the other hand can provide ways of controlling people and things that are antithetical to a love based society.

Conservative Liberalism

The biggest failure of liberals is their lack of thriftiness. Many liberals regularly ignore the abuses of government that cause resources to be wasted. If we were more conservative in our pursuits we might just have more money to improve our environment and provide more jobs for those in need. Liberals also are too inflexible on their beliefs on the environment, worker rights, and energy generation. The liberal establishment has failed to give President Bush the respect it deserves for the development of bold new programs.

Conservatives are not particularly better. Conservatism focuses on 'rationally', the notion that we must do things things in the most efficient way. Conservatives tend to forget about the human element and all other externalities. A typical example is free trade with Australia and New York Dairy Farmers. It would be more efficent to have technologically poorer Australians make milk and technology rich New Yorkers make computers. That would however ignore the cost of lost open space, fewer snowmobile and ATV trails, not to mention the cultural benefits that farming brings to our rural communities. Moreover, most people who are trained to run a farm know little about computers.

Conclusions

The late Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller once said that calling yourself a liberal or conservative is like saying, I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts. Public policy is about picking and choosing, after weighting the facts. We hope that policymakers consider all the effects of policy choices, but we must realize that they are not perfect. It's much easier to the read numbers and statistics of a policy, but the impact of a policy on people is much more difficult to understand.