Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Myth: America is a conservative country.
Reality: America was born in its day as a radically liberal experiment, and has only become progressively more liberal over the past 230 years.
Let's always keep our fundamental definitions of the political ideologies of liberal and conservative in mind:
Liberal: favorable to progress or reform, open minded, tolerant, creative, promoting ever greater liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness; generally opposing aristocratic and unequal hierarchies.
Conservative: fearful of change, inflexible and unimaginative, disposed to conserve traditional hierarchies, institutions and traditions.
It is true that many Americans consider themselves religious, as well as prudent and frugal, and so they may think of themselves as "conservative." So this is how the big myth that "America is a conservative country" seems to have the ring of truth, and remains popular. But these are not exclusively conservative traits by any stretch. One can be extremely liberal and still be religious, prudent and frugal. The majority of Americans may be a lot more liberal than they think. And as a whole, keeping those standard definitions in mind, America is way more liberal than conservative.
Anyone who wishes to expand liberty, equality, justice, pursuit of happiness, and love for one another is a liberal. If you really believe in the equality and capabilities of the common person; if you believe we are all in this together, as in "We the People," and "Love One Another", then you're a liberal. It's as simple as that.
On the other hand, if you distrust others who don't look like you or believe like you, and you'd really like to impose your will on them or exploit them; if you long to return to some mythical America that existed sometime in the past; if you actually like the old unequal traditions, hierarchies and institutions and wish to conserve them... if you really think white people are superior to brown or black, males are superior to females, and rich are superior to poor, this is the way it has always been and always should be... hello, you are a conservative!
Conservative social ideology has taken a whipping through American history. Why? Because the vast majority of Americans are simply not very conservative. Oh sure, there are large patches of the nation that are conservative, and pockets of conservatism around every corner. And sometimes they even win elections and manage to turn back progress a notch or two. But sooner or later their ideas end up getting flattened as the wheels of liberal progress get moving again.
To become a conservative country, America would have to dismantle its liberal ideals. Instead, it is these very ideals that propel America to become more and more liberal. What did the founding fathers think would happen when they voted for a Declaration of Independence that included the phrase "All men are created equal..." and possess the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" What did they have in mind when they established a Constitution for "We the People and set up a government to promote the general welfare?
How far America has come in its great liberal experiment! Ideals that the founding fathers themselves could only give to America as idea-seeds, successive generations of Americans have brought to fruition. The Louisiana Purchase, emancipation of the slaves, votes for all adult citizens, public education, women's liberation, Native American rights, workers' rights and safety, food and drug safety, banking and commerce regulation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national parks, environmental protection, civil rights, the Interstate Highway System, the space program, medical discoveries, disease control, weather science and so much more... constant pursuit of a "more perfect union." These are the great liberal achievements of this great country... and each and every one of them was opposed by conservatives of their day!
Conversely, from witch-burning to the Tories to the stealing of Indian lands and breaking of treaties to secession and Civil War to Jim Crow lynchings to serial banking panics and busts to industrial abuses to Prohibition to the Depression to McCarthyism and Communist fear-mongering to today's crony corporatocracy and out-of-control militarism, conservative ideas have generally evoked the very worst episodes of our national story.
As you sit there reading this, conservatives are busily trying their hardest to deny liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness for union members, gay, lesbian, transgender, Muslim and Hispanic citizens. They have no intention of actually loving any of these "others," as Jesus commanded them to. Instead, incoherently, they direct their "love" toward the hierarchy of the richest of the rich, and the most powerful of the powerful... the very ones who Jesus said have as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle! They have even distorted patriotism to where it now requires loyalty to corporations... yes, the very same corporations that have stolen us blind, polluted our planet, shipped jobs overseas and relocated their headquarters to a post office box in Bermuda to avoid paying American taxes have conservatives swooning in slavish devotion!
Conservatism! Always a messy sight.
But most Americans do not share this craziness. They don't swear blind allegiance to the rich or corporations or even a "free market;" they want a fair market. They want good public schools, safe working conditions, safe food, safe drugs, a clean environment. They support Social Security and Medicare and the idea of a social contract whereby we all help each other. They support the government supporting the arts and sciences in addition to the armed forces. The believe in the U.S. government helping out in natural disasters at home and abroad. They support the idea of the United Nations. They think for themselves and do not fear change or want to perpetuate hoary old hierarchies that lock in white, male, rich advantage over all others. They elected Woodrow Wilson (twice), Franklin Roosevelt (thrice), Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy (a Catholic), Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (twice), and even stunned and inspired the world by voting in unprecedented numbers to elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president (TWICE)! In other words, they are substantially more liberal than they are conservative.
Indeed, after Obama's reelection, Fox News main anchor, Brit Hume, finally admitted, "This tells us something about moderates: A lot of people who call themselves that are actually liberal, more liberal than many of us thought."
And this is rather the rub for conservatives. They know they are losing the "cultural war," and that's why they are so angry and afraid. What most of them don't realize is that this "cultural war" is not new. They've been losing this "war" for hundreds of years. More than any other group of people, social conservatives are oblivious to their own ideological history. Instead they imbibe a rosy mythology of some ideal America that existed a short time back, and needs to be reclaimed by bringing back "traditional values." If they could only impose these values on everybody else, America could be great again. They can't go into too much detail about when this ideal timeframe was, or what such a renewed America would actually look like, just that it wouldn't be so liberal.
It's the fervent conservative fantasy: return to an era that never really existed. So even in their dreams the conservatives themselves pay homage to how liberal America really is, and will remain as long as the founding ideals light the way.
