Nov
19
Which side is intrusive?
November 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A commenter at Right-Wing News provides a nice counter-balance to the “throw the socons under the bus” crowd.
I’m hardly the most religious guy you’d ever want to meet. My last church service was my wedding, some four years ago. And that was a Unitarian service. Really, my main concern in politics is maintaining my freedom. And, in practical, definable terms, the daily threats to my liberty are not being pushed by religious conservatives. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve told me I’m breaking the law if I light up in a bar. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve forbidden me from buying food made with trans fats. It wasn’t religious conservatives who pushed speech codes on our college campuses and dictate hate crimes laws. It wasn’t religious conservatives who’ve made it a bureaucratic journey to buy a gun to protect my home and family. It isn’t religious conservatives I see trying to revive the fairness doctrine to specifically silence their political opposition. It wasn’t religious conservatives to gave us “campaign finance reform”. It isn’t the religious conservatives who have told me that I have to separate my trash, even to the point of removing individual trashcans in my office building.
Put bluntly, I can’t help but feel I’m being sold a bill of goods here. Progressives, with the full consent of moderates,…chip away consistently and unabashedly at my freedom. All the while, telling me how scared I should be of the religious conservative bogeyman hiding under the bed. Do I think there’s some religious conservatives who go over the top? Sure. But, marginalizing the religious conservatives en masse is a surefire way to empower just those religious conservatives who do go over the top. Moreover, I’m getting a little more than tired of being told to be scared about the threat to my liberty posed by my allies by people whose own behavior tells me they want nothing more than to restrict my freedom.
Exactly. The left continuously pushes for invasions of our liberties, and yet we’re told that somehow conservatives are the proponents of a police state. The essence of modern liberalism is a quest to perfect society. It really should come as no surprise, therefore, that it is the left that seeks to use government to achieve that end. More often than not, social conservatives are merely fighting against greater government intrusion. But a lie told often enough – in this case, that conservatives are authoritarians bent on control – often becomes the truth.
Update: Comments were turned off for some reason when I initially posted. Not sure what was up with that, but they are on now.