What Conservatives Believe

The well-known website, Wikipedia, defines conservatism as:

 . . . a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, hierarchy, and authority, as established in respective cultures, as well as property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as organized religion, parliamentary government, and property rights with the aim of emphasizing continuity.[1]

Conservatives, like liberals, are not monolithic, meaning their beliefs are varied and diverse. What one conservative holds most dear may not match what another conservative proclaims as fundamental. However, most conservatives have similar guiding principles that are held in varying degrees as foundational. A partial list of those principles is provided below.

I have prepared this list, culled from a dozen or so conservative websites, in response to plaintive questions many liberal friends have posed to me, such as “Why do conservatives vote against their vested interests” (such as economic, social, etc.) and “What is it that conservatives really believe?” Hopefully, in listing those guiding principles I will have given liberals something to think about, meaning voting behavior involves complex reasoning, not simplistic knee-jerk reactions. For many conservatives, voting for or against a specific ballot measure may be influenced by foundational principles that may not be apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the range of conservative beliefs.

In other words, I urge liberals to see conservatives as complex people, the greater majority of whom are not knuckle-dragging deplorables. If liberals are going to continue to oppose conservatives in the voting booth, at the very least they should try to recognize conservatives’ real-world values rather than the dubious strawmen often created to demonize them.

Note: the following list is not intended to be all-inclusive.

Guiding Conservative Principles

Individual liberty/freedom.

Property rights are paramount; meaning no person is free if they are restricted from owning and possessing property.

Limited government, low taxes, and few business regulations.

Free markets based on capitalism/private enterprise and little government interference.

Personal responsibility trumps government assistance.

Empowerment of the individual to solve problems; rugged individualism; self-help rather than government welfare, meaning government is not the solution to domestic social problems.

Public and private social services are an intentionally corrupt scam to keep minority groups on what is called the Democrat Plantation.

Government should provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals and capitalize on opportunities.

Many if not most government programs/agencies should be privatized to create jobs, generate opportunities, and thus reduce poverty.

“Judicial deference” is highly valued while “judicial activism” is not; meaning the Originalist Theory of constitutional interpretation seeks to determine the intended meaning of the text and does not grant judges free rein to create new rights and powers.

States’ rights are paramount; state control should trump federal control.

Civil institutions (family, voluntary associations, organized religions, etc.) are society’s lifeblood and should be protected from government interference.

The right to life is sacred, meaning abortion and euthanasia are murder while executing convicted criminals is both moral and just.

High rates of religious participation are greatly preferred.

Education is the bedrock of freedom and the gateway to opportunity.

Socialism/communism is evil.

Most Democrats want the U.S. to become much more socialist until government controls nearly everything in our lives.

Right to work/anti-union; unions are socialist creations.

Corporations and corporate executives are more highly valued than unions or blue-collar employees.

National security is the federal government’s first obligation and is necessary to democracy.

Preferential treatment of races by any means is wrong; civil rights are individual rights and do not guarantee equality of outcomes.

Healthcare provided by the government (socialized medicine) means that everyone will get the same low-quality care.

Immigration laws must be enforced: illegal immigrants should be deported.

Gun control laws violate the 2nd Amendment, which is highly prized as inviolate.

A giant conspiracy of local, state, and federal elections officials across the country ignores or denies the existence of massive, wide-scale voter fraud.

At least 10,000 climate scientists around the world are engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to perform demonstrably bad science in order to receive more government grants to do more bad science; although no scientists have yet been able to expose the way that conspiracy has taken control of all climate research in every industrialized country, it’s only a matter of time.

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Reflection on John Lewis

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those [Jim Crow] days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

John Lewis; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html

Those eloquent words expressed by the dying John Lewis may persuade Americans to recognize the almost unimaginable, daily horrors of state-sponsored Jim Crow terrorism, horrors every black family living in southern, southwestern, and Border states experienced. It may be easy for some to claim we’re not part of that horror, that that was in the past and in locations where we didn’t live, however, as William Faulkner so perceptively wrote in the novel, Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

The power of Faulkner’s observation can be seen in today’s racial turmoil that has given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and to the drive for the removal of statues and monuments honoring Confederates who were traitors to their country during war and unapologetic advocates of enslaving humans for their personal profit.

In Lewis’s remarkable deathbed essay, he urged Americans to “. . . study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time.” So, in honor of the life and indomitable spirit of John Lewis, I offer the following brief reflection.

Who Was Edmund Pettus?