Reality: America was born in its day as a radically liberal experiment, and has only become progressively more liberal over the past 230 years.
Let's always keep our fundamental definitions of the political ideologies of liberal and conservative in mind:
Liberal: favorable to progress or reform, open minded, tolerant, creative, promoting ever greater liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness; generally opposing aristocratic and unequal hierarchies.
Conservative: fearful of change, inflexible and unimaginative, disposed to conserve traditional hierarchies, institutions and traditions.
It is true that many Americans consider themselves religious, as well as prudent and frugal, and so they may think of themselves as "conservative." So this is how the big myth that "America is a conservative country" seems to have the ring of truth, and remains popular. But these are not exclusively conservative traits by any stretch. One can be extremely liberal and still be religious, prudent and frugal. The majority of Americans may be a lot more liberal than they think. And as a whole, keeping those standard definitions in mind, America is way more liberal than conservative.
Anyone who wishes to expand liberty, equality, justice, pursuit of happiness, and love for one another is a liberal. If you really believe in the equality and capabilities of the common person; if you believe we are all in this together, as in "We the People," and "Love One Another", then you're a liberal. It's as simple as that.
On the other hand, if you distrust others who don't look like you or believe like you, and you'd really like to impose your will on them or exploit them; if you long to return to some mythical America that existed sometime in the past; if you actually like the old unequal traditions, hierarchies and institutions and wish to conserve them... if you really think white people are superior to brown or black, males are superior to females, and rich are superior to poor, this is the way it has always been and always should be... hello, you are a conservative!
Conservative social ideology has taken a whipping through American history. Why? Because the vast majority of Americans are simply not very conservative. Oh sure, there are large patches of the nation that are conservative, and pockets of conservatism around every corner. And sometimes they even win elections and manage to turn back progress a notch or two. But sooner or later their ideas end up getting flattened as the wheels of liberal progress get moving again.
To become a conservative country, America would have to dismantle its liberal ideals. Instead, it is these very ideals that propel America to become more and more liberal. What did the founding fathers think would happen when they voted for a Declaration of Independence that included the phrase "All men are created equal..." and possess the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" What did they have in mind when they established a Constitution for "We the People and set up a government to promote the general welfare?
How far America has come in its great liberal experiment! Ideals that the founding fathers themselves could only give to America as idea-seeds, successive generations of Americans have brought to fruition. The Louisiana Purchase, emancipation of the slaves, votes for all adult citizens, public education, women's liberation, Native American rights, workers' rights and safety, food and drug safety, banking and commerce regulation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national parks, environmental protection, civil rights, the Interstate Highway System, the space program, medical discoveries, disease control, weather science and so much more... constant pursuit of a "more perfect union." These are the great liberal achievements of this great country... and each and every one of them was opposed by conservatives of their day!
Conversely, from witch-burning to the Tories to the stealing of Indian lands and breaking of treaties to secession and Civil War to Jim Crow lynchings to serial banking panics and busts to industrial abuses to Prohibition to the Depression to McCarthyism and Communist fear-mongering to today's crony corporatocracy and out-of-control militarism, conservative ideas have generally evoked the very worst episodes of our national story.
As you sit there reading this, conservatives are busily trying their hardest to deny liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness for union members, gay, lesbian, transgender, Muslim and Hispanic citizens. They have no intention of actually loving any of these "others," as Jesus commanded them to. Instead, incoherently, they direct their "love" toward the hierarchy of the richest of the rich, and the most powerful of the powerful... the very ones who Jesus said have as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle! They have even distorted patriotism to where it now requires loyalty to corporations... yes, the very same corporations that have stolen us blind, polluted our planet, shipped jobs overseas and relocated their headquarters to a post office box in Bermuda to avoid paying American taxes have conservatives swooning in slavish devotion!
Conservatism! Always a messy sight.
But most Americans do not share this craziness. They don't swear blind allegiance to the rich or corporations or even a "free market;" they want a fair market. They want good public schools, safe working conditions, safe food, safe drugs, a clean environment. They support Social Security and Medicare and the idea of a social contract whereby we all help each other. They support the government supporting the arts and sciences in addition to the armed forces. The believe in the U.S. government helping out in natural disasters at home and abroad. They support the idea of the United Nations. They think for themselves and do not fear change or want to perpetuate hoary old hierarchies that lock in white, male, rich advantage over all others. They elected Woodrow Wilson (twice), Franklin Roosevelt (thrice), Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy (a Catholic), Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (twice), and even stunned and inspired the world by voting in unprecedented numbers to elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president (TWICE)! In other words, they are substantially more liberal than they are conservative.
Indeed, after Obama's reelection, Fox News main anchor, Brit Hume, finally admitted, "This tells us something about moderates: A lot of people who call themselves that are actually liberal, more liberal than many of us thought."
And this is rather the rub for conservatives. They know they are losing the "cultural war," and that's why they are so angry and afraid. What most of them don't realize is that this "cultural war" is not new. They've been losing this "war" for hundreds of years. More than any other group of people, social conservatives are oblivious to their own ideological history. Instead they imbibe a rosy mythology of some ideal America that existed a short time back, and needs to be reclaimed by bringing back "traditional values." If they could only impose these values on everybody else, America could be great again. They can't go into too much detail about when this ideal timeframe was, or what such a renewed America would actually look like, just that it wouldn't be so liberal.
It's the fervent conservative fantasy: return to an era that never really existed. So even in their dreams the conservatives themselves pay homage to how liberal America really is, and will remain as long as the founding ideals light the way.
