What’s Wrong with America Part 2: Conservatives
I noted in Part 1 that liberals were anti-democratic, attempting to use an illusion of majority support to institute policies against majority opinion with a loveable underdog image. The following essay about conservatives might seem more positive. The reason for this is that conservatives use more straightforward tactics, making the descriptions of those tactics sound less insidious. Do not be fooled, however, because conservatives are even more dangerous to America than liberals.
Conservatives are people who want things to stay as they are, or to revert to the way they were in the past (or at least the way they like to think things were). Where liberals use bullshit studies to convince people of a secret horror which must be changed, conservatives use a bullshit rose-colored view of the past to convince people things were better “back in the day” and should be put back the way they were. They see the 1950s and 1960s, when America ruled the world with a nuclear fist and was making leaps and bounds in technological and industrial development as the golden age of America. They ignore the fact that the nation lived in fear of nuclear war, that minorities were second-class citizens by institution or even law, and that America was polluting and exploiting resources-human and natural-without regard for posterity or even efficiency. More importantly, if they do acknowledge improvements made since those years, they ignore any role that more moderate or liberal people and movements had in bringing about those improvements.
The fundamental flaw with "conservativism" is that it stifles change-and thus progress-by its very nature. People and technology can only improve if people try to change them. Technological innovations not only require someone to see a need to change something, they also encourage or even cause further social changes. For example, the invention of birth control pills removed the necessity of social control to prevent unwanted pregnancy, leading to a sudden, then steady increase in sexual promiscuity among women. If that struck you as a bad thing, then you’re likely a conservative and should realize that birth control pills were invented during that golden age of the 1950s you so love.
(If you’re not a conservative and it still seems bad, it’s probably because of the discovery of nasty diseases or the stupidity of people who inherited the promiscuity but failed to grasp the importance of the birth control-which is an issue for Part 4: Stupid People Breeding.)
If conservatives had their way, technological progress would cease to occur. Sure, they claim that they would just want to “regulate” it, or only control social progress, but those are unrealistic compromises. Controlling either type of progress controls the other, either by necessity or by result. If new technologies can’t be developed until the authorities are sure they won’t change society, the development process becomes too cumbersome to be profitable, and stalls entirely. If social change is halted, no one will see a need for new technologies, and anyone who does will become a radical, and a threat to society.
This may seem melodramatic, and you’ve probably read or watched something with these themes several times, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Too much conservativism causes stagnation, and the society becomes unable to compete globally. Any outside force like an invasion or a major natural disaster can shatter the rigid society because it is unable to deal with this new threat either technologically or mentally. Stagnation of society--or even too much slowing of progress--would leave America vulnerable to attack by nations that continued to advance, or simply cause America to tear itself apart when a major disaster, shortage, or technological development came along, leaving he nation conquered or locked in the throes of anarchy. This is why conservatives are what’s wrong with America.
Conservatives are people who want things to stay as they are, or to revert to the way they were in the past (or at least the way they like to think things were). Where liberals use bullshit studies to convince people of a secret horror which must be changed, conservatives use a bullshit rose-colored view of the past to convince people things were better “back in the day” and should be put back the way they were. They see the 1950s and 1960s, when America ruled the world with a nuclear fist and was making leaps and bounds in technological and industrial development as the golden age of America. They ignore the fact that the nation lived in fear of nuclear war, that minorities were second-class citizens by institution or even law, and that America was polluting and exploiting resources-human and natural-without regard for posterity or even efficiency. More importantly, if they do acknowledge improvements made since those years, they ignore any role that more moderate or liberal people and movements had in bringing about those improvements.
The fundamental flaw with "conservativism" is that it stifles change-and thus progress-by its very nature. People and technology can only improve if people try to change them. Technological innovations not only require someone to see a need to change something, they also encourage or even cause further social changes. For example, the invention of birth control pills removed the necessity of social control to prevent unwanted pregnancy, leading to a sudden, then steady increase in sexual promiscuity among women. If that struck you as a bad thing, then you’re likely a conservative and should realize that birth control pills were invented during that golden age of the 1950s you so love.
(If you’re not a conservative and it still seems bad, it’s probably because of the discovery of nasty diseases or the stupidity of people who inherited the promiscuity but failed to grasp the importance of the birth control-which is an issue for Part 4: Stupid People Breeding.)
If conservatives had their way, technological progress would cease to occur. Sure, they claim that they would just want to “regulate” it, or only control social progress, but those are unrealistic compromises. Controlling either type of progress controls the other, either by necessity or by result. If new technologies can’t be developed until the authorities are sure they won’t change society, the development process becomes too cumbersome to be profitable, and stalls entirely. If social change is halted, no one will see a need for new technologies, and anyone who does will become a radical, and a threat to society.
This may seem melodramatic, and you’ve probably read or watched something with these themes several times, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Too much conservativism causes stagnation, and the society becomes unable to compete globally. Any outside force like an invasion or a major natural disaster can shatter the rigid society because it is unable to deal with this new threat either technologically or mentally. Stagnation of society--or even too much slowing of progress--would leave America vulnerable to attack by nations that continued to advance, or simply cause America to tear itself apart when a major disaster, shortage, or technological development came along, leaving he nation conquered or locked in the throes of anarchy. This is why conservatives are what’s wrong with America.