I spoke with one of my colleagues yesterday about the number of anti-prop 8 demonstration across California (and in other places around the country.)
My own opinion is that if they had shown that much energy before the election, they might actually have won. But I digress...
I posited that it was yet another example of how liberals cannot tolerate losing, dissent or opposition, while conservatives can. To see my point, imagine this:
Prop 8 fails. Immediately, people begin protesting in front of known gay establishments and icons. Businesses that funded the anti-8 movement are boycotted and targeted for vandalism. Homosexual couples are taunted, molested and assaulted by gangs of people brandishing "YES ON 8" signs.
There is only one part of that story that is even remotely believable - "Prop 8 fails." Everything else is beyond the realm of reality that would flow from prop 8 failing. What would happen if prop 8 had failed? Its supporters would have accepted it and moved on to the next political battle - which would have been another ballot measure for the 2009 election or a bill in the California Assembly.
OK, so I tell my colleague (a self-proclaimed Obama supporting liberal) that liberals can't handle losing while conservatives can. She offered an explanation that I found enlightening. Liberalism (the ideology) was born as a reaction to the established and unquestioned rules and laws of the medieval era. John Locke wrote his Second Treatise on Government as a reason-based response to the "divine right of kings" thesis. The foundation of liberalism is questioning established rules, authority and traditions and progress can be found in individual reason, not in established institutions.
Conservatism is a reaction to liberalism. Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is a strong critique of individualism and reason run wild. Like liberals, conservatives believe in progress; however, they do not rely completely on individual reason to define "progress" nor do they condone the destruction of existing rules, authority and traditions in the name of progress. Unless existing institutions have failed society or the individual, they should be respected.
Given those ideological foundations, it is easy to see why liberals are violently sore losers, and why conservatives don't end up in violent protests. The political process, rules of civil behavior, laws against violence, courtesy - these are all established institutions. As such, they fall under the category "things that can be challenged in the name of progress" for liberals. So when their efforts to change the institution of marriage were dealt a set-back, opponents of prop 8 had no qualms about discarding other established institutions of behavior to further their efforts. Conservatives would have maintained the other institutions and looked forward to another round within them to try to find victory.
Unfortunately, John Locke and John Stuart Mill (classic liberals) both wrote strongly against intolerance of ideas and in favor of the "marketplace of ideas" in one form or another. So somewhere, modern liberals dumped one of the best parts of their ideology in favor of the more fascist idea of violence against their enemies in the name of conformity and political correctness.
Glad to be a conservative,
Brad
5 comments:
I like it. That's a definition of liberal that I can relate to. It also seems to debunk the idea that liberals place group authority over individuality. It's a contradiction when these liberals end up being the establishment, though. The actions of anti-prop 8 people in California, "in the name of conformity and PC", are indeed very un-liberal, and I think most liberals elsewhere in the country are quite aware of that. (At least, I hope they are. I am.) We're also quite accustomed to losing. (Especially in Utah.) Maybe liberals get schizophrenic when they're in charge. Maybe it's impossible to actually be liberal in the classic sense and be in power.
At any rate, being liberal, but not a Democrat, I can go right on nonconforming. Sometimes I think I'm only liberal as a reaction to those around me. But that's just what you said, isn't it? Maybe you're the true liberal, Brad, and everyone else in New Jersey is just a conforming conservative. ;) Maybe I'm really just a nonconformist.
Uh, what about anti-abortion activists? There are wackos on both sides.
Wow, that is a great assessment. I think I understood about 95% of what you said. Mostly I am really lost when it comes to politics. What saddens me is the fact that these anti prop 8 people are actually threatening and doing physical harm to their countrymen and neighbors.
Physical harm? LOL Having your blood gush out of your head, because someone homophobe hit it with a bottle in Mormon Utah is physical harm. (Link). Having your styrofoam cross taken away, because you're a crazy grandma who has a long history disrupting gay events to the point where she is known to the local police, would hardly qualify as physical harm in comparison.
The comment by "anonymous" lacks any evidence of political motivation and the incident to which (s)he links has not been judged by the police to be a hate crime. Anyone walking near 1400 West and 200 South after midnight is risking physical violence - not just homosexuals. And in Salt Lake City, mormons are the minority - so let's blame the majority: Democrats? non-mormons? Who should get it?
Anonymity and hyperbole - that's the calling card of liberal America.
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