Liberalism VS Conservatism

Let’s begin by agreeing that the majority of Liberals and Conservatives want to make the world a better place. If you can’t agree with that statement, you’ll simply be wasting your time reading any further.

So, beginning with the premise that both Liberals and Conservatives wish to make the world a better place we must be able to focus our discussion on specifics ; too often these types of debates splinter off into vague generalities that neither further the cause of the debate nor help to keep ones blood pressure down.

What does it mean to make the world a better place? Better than what? Can the world be better, yet imperfect? Or, must we strive for Utopia?

I would like to suggest, first, that Utopia is not an achievable goal and second that we should set as our goal to make the world as best a place to live as we can, given the limitations of humanity.

So if you are unable to agree with my second premise stating that Utopia is unachievable, you may as well click on to your next link right now.

So if you’re still reading, I can assume you want to make the world better than it is currently, but you accept the limitations of economic, religious, geographic and cultural pressures which limit the ability to achieve a perfect solution.

If we agree no solution will ever be perfect, then we can begin to focus our attention on those solutions that provide the most benefit for the largest number of people. Let’s restate that in a political context; we want our governments to provide solutions that result in positive benefits for the largest number of people; realizing that not every program will benefit every person.

Now, let’s take a look at a global problem that has plagued mankind throughout recorded history; poverty. Let’s define poverty as that level at which a person is regularly, but not necessarily always, living without the basic necessities of life, such as: food, water, clothing, and shelter. As a side note, if you believe that cell phones, cable TV, or Internet access are “basic necessities” I can show you to the door right now.

So were looking to find a solution to the global problem of poverty as defined in the above paragraph. Where should we look first; how about those countries where poverty is less of a problem? It doesn’t make sense to look to Northern Africa or Afghanistan for solutions to poverty. It makes sense to look at those societies who have had the best results and model our solutions after them.

America was founded on the basic principal that mankind, given a collectively protected environment and left unburdened by the taxes required by a Monarchy, could flourish and thrive; capable of only the limits of their imaginations! Somewhere along the way America lost sight of its founding principles. The idea of collective security, originally intended as a physical security from foreign armies, mutated into the idea of collective social welfare programs. Let’s take a look at the results of those programs.

Statistically, minorities, who’ve traditional voted Democrat, continue to show the highest level of poverty when compared to Whites.
www.americanprogress.org

In North America the majority of the poor live in urban areas.
www.ucl.ac.uk

Urban areas vote for Democrat while more rural areas tend to vote Republican:
www.washingtonpost.com

So, we have poor folks living in close quarters in our urban centers and the majority of them vote to perpetuate the social programs promised them by Democrats. Yet as we’ve seen, the very programs they continue to vote for over and over have failed to make their lives better; they are still poor and living in crappy housing developments.

On the other hand, you have areas of the country with Republican leadership where job creation is high, unemployment lower and relative quality of life is much higher than seen in Democrat controlled areas.
www.bls.gov

So, if the goal is to provide the largest number of people with the best opportunity to be happy, doesn’t it make sense to follow conservative fiscal and social ideas; ideas that have been historically proven to be superior over socialist ideas?

You can choose to make America great again. In 2012 you’re going to have a distinct, black and white choice between SOCIALISM and CONSERVATISM, doesn’t matter who the ultimate GOP candidate is, the Obama administration’s strict adherence to Keynesian economic policies of TAX and SPEND have failed and they’ve expressed nothing but a deeper commitment to more of the same.