Do you remember back in the schoolyard the bully that tormented you? He had brawn, muscles and was twice as big as you? Do you remember how you were able to outwit him and often outsmarted him? Do you remember how oftentimes you got the accolades and the awards? How did he resent you? He resented you even more because he didn’t have the brains you did. He was frustrated and became more agitated and aggressive.
It is not wise to generalize, but in my years of making observations, I have found that conservatives tend to be more like the bully in the schoolyard. Take for instance the foreign policy of the U.S. in the past nine years. The Republicans in power will have you believe that it is because of their “bullying” that they kept America safe. They readily point out that it is a sign of weakness to use your brain, to sit down and talk with our adversaries, to actually use diplomacy to negotiate problems and our differences. This to a bully is unacceptable.
We also find a great deal of contempt for intellectualism and anything that resembles logic, reason or pragmatism. The Republicans live convinced that military power and flaunting our strength is the only way to prevail as the leader of the free world.
When it comes to domestic affairs, these are the same people who will tell you that any type of government intervention in the affairs of business or to offer a safety net, or regulations, or even health care is an infringement on the FREE ENTERPRISE system and therefore a SOCIALIST undertaking.
When I have come in personal contact with some of these, as when I read the stuff they write, or the things they say on interviews or speeches, I can’t help but formulate an opinion on how they think and what they stand for. Generalizing as I may do, some overall characteristics stand out. Not all Republicans feel this way, but most will be in agreement with the general consensus and ideologyust like the schoolyard bully, the conservatives look upon intellectualism as some kind of elite Northeast conspiracy and anyone with even a high school education is suspect to them. That is what made an intellectually challenged, an inarticulate and incompetent man like George W. Bush reach the White House. That too is what has propelled Sarah Palin’s limited but euphoric support among these bullies and ignoramuses.
To be able to say to me straight to my face that what we need is less government, it has functioned under the premise that government is the problem as Reagan so eloquently declared in his Inauguration speech and that the problems we now face are due to government interfering with the free enterprise system, is just outlandish.
The conservatives would have you believe that if you leave the system alone it will straighten up by itself, all problems will take be taken care of in a free market. But nothing could be further from the truth. When you have had several succeeding administrations following one another stripping down legislation and rules, making laws that are beneficial to the rich and the corporations, giving them subsidies and tax breaks, then the pendulum swings in the other direction and what you end up with is a welfare system for the rich and the corporations. We have actually seen the real and factual redistribution of wealth the Republicans so alarmingly denounce.
And yet, what these so called “conservatives” do not take into consideration is that there is a need for regulation, there is a need for government, there is a need for a safety net, and there is a need for certain institutions that could not possibly be run by private enterprise. Then there are the “natural monopolies” that if held privately they would gouge and abuse their positions. What the Republicans don’t even admit is that ambition begets profits, but uncontrolled ambition begets greed and greed has no conscience. PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.nps.gov/stli/planyourvisit/feesandreservations.htm
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