Would the Real Liberals Please Stand Up?
“People are living their lives like liberals” was the theme of one of my last posts. It could have been better put in Thatcheresque terms of “People are living their lives as if the facts of life are liberal.” At any rate, a question that conservatives must ask is who and what we are opposing. In this sense, are liberals really living their lives like the liberals of the past? During the height of the Vietnam War, John Lennon (and a whole bunch of others) sang “All we are saying is give Peace a Chance.” He sang it over and over again, and assumingly he meant it. He thought that music had the power to encourage his form of love and peace, and the radicals of the 1960’s and 1970’s were steadfast in turning against hypocrisy and “the man.”
One of the main problems with today’s “liberals” is that they have become “the man” that they detested. The educational system went first. The liberal sit-ins and takeovers convinced an educational hierarchy, meager in defending its own principles, that the students were the wise ones, while the wisdom of the past needed to be “overcome.”
The government men lost their nerve very quickly as well. Political reelection being the main goal of most politicians, they began to cater to the liberal interests that had overtaken the other societal institutions. The smart men of the new science promised that they could change things through government. Change came, but not in the manner, nor with the effects that the “best and the brightest” predicted.
The Christian churches fell as well. Buying into the liberal mantra of openness and diversity to other religions, and seeking the liberal promise of Utopia, kum-bay-a, or what have you. Instead of defining the culture, the churches allowed the culture to define them in order to “broaden” their appeal. However, after a watering down of the tenets of their faith, (a necessary outcrop of liberalism’s tendencies) the churches had little to provide to an America starving for answers to questions that only the Christian faith could satisfactorily answer. Liberals maintain sway over the churches, and it is here that it could be said they remain somewhat liberal in their attempts to relativize all matters of faith and continually challenge the hierarchy and orthodoxy, particularly of the Catholic Church. It is here too, where the liberals face their greatest challenge.
In maybe the most evidential transition into becoming what liberals once despised, liberals have taken business as well as exploited business toward liberal ends. Business learned long ago that it was much easier to work within the liberal mindset of equal values and partnership with government, rather than stand for some values over others, and make it in a market where consumers have real alternatives.
Gone are the days of legitimate mass war protests, or sit-ins on college campuses, or challenges to the “conservative” aspects of American business. These are gone, precisely because liberals have taken over almost every aspect of American culture. Liberals realized that it would be much easier to work within the institutions that principles, Faith, wisdom, and time helped to create, rather than continually attempting to tear down those institutions.
What is somewhat ironic is that while attempting to change the institutions from within, liberalism has rendered those institutions meaningless. What does a college degree stand for today? Certainly not what it once meant. What sway do Churches have over the lives of individuals? Certainly not as much as they once did. Is the rule of law not challenged at every outset with certain individuals feeling they don’t need to obey it, or with government officials feeling they are above it? Business places profit motive above all others because of the lack of values. Yet, all of the major corporations today don’t see Democrat or Republican, but simply opportunity in government. Even in business, with the workers unions, liberalism has taken down giants like GM and simply decreased the number of workers that have jobs.
In this sense, we true conservatives are not fighting real liberals, but a very cheapened form of what was once liberalism and now looks much more like hypocrisy. It seems to me that the best way to fight hypocrisy and draw others to our cause is to stand strong in what we believe in and not become open to the charge of hypocrisy ourselves.