Many Southerners might tell you he was the son of a wealthy planter, a lawyer, distinguished citizen of Selma, and a great Alabamian deserving of all sorts of accolades. Some might try to amend that by adding he fought the Civil War to keep slavery alive and well. Others would focus on his years of service as a decorated Confederate general and try to steer you away from the not so edifying fact he was also the Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

Historians, on the other hand, like University of Alabama history professor John Giggie, cite the record of his lifelong love of and support for white supremacy. According to Giggie, “Pettus became for Alabama’s white citizens in the decades after the Civil War, a living testament to the power of whites to sculpt a society modeled after slave society.” Here’s how James W. Flynt, University Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University, assessed Pettus: “His fanaticism is borne of a kind of pro-slavery belief that his civilization cannot be maintained without slavery.”

Edmund Pettus was an unrepentant white supremacist and that’s who the City of Selma proudly named that bridge after.

It was on that bridge in 1965 that hundreds of peaceful civil rights advocates marching to Montgomery were attacked and beaten savagely by white Alabama State Troopers. It turns out that bridge may be renamed after an extraordinarily courageous black man whose skull was fractured in the infamous 1965 melee by the baton of a white State Trooper; that courageous man was John Lewis. Perhaps if that bridge were renamed, Americans might be able to put Edmund Pettus where he belongs in the historical perspective of state-sponsored Jim Crow terrorism and white racism and better understand why John Lewis fought so hard throughout his adult life for the rights guaranteed to all citizens by the U.S. Constitution.

Even if Edmund Pettus’s name is removed from the bridge, no mean feat in a state where such removal is only with the consent of a very conservative legislature, Americans should never forget who he was and what he and his fellow white racists stood for. We also should never forget the violence they unleashed on black Americans like John Lewis with the consent and support of the State of Alabama. Thankfully, we can celebrate the reality that Lewis and thousands of like-minded civil rights activists became the antidote to Jim Crow terrorism and to the poison that infected people like Pettus.

Why I’m Not Capitalizing the “b” in black *

In the past few days, we have been treated to dozens of news media announcing that starting now and in their future publications the word “black” would have the first letter capitalized. Why does it seem that’s a step in the right direction PC-wise? Is it only the righteously “woke” who think so?

My initial reaction was to wonder if those same news outlets are going to capitalize the “w” in white. My second reaction was to wonder why we use those two words to denote a wide range of skin tones that never include any humans who are actually white or black. I should mention that I have traveled to West Africa at least five times and met many dozens of people indigenous to that region and never once saw a truly black person. Yes, in Nigeria where I spent the most time many were darker than the typical Afro-American here. But none were jet black, though I admittedly met only a small fraction of the population. My mother’s side of the family are all proud Irish-Americans, many of whom have very light completions that can be called “peaches and cream” but their skin tones are definitely not white, on the pinkish side maybe but not white. And their hair isn’t “red” either, maybe a shade of orange though to characterize them as “carrot-top” is silly since the top of a carrot is green.

At one time in our history the word “black” was considered offensive. Later, the same stigma was attached to the word “Negro” as “black” became more acceptable. But we don’t use the words “yellow Americans” or “red Americans” to denote race so why do we continue to categorize people as white or black? Why aren’t my wife and I, as well as our children and grandchildren, classified as Euro-Americans? After all, our ancestors on both sides were from Ireland and Germany.

Then what should we think about the phrase, “colored people”? Or, as we now say, people of color, momentarily putting aside the NAACP. I’m thinking about having a block party for all my uncolored neighbors but don’t know how much beer to buy. I mean, who would show up? Aren’t all humans colored? Would only colorless aliens from another planet come to my party? If they did, what in the world would they drink? And if they had no color how would I see them?

The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (White American, Black or African American, Native Americans and Alaska Native, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander) as well as people of two or more races. By the way, why aren’t Alaskan Natives simply classified as Native Americans? And what race is a native of Libya or Tunisia according to the Census Bureau? Talk about screwed up.

In my future expositions I’m going to throw out all references to color as designators of race. Euro-American and Afro-American will be my style rather than white and black. As for the terms “colored people” or “people of color” they’re history, no disrespect to the out of step NAACP.


* In terms of full disclosure, my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation were on racial issues in the U.S. and I was co-editor of a book on the Geography of Black America published by Doubleday.

All Lives Matter

All Lives Matter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that mantra since Michael Brown’s killing. When you do hear it it’s typically said by those who are opposed in one way or another to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The question I have for people who identify as sympathetic to the All Lives Matter viewpoint is simple: At what specific time in our history did America become a country where All Lives Matter? That question is not frivolous. Since the colonies were created by European invaders who wrested the land from its previous owners and then tried to enslave them, and when that attempt didn’t work imported Africans forced into slavery for life, it is painfully obvious the colonialists were not All Lives Matter people.

Nor did our Founders believe All Lives Matter when they wrote a Constitution that boldly proclaimed all men are created equal and yet permitted humans to be enslaved for life. Of course, we can’t forget that as early as 1790 our newly formed country proudly proclaimed itself to be for whites only, excluding Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, whose lives evidently didn’t matter, at least not legally.

