A Conservative Viewpoint - Liberals Favor Gloom And Doom Politics

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

Some of my friends are liberal. However, seldom do I find one who is truly happy with anything. With liberals nothing ever functions as it should and everything is in need of a constant makeover or intense psychoanalysis. Most liberals seem to be either in a state of constant despair or clinical depression as they survey their own lives and that of the world around them. To them America is forever going to “hell in a hand basket.”

For example, if we’re winning a war, liberals want us to leave before we’ve won. If we’re losing a war, they say we should have never been involved in the first place.

Liberals adamantly oppose the death penalty while vociferously supporting partial- birth abortion.

Liberals are against giving options to parents seeking alternatives to failing schools for their children and instead support throwing more money at failed programs and schools that have this nation on the brink of an educational abyss.

They fight against the pledge of allegiance and prayer in the classroom because those traditions might be discriminatory. To whom? This kind of thinking has helped contribute to our deteriorating moral culture. Liberals would like nothing better than to further emasculate our judicial system by electing a liberal president who will appoint liberal judges to the bench thereby further empowering the Americans who identify themselves as such.

Liberals don’t see illegal-aliens as problematic. Many support full amnesty for those who initially entered our country in violation of our “existing” immigration laws.

Liberals resist drilling at home for oil and natural gas and are opposed to expanding nuclear power. Yes, more clean energy alternatives are needed. But we also must tap into conventional sources of energy here, including oil, coal, oil shale and natural gas while we further develop more clean air technology.

Discussing social reform with a liberal is problematic. They often argue with emotion rather than reasoning with logic. If you disagree with them you risk being labeled as self-righteous, a racist or a bigot.

The liberal mantra is always “the sky is falling.” Their message of hope is hoping we believe that America is in a serious state of decline and then hoping we will only rely on their solutions to fix it. While America has pressing problems at home and abroad we are hardly a nation in decline. If so why do so many people want to come here, even at the risk of arrest and deportation? And conversely why do so few, if any, want to leave?

Liberals are often on the wrong side of history. From the Cold War to the War on Terror, from welfare reform to protecting our second amendment rights, from national security to our current national energy crisis liberals always seem to refuse even considering a pragmatic approach to problem solving. They choose instead to be dogmatic on various theories that often ignore good old- fashioned common sense. There is nothing wrong with advocating for a proven theory but holding one’s country hostage to theoretical speculation is tantamount to paralysis.

A 2004 Pew study found that 19 percent of Americans identify themselves as liberals. While they are small in number they are vocal activists whose tentacles reach deep within the bowels of this country’s mainstream media. By association and ideological inbreeding they have created a virtual impregnable monolith of liberal media bias that is being sold as objective news reporting. In truth, it’s not.

Barack Obama is now the darling of the American media. They portray him as “the” agent of change, almost like a Moses who will lead his people out of the wilderness into the promised land of milk and honey. There has been little analysis in the media on just exactly how Mr. Obama will pay for this massive makeover, but for some Americans that’s not important. To them he is simply the “Balm of Gilead.”

While serving in the Illinois State Legislature and the United States Senate, Mr. Obama showed little evidence of ever working across party lines. But some feel should he become president he will magically morph from an extreme liberal ideologue into a moderate compromiser.

Watching Mr. Obama over the last several weeks on the campaign trail is almost like watching a chameleon as his “rhetoric” slides carefully toward the center. The left is not happy. Even the very liberal New York Times, in a recent editorial page headline dubbed Mr. Obama as “New and Not Improved.”

First, Mr. Obama broke his promise to stay within public financing limits. Then he reversed his position on electronic wire-tapping, now supporting it. His position on the war in Iraq has softened and he is now saying he will seek counsel with the commanders in the field before considering an initial draw-down in troop strength. Mr. Obama also flip-flopped when he endorsed the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun control law.

And in a recent advertising blitz in battleground states Mr. Obama’s ad states he supported welfare reform when in fact he voted against it.

While Mr. Obama continues to move toward the center his message is beginning to resemble that of John McCain. And for him to win in November it will need to.

Most of this nation is right of center, leaning conservative. Comparing the legislative voting records of Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama would clearly point out to the most partisan hack that it’s Mr. McCain who is the more conservative. But to win in November Mr. Obama will need to convince a majority of conservative and moderate voters that his liberal ideology is passé and that he’s finally “seen the light.” No easy task-not even for a chameleon.

The key to this being important in the election is the relationship of political ideology to actual voting.

Bob's reported percentage of the American Public that considers itself liberal from the PEW Study is 19%. However the American National Election Studies poll on political self identification indicates it was slightly higher in 2004 and it has increased over time, suggesting it might be even higher than 23%, not 19% as PEW reports.

The ANES numbers are:
1980
Liberal 17%
Moderate 20%
Conservative 28%
Not sure 36%

2004
Liberal 23%
Moderate 26%
Conservative 32%
Not sure 20%

The number I find most interesting in this study is the percentage who were not sure how they felt. The category of "Not Sure" has dropped nearly in half in the last generation.

What is curious is the relative rankings of the two parties. The liberal party, Democrats, though hypothetically representing a political philosophy that has fewer adherents than the conservative party, Republicans, still has a larger Party registration. These numbers for 2004 are 37% Democrat and 32% Republican (with 30% unaffiliated or affiliated with minor parties). Democrats have retained a similar advantage for most of the last 100 years. This long term phenomenon needs to be explained if we are to make sense of what the people of America really think.

I agree with Bob's impression that liberals are more negative while conservatives are more positive. I guess what I want to understand is why the negative philosophy is more successful in attracting party members than the more positive philosophy of conservatives? Also why are moderates generally happier in the Democrat Party, aligning with this negative orientation, than in the Republican Party? The issue also needs to be reconciled with the fact that most people do not share the opinion of liberals being doom and gloom and conservatives being happy.

Perception is often called reality, but I am not sure that perception is this case even comes close to reality.