"As to your first query: in the total scheme of things, liberals are like anti- anti- communists--- they are complacent at radical attacks on the West
It seems to me that an anti anti-communist would be someone either very favourable toward or very tolerant of communism. I think your thinking here is cockeyed to the extreme. Who is radically attacking the "dignity of the individual, the duty of government towards its citizens, the rule of law, the centrality of rational discourse, and the value of progress..."(the) parliaments, universities, courts of law, learned societies, the press, and the free market."?? And who is universally or particularly complacent about it?? Are liberals the embodiment of such an un-american weltanschauung?? Good God, man! You are talking about half the population!!
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"As to your second query, liberals often treat them lightly, as this discussion has demonstrated"
Even if I treated the "dignity of the individual, the duty of government towards its citizens, the rule of law, the centrality of rational discourse, and the value of progress..."(the) parliaments, universities, courts of law, learned societies, the press, and the free market" lightly, which I most assuredly do not, it is rather a far leap, from a personal animus toward me...ahead to a justification of your attack upon liberals.
There is a liberal on this thread who has publicly and proudly decared herself in the ranks of that 50% of the population. I have never heard her disparage the values of progress or of education or any of the other ideals you have so kindly listed for us as being contrary to the sentiments of lesser humans.
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"As to your third query, liberals are general fuzzy on the idea of the need for "settledness".
So now, "The conservative understands that one cannot put everything up for grabs without losing one's bearings"--15 words-have been reduced to one...SETTLEDNESS. Unfortunately, it is still contrived to be vague, and meaningless...only more so than before. An aspersion which is bereft of form--insubstantial and ghostly, as you intended...
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"Fourth query: it is emphatically, if not exclusively, a conservative viewpoint to be skeptical of governmental power to force the solution of social problems, yes."
This is somewhat more fair-minded. However, it does not forestall liberals from the belief that society "has to work through its problems" which was on the other side of your conjunction.
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"Fifth query: as I explained to karen many posts back, it directly relates to a reluctance to engage in social engineering, and an understanding that such an attempt might worsen a situation. Also, I am defining my conception of what conservatism is about, irrespective of who claims the label.
This is not at all like what you said:
"He understands that an attack on a person's cherished beliefs and customs is an attack on that person"
You imply that liberals are attacking the person by atacking that person's cherished beliefs. Do only conservatives have "cherished beliefs"?? Were you intending your statement to inform the liberal stance as well as the conservative? Or were you implying that liberals are not persons and liberal beliefs are not entitled to respect in quite the same way as are conservatives and what they cherish??
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"Sixth query: sorry, conservatives are leery of activist government. Most religious conservatives are merely defending what was customary until fairly recently, and many of them understand that they cannot go back entirely."
No more so than liberals. Any government which "emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue" is activist.
I would suggest to you that liberalism has had a greater influence on modern ideas and values than has conservatism. A suggestion that liberal ideals and values is something recent to society is rather ludicrous, isn't it?
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"Seventh query: I am suggesting that conservatives put an emphasis on values along these lines"
That is laudatory: "merit, honesty, trustworthiness, devotion to duty" are values that have been important to the liberal world view. Certainly, I am sure that conservatives are no less ethical. It is unfortunate that the tone and substance of your essay taken as a whole was designed to polarize and to exclude 50 % of the population. By mixing the general with the specific in a rather fustian obscurantism, you have implied a rather invidious (and immoral) opposition to the exalted values of conservatism. In doing so you slighted half the population, and looked askance upon the democratic premises which underlie American society.
Certainly there are some differences between liberals and conservatives. But the truth is that they live side by side within and without families and workplaces--co-operating for common goals and ends, and generally sharing in the values which create good citizens and decent people. To suggest that either is morally inferior or superior to the other is to feed and fuel a density of thought and feeling which unfortunately will never be entirely eradicated from the ugly shadows and dirty corners of society. |