After the Civil War when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, the federal government intentionally turned its back on the newly freed slaves and allowed the Southern and Border States to construct a state-sponsored system of terrorism we gentrify as Jim Crow, a system that in one form or another quickly spread to nearly all states. The U.S. Supreme Court also turned a blind eye to the painfully obvious fact that millions of blacks were being terrorized, attacked, assaulted, threatened, lynched, thrown into prison for non-existent crimes, and subjugated by the power of the states, local jurisdictions, and the entire white culture. So, until the end of the 20^th Century and later All Lives Matter wasn’t on many Americans’ list of things to value.

How can we ignore actions the federal and state governments took to favor whites and disadvantage blacks, including redlining, creating racially discriminating government-backed mortgage loans and loan guarantees, deed restrictions that prohibited blacks from purchasing houses in white areas, preferential hiring of whites by governments and corporations, ensuring the Social Security program did not cover the vast majority of black Americans, exclusionary zoning that kept blacks out, etc. And we can’t forget the terrible race riots that destroyed black communities across America during which few whites were arrested and still fewer prosecuted: Atlanta, Omaha, Chicago, Tulsa, East St. Louis, Charleston, Little Rock, Rosewood and Ocoee, Florida. That list goes on and on.

Today, we live in a country of segregated cities and schools, a country where millions of black parents have to give “The Talk” to their kids about how to survive encounters with the police.

When did we as a nation turn the corner and suddenly become All Lives Matter supporters? Was it when we passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 and then refused to enforce it from its passing until today? Probably not. Was it when we inaugurated the Affirmative Action program and saw it attacked from the get-go by ardent conservatives who found illegality in every hiring that favored minorities who had been intentionally disadvantaged by federal and state governments for a hundred years? Nope. Let me pose a related aside: Why is it that conservatives so strongly oppose every aspect of Affirmative Action but were silent for many decades as the rights of black Americans were being trampled by every level of government and by the larger white culture? Is it because they enjoyed being favored by “their” governments and their culture but were outraged when that system of favor was modified?

But what I would really like to know is when did we become a country where All Lives Matter?

What Do White Parents Tell Their Children?

On Sunday morning, June 7, 2020, U.S. Attorney General William Barr stated on a national TV news program that he does not believe that the nation’s police force is characterized by systemic racism. That statement echoed sentiments made by other members of President Donald Trump’s administration and led directly to this response.

As parents, do we spell out the words used as racial-ethnic slurs and talk about how painful they are to the objects of that hatred?

As parents, do we talk about making fun of and bullying people who are different in terms of skin color, hair, facial features, sexual orientation, what they wear, where they are from, and religion?

As parents, do we have to tell them that the police force as an institution does not look out for our best interests or our well-being?

As parents, do we lay out in excruciating detail what to do if and when they have an encounter with law enforcement since those interactions can lead to injury or death?

As parents, do we tell our children that death can result from police encounters even when black-brown people who comply with instructions to raise their hands, to not resist, be prone on the ground, begging to take a breath?

Why is it that black parents have to have talks exactly like the ones listed above to be sure their kids survive the world around them and particularly survive police encounters and white parents don’t?

Why is it white parents and other white officials (AG Barr in particular) don’t understand what black parents living in every part of the U.S. are saying out loud and in every kind of public forum about what they have to do to protect their kids from harm at the hands of the police? Are we purposely blind and deaf or do we discredit their testimony, as Barr does, and call them liars?

George Floyd died at the hands of police who were sworn to protect and serve the public. How is it that some Americans can sit back and not be part of changing that horrific reality? Now is the time to act. Either black lives matter in this country or our Constitution is meaningless.

On Protesting, Looting, and Violence

Some years ago, a group of angry Massachusetts residents decided to raid several American transporters because of perceived socioeconomic inequities and as a result destroyed cargo that today would be valued at around two million dollars. The government’s official reaction was to pass and enforce onerous laws whose sole purpose was to punish the looters, discourage violence against private property, and show the American public who was boss. 

Were the violent acts of the looters and protesters in destroying private property morally wrong in and of themselves and was the government right in suppressing the violence to maintain public order and keep private property free from wanton destruction?

The situation described above is the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

NEWS FLASH

A recent national poll found that 44 percent of respondents who self-identified as Republicans believe that Bill Gates was plotting to use a coronavirus vaccine to implant microchips in our bodies. You’ve got to remember that those people may be your friends and neighbors and are probably going to vote in the coming national election. Yeah, scary thought.

https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-spreading-on-the-right-may-hamper-vaccine-efforts-152843610.html?campaign_id=93&emc=edit_fb_20200603&instance_id=19051&nl=frank-bruni&regi_id=69101849&segment_id=29978&te=1&user_id=703304aa2d007027e5576f260f40793b