This is Not Who We Are

When Democrats speak of conservatives, Obama's favorite statement is patently true. We are not who they say we are.

One of the most pervasive accusations levied against conservatives is that they “hate” group X, Y or Z when the “hate” is simply voicing concerns about Group X, Y or Z being awarded a status above the law-abiding common citizen who happens to hold what are inarguably traditional American values or simply believe in following the law.

Some examples off the top of my head:

• Opposition to granting access to programs and privileges to illegal aliens that are not accessible to even the poorest of American citizens. For opposing this, conservatives are called racists, xenophobes, and anti-immigration.

• Opposing the granting protected status to LGBQ people and allowing discrimination against straight Americans as if the straight Americans do not face different, although similar in effect, life challenges daily. For this, conservatives are called homophobes.

• Opposing the evisceration merit-based systems in academia and business and setting racial quotas as a means of “fighting racism”. Supporting merit-based systems are now racist.

• Objecting to tender age children being taught there are no genders, and their parents are ignorant and not to be trusted results in accusations of transphobia.

• Objecting to restrictions on free speech now means you hate anyone who takes offense to literally anything you say.

These are all common tropes shouted out by Democrats so often they have become accepted wisdom.

The problem is that these things aren’t true.

I, and most conservatives I know, are not against immigration, nor are we xenophobic, we are simply against open borders when we have the very generous welfare state we have today. Milton Friedman famously expressed the dichotomy when he said you can have open borders or a welfare state, but you cannot have both. To try to have both is to achieve the same goal as sought by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven and their strategy of ending capitalism by overloading the welfare system.

We also oppose the futile attempt of enforcing equity (equal outcomes) rather than preserving equality (equal opportunities) by taking from one unfavored group and giving to another group. Whether that encompasses redistribution of incomes or simply creating “special rights”, it amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul – at least until Peter wises up to the scam.

As to the LGBQ folks, I have always taken a libertarian position on that – you do you and I’ll do me. I disagree with the viability of same sex unions because they are a biological and evolutionary dead end. I do believe Christianity is right to teach against it, but in the end, God loves all. We each will have to answer for our actions in the end, so I choose to worry about my own failings and will let others do the same – but that isn’t hate, that is the textbook definition of tolerance.

The transgender issue is something far more insidious than anything we have seen for a very, very long time – maybe since the horrific medical experiments on the Tuskegee airmen or even the actions of Josef Mengele and the experiments he ran on Jewish concentration camp prisoners. It includes transferring adult level decision making responsibilities regarding permanent life altering changes to children, many of whom are still young enough to believe in Santa Claus. If you are 18 or over and decide you want to electively change your body – even though it cannot be changed at the genetic level – to mimic one sex or the other, that’s an adult choice – but don’t ask or expect a third grader to make that call. Again, that isn’t hate, that is just using common sense to protect a child.

It is hard to understand how protecting the right of anyone to say anything at any time is somehow hating people who would be offended by that speech. I think it is all part of a generational initiative to infantilize adults by “protecting” them from getting their feelings hurt. We have taught a couple of generations to be soft, moving from when I was a kid and would roam all over unattended to today when parents get a visit from the police when kids are allowed to play in the front yard without a chaperone.

Speech is just verbalized thought. Shutting down free speech is shutting down free thought.

Obama was right for the wrong reasons when he used to say “this is not who we are” because in the case of conservatives, what they say about us is most certainly not who we are.