In the American political process these two words are mostly irrelevant in terms of what’s passed into law. Republicans are anything but conservative in any sort of a fiscal sense, and Democrats are not universally liberals. With this said, the labels are damning to our survival in the long run as they’re used like all labels are – to divide people who are more alike than they are different.
Admittedly I’d only listened to Rush Limbaugh on a handful of occasions before tuning in after being laid off. His time slot isn’t friendly to the workers of America…perhaps that’s the best thing about his contribution to the EIB network (‘excellence in babbling’ as a blogger so aptly named it) is that it captures the attention of those who don’t have anywhere to be on a weekday afternoon.
His diatribes are lengthly, and at every turn he categorizes all who oppose a Republican’s idea as a ‘liberal’. Count the times he utters the word ‘liberal’ in a given broadcast and you can understand the genius behind what he does. The word ‘liberal’ can mean just about anything, but most often he uses it to describe opinions in opposition of the GOP. His success lies in the fact that the trick worked. Countless numbers of ‘conservative’ radio people have popped up in recent years, mimicking his format and drawing an arbitrary line in the sand with conservative equaling Republican and liberal equaling Democrat. I’ve got a number of friends who couldn’t name a single bill passed in Congress over the past twenty years, but know full well that they don’t want to be considered a ‘liberal’. A liberal eats fetus sandwiches, engages in gay orgies and believes in money for nothing while a conservative believes in God and hard work.
I voted for John Kerry, but have served in the Army and believe in hard work. How can this be? As perplexing of a concept as this may be when put in the context of what we’re fed over the airwaves, the strategy is quite obvious. As long as there is a distinct division, as flimsy as the justification may be, a market share is carved out and can be relied upon as long as the labels are legitimized over time.
To hear Rush rant points a spotlight on what it’s all about. As long as the labels exist in this country, pundits can categorize any action as one thing or the other by simply uttering the words liberal or conservative. A Republican can hand out pork with both hands but remain safe from criticism from their base as long as the alternative is a 180 degree turn towards oblivion. If we criticize this politician than we are liberal.
Nothing could be further from the truth, as each person in our society has beliefs that range from liberal to conservative depending on what issue you’re talking about. Conservative in the 90’s was the antithesis of pork in bills robbing us of our tax dollars, yet GOP control of the house and senate has produced the same amount and in some cases even more pork than before. So is a ‘fiscal conservative’ something that actually exists in one party and not another? Absolutely not.
The pundits won’t focus on anything but wedge stories. As to do so would threaten their positions. If you took what Rush and others were complaining about during the Clinton years and compared it to the product the GOP controlled congress has put out in the past four years, there’s no difference at all. This is an undeniable truth, so focus is instead pointed at abortion, gay marriage, taxes and national security.
Rest assured, when the Democrats are again in charge of congress, the archived complaints will be dug up and reused. Let’s just hope that a few prominent pundits have the soul necessary to do God’s work and point out the hypocrisy.
In Boston you have Howie Carr…and to summarize a show he put on prior to Christmas…there were two hours or so devoted to how horrible it was that Christmas was being marginalized in town squares so as not to offend those who were not Christians, then then next hour was about how we needed to get rid of bums…how we needed to rid ourselves of the homeless. Here is a man who on the one hand is lamenting that Christianity is being diminished, yet he feels justified in urinating on the bible in chastising the poor.
The hypocrisy doesn’t even strike devote ‘conservatives’…why? Nowhere in our society is anything broken down realistically, but instead the labels prevail.
The Democratic party could do itself a favor by criticizing the use of labels to divide us into two groups when our personal beliefs cross over those lines on issue after issue.
A benefit of this would be a heightened level of accountability of our elected officials as no longer would a talking head be able to condone wrongdoing by calling the guilty politician either a ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ as means of validation.
If a ‘conservative’ runs up deficits it’s at least not as bad as a ‘liberal’ would do. Are politicians deserving of such a pass in our society? Hardly…the labels exist because they make money. Once you lose the power to generalize everything, you no longer have a guaranteed audience.