Steve

I have taped on my bookshelf a ‘Non sequitur’ cartoon strip by Wiley from long ago that I think is the best ever.
Two men wearing sandwich boards stand facing each other in an apparent stand-off. The one’s sign says, “The truth as I see it.” The other’s, “The facts as they are.”

Back in the ‘70's I wanted Jack to run for president so I could become the next Billy Carter. (After all we were sons of factory workers and soybean farmers– we were too poor to raise peanuts.)

I voted for George McGovern in 1972, although he was really far too right wing for me.

I was evidence to the old adage, ‘If you’re not liberal when you’re young, you don’t have a heart. If, as you age, you don’t become conservative, you don’t have a brain.’ (Trade of sandwich boards.)

I remember 3 people that were instrumental in my change of thought– a big, dumb Army sergeant, an intellectual anarchist in the student union, and a virulent communist in a Cincinnati bus station. Two spewed nothing but destruction (in the name of humanity), the sergeant simply stated that the Berlin Wall was not built to keep people out but to keep them in. I couldn’t name any of these people, but their honest statements and consistent attitudes made a lasting impression.

It is easy to be a liberal. As a politician one can lure votes by a promise of redistribution of the public purse (as Lance pointed out) and can offer a vision of utopia created through a compassionate heart and great wisdom. The conservative has to try to make presentable the idea that government should not make more obstacles in an already cold, cruel world. The liberal, in his superiority, wants control of man and his environment. The conservative thinks one is wiser in the ways of his own life and is responsible enough to respond to life’s conditions to build his own life. The liberal promises salvation; the conservative, a lessening of man-made obstacles.

Modern liberalism is a preacher, but fancies itself a god. It creates the world after its own image and thunders out against the evils of all other gods. It promises to lead its sheep beside still waters, to restore their souls, and to make their cups run over. But woe to those of another faith. Eventually they must be sent to hell– in the form of a gulag (government school?) or guillotine. (Exaltation of diversity is simply a metaphor for ‘divide and conquer’.)

Although liberalism may succeed in gaining power for some of its adherents, its promises to its congregation always fail. Regardless of the high ideals, innovative planning, and state of the art technology, blood will liberally flow. Atlas will eventually have to scratch his ‘nads.

“... all who hate me love death.”