Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | Aug. 12, 2008
The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now. Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.
I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by.
I believe that the bigger government gets and the more powerful the state becomes, the greater the threat to individual liberty and the greater the likelihood that evil will ensue. In the 20th century, the powerful state, not religion, was the greatest purveyor of evil in the world.
I believe that the levels of taxation advocated by liberals render those taxes a veiled form of theft. “Give me more than half of your honestly earned money or you will be arrested” is legalized thievery.
I believe that government funding of those who can help themselves (e.g., the able-bodied who collect welfare) or who can be helped by non-governmental institutions (such as private charities, family, and friends) hurts them and hurts society.
I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.
I believe that some murderers should be put death; that allowing all murderers to live does not elevate the value of human life, but mocks it, and that keeping all murderers alive trivializes the evil of murder.
I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.
. . . more
Taking mild exception to Prager’s mild approval of prayer in public schools, I agree with his points. I agreed with them back when I considered myself a “liberal.”
Even though I am more conservative than I was back then, the definition of liberal has changed more than I have. My current political position would have been considered middle-of-the-road a few decades ago.
I wish he had numbered these so I could easily list off the ones I agree with.
For example:
I also think that is probably true. It doesn’t mean that I think, retroactively, we were justified in entering Iraq, but I can agree that Saddam Hussein was a despicable human being who caused mass cruelty.
I certainly think there’s a grain of truth to that. (I don’t know whether girls are biologically predisposed to “tea sets,” per se, but certainly, mimicking motherhood and playing noncompetitive games like “tea parties” are behaviors that most girls seem predisposed to.) It doesn’t follow, though, that all girls prefer dolls and all boys prefer trucks and guns.
Comment (a) is actually heresy as well as being anti-American. The United States is not an international organization. The US is a nation-state, one whose government is supposed to act in the best interest of its citizens. We are not ‘the world’ and used to understand that petty squabbles thousands of miles away were not our business. Now, of course, we seem to think that all things everywhere and at any time are justifications to rape American taxpayers to support whatever half-baked policy our overlords in Washington deem in our ‘national interest.’
As for an actual international organization that has provided the greatest benefit to mankind – that would be the Orthodox Christian Church. The Church is international and has been the greatest single gift bestowed by God on mankind.
Would any of you argue that the U.S. is superior, somehow, to the Church?
Dead on. Which makes me wonder why so many conservatives are so in favor of an ever more powerful national security state with the power to trample civil liberties under foot at will?
If you search Prager’s other writings, you will find a decided lack of concern over the size of the national security and military wings of the government. Or doesn’t that kind of power need restraint? Perhaps in Prager’s mind, and that of other conservatives like him, only the EPA can be a danger, but not large numbers of men with guns who think the law is whatever the men in power in Washington say it is.
Just so. When are conservatives, then, actually going to do something about it?
There is no such thing as Judeo-Christian. All that was good and worth preserving in the Jewish faith was brought into the historic Christian Church. Hence there is only a ‘Christian’ legacy for our civilization. In any event, while the founders may have used some 18th Century language, the fact is that our nation is an outgrowth of the English Parliamentary experience dating back to the 13th Century, which itself was influenced by Anglo-Saxon Law. We are the natural sum of the evolution of a six centuries long experiment in parliamentary rule. The individual colonies had representative rule long before the Enlightenment even occurred. This is why our experiment mostly worked, and that of the French did not.
Except for the niggling fact that so many death penalty cases have been overturned in the past few decades. And that the death penalty is used as additional leverage by prosecutors to get plea bargains. The problems in our criminal justice system are legion. Just look at the Duke Lacrosse team case, or even the persecution of Tom DeLay by an obviously politically motivated hack. If either DeLay or the Duke team had been poor or even just middle class – how much justice would they have gotten? If the death penalty were an option, how tempting would a deal have been if they thought they were facing a needle?
Wow. Eine Volk, Eine Fuhrer, Eine Deutschland
practically pales in comparison. How can a man who talks about the dangers of untrammeled, expansive government suddenly turn militaristic like this? The schizophrenia is amazing.
Where to start with this? First of all, the United States did not have a standing army for part of its history. Where we not making a positive contribution to world affairs during that time? For most of our history, when we did have a standing army, it wasn’t very big or very effective by European standards.
I mean, look at our record. The American War of Independence was won primarily by French troops. The War of 1812 was at best a draw. We had our capital burnt for crying out loud. And the causes of the war were mostly American desire for more territory. We had various wars with Indian nations, which we won of course. There was the Mexican American War. Was that a major contribution to humanity? The war started because of a like by President Polk and ended with severing 1/3 of Mexico. It was a land grab, purely and simply. Justify it if you want, but that was all it was.
Then comes the American War Between the States. How much good did the Union Army do in the South, do you think? The slaves got freed, but what about the rape of civilian women, the burning of civilian hopes, the intentional starvation, and more? Was all that serving humanity?
Then there was the Spanish American War. That was great, eh? We nailed Spain and then annexed the Philippines. How many innocent civilians died in the Philippines during the so-called Filipine Insurrection? No one really knows. The Indian fighting army we shipped over didn’t know how to deal with natives any other way than to butcher them. Could be 250,000 could be 600,000. No one knows.
Was that serving humanity? We used our Marine Corps to occupy Nicaragua for 20 years. How about that?
Which then brings us to WWI, in which we got into a war that was none of our business. Wilson took us there in 1917 after having promised in 1916 that he would keep us out. Was the Kaiser’s Germany really so evil that we get kudos for destroying it by adding additional cannon fodder to overwhelm them?
WWII – we did a good thing there. Korea was a waste of American lives, was unconstitutional, and was mishandled to boot. Vietnam? Eisenhower chose to stay out. Kennedy and Johnson, both Democrats, got us into a mess. Why do Republicans feel the need to defend that stupid war that our side didn’t even start?
I will stop here. The U.S. military should be used for one purpose only – defending the borders of the United States. It shouldn’t be used for stealing land, killing Stone Age Indians, or spreading Democracy. The fact that people calling themselves conservatives not only write this kind of claptrap, but also approve of it, only shows that the label has lost all meaning.
Glen writes: “The fact that people calling themselves conservatives not only write this kind of claptrap, but also approve of it, only shows that the label has lost all meaning.”
I think the problem is that people try to define conservatism not on its own terms, but in opposition to “liberalism.” Look at the title of the article: Not “Why I Am A Conservative,” but “Why I Am Not A Liberal.” The article is not a explication of conservatism, but a back-handed slam against liberals.
Unlike the “hate America” liberals he believes in “American exceptionalism.” Unlike the liberal wimps, he believes in the death penalty. Unlike the pacifist liberals he believes in the virtue of the American military, whose good works far outstrip “all the artists and professors in America put together.” And — wink, wink — we all know who they are.
I suppose knocking the liberals is great fun, but it hardly constitutes an adequate definition of conservatism. It also ignores that fact that on a number of issues, liberals and traditional conservatives are in agreement (e.g., the national security state).