Political musings

I have really been trying to understand the conservative mindset. I want to understand the reason why conservative people feel the way they do. In this post, when I use the term conservative, I am refering to politically conservative people. Even though I have lived amongst people from many different countries, the main political arguments I hear/follow are from the US so I am really only talking about the American conservative.

I am a liberal thinker. Even though I am pretty far-left wing, I disagree with many things the liberal parties in America try to push through our government. However, I have not been able to understand the thinking behind nearly all the conservative talk. Many of you are liberals but more than a few of you are conservatives. The point of this entry is to A) get my thoughts down before they slide out of my head and get lost to the ether and B) generate feedback to help me understand why people make the decisions they make and get people understanding each other.

Generally, I find myself tired of politics, but it is like being tired of work. You have to keep following it and being involved with it because it has too much influence on your life. I have been involved in several discussions with both sides stating their opinions and many times they seem to be rather intellectual conversations, but too often they are just two sides stating their opinions and telling the other side why they are wrong. From these conversations, I have garnered a few reasons of why they believe what they believe. In no particular order this is what I've heard and why I don't understand it.

1) Religion - (ok, maybe there is some particular order, this being the most prevalent) Most of the time, Conservatives use their religion to defend their principals. But this is the most unfathomable reason for me. In America, most Conservatives are Christians. Christians are supposed to follow the teachings of Christ and live by the code of conduct that he laid down and defended with his life. However, the Christian conservatives that I have talked with today seem to have their bible and their actions twisted. Jesus Christ was a hippy. He was a jobless, homeless man who wandered around from city to city without a form of transportation and relied on the kindness of others to keep himself housed and fed. He taught everyone that he met to love everyone, to love people they disagreed with, to love people who believed things other than he did, to love all the criminals, poor, destitute, rich, everyone. Jesus not only took food and clothes from people, but also taught to give to people also. He was the one who commanded, not suggested, that if you have an extra jacket, to give it to someone who doesn't. In all sense, Jesus was the worst thing to happen to conservative thought. And he was killed for it.

Now, there is supposed to be a seperation of Church and State, and it is often very difficult to honor this. My mum once told me that even though there is a seperation, it is our religious views that lead our decisions. This is undeniable and understandable. However, if this is the case, why is it the conservative parties are so against using taxes to help feed and clothe and house the people who haven't been able to find work in this terrible economy? How is it that Christian conservatives can justify taking money from the poor and average and helping the super rich hold on to their fortunes? When did Jesus tell people to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and support him in taking more from you to give more to the tax collectors? When did Jesus say forgive everyone except for those who have really hurt you, those it's ok to kill? What kind of firearm, er spear, did Jesus own for his own protection, and did he spear them before or after he turned the other cheek?

So, those are a few of the points that have been rolling around in my noggin about religion and conservativism.

2) Government responsibility - It seems that a big difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party is that we disagree on the purpose of the government. I think they even disagree amongst themselves. Personally, I feel that the governments job is to take care of it's people. I was told that it is the government's job to protect the country. I agree, I feel that protecting it's citizens is part of taking care of it's people, but protection from foreign forces is only a small part of this job. Countries work best when their people have all their basic needs met. In education, we know that if a child does not feel safe, fed, and loved, they will not be productive in class. This is the same for all people throughout the world. To be a productive country, the US needs to have people who all have housing, food and security. It only makes sense to me that the government would benefit the most if they provided the means for all of its people to have apartments or houses, healthful food and safe borders and cities. Right now, the only thing that I have seen the conservative parties trying to achieve are the safe borders and cities, choosing to spend massive amounts of tax-payers money to build a giant fence instead of using tax-payer money to lure companies back into the country, which would then open more jobs, which would provide the income to house and clothe and feed the people who have had to turn to crime or government subsidies because they have no jobs. I will never argue against the military, I think our military personnel are amazing servants of the people and I respect them greatly. However, we would find a lot of our internal issues lessoned if we had gainful employment for the people.

Its getting really late and I've lost my train of thought, if I can think of other arguments, then I'll post another entry about it. So, what do you think?