What is a Conservative?

A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I wrote a blog entry about a judge’s decision in Nebraska. The judge tossed out a law banning same-sex marriages. In the blog, I said the right wing nuts as was expected, practically had heart attacks about the decision. In response to my blog, a reader wanted to know what makes a religious nut. Well, here goes, this is my explanation of what a religious, right wing nut is. First, I shouldn’t have called the religious right, wing nuts. I should have called them what they really are which is bigots. Anyway, what I meant by right wing nuts is a conservative. So this blog will be about what a conservative or a right wing nut is.
If you look up the definition of conservative in the dictionary you will find many definitions. The definition of conservative is “one of the political party that desires to preserve the institutions of government against innovation. Conservatives don’t want to change. They want to conserve things the way they are.
History is littered with examples of conservatives wanting to keep the status quo. The first example I can think of is the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus. Jesus was one of the greatest liberal thinkers of all time. His ideas about the poor, women, the disabled, the diseased, and the down trodden were truly revolutionary. In response to Jesus, the conservative Pharisees, who only wanted the rich to be able to worship in the temple, had Jesus arrested and executed. The conservatives were opposed to Jesus for his support of the same people that today are still opposed by the conservatives.
In the 1500’s, the Catholic Church wanted to conserve its monopoly on power. The church liked the money it was getting by selling redemption to the wealthy and powerful. However, Martin Luther stood up and said no. Martin Luther was a liberal thinker. He broke the conservative grip on power. In an attempt to conserve its power, the Catholic Church excommunicated Luther. Many new and liberal minded churches sprang up. The downside is that the Catholic Church, unfortunately, remains the most conservative entity in the world.
In the 1770’s, who were the conservatives? They were the people who wanted to remain joined to Great Britain. The conservatives wanted to maintain the status quo. They didn’t want to become independent from Great Britain or King George. The conservatives preferred the King and parliament making decisions instead of the freedom to make their own decisions. Who were the liberals? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, John Hancock, James Monroe, James Madison, John Adams, and many others.
In the 1800’s up to 1865, who were the conservatives? The slave-owners. What were the slave-owners trying to conserve? Slavery. Who was a liberal? Abraham Lincoln.
After the civil war, who were the conservatives? The Ku Klux Klan, and the people who passed poll taxes and had literacy tests at polling places to keep blacks from voting. What were these people trying to conserve? White power.
1900 – 1920, who were the conservatives? The men who wanted to keep women from voting, those that were against women’s suffrage. What were they trying to conserve? Male control on power.
In 1925, who were the conservatives? Williams Jennings Bryant was a conservative. He was the prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial. He was trying to conserve the absurd story about creation in the Bible. He was arguing against John Scopes, a free thinking teacher and his lawyer Clarence Darrow.
In the 1930 and 40’s who was the greatest conservative ever? Hitler. What did Hitler want to conserve? The purity of the Aryan nation (Germany). How did he go about doing that? He killed 6 million Jewish people and countless other gays, Gypsies, mentally ill, mentally retarded, Russians, Poles, and others.
Later in the 1940’s, who were the conservatives? The English in India. What were they trying to conserve? They wanted to conserve British rule and continue to subjugate the Indian people. Who was the liberal? Gandhi.
In the1950’s the conservatives were the people who wanted to maintain segregation: George Wallace. What did they conservatives want to conserve? They wanted to conserve the separation of blacks from whites in society. Who was a liberal? Thurgood Marshall
In the 1960’s, who were the conservatives? Those opposed to civil rights. What did the conservatives want to conserve? Whites control over blacks. Who was the liberal? Martin Luther King
1970’s, who were the conservatives? The people opposed to woman’s rights and abortion. What did these people want to conserve? Control over women and there bodies.
In the 1990’s who were worst conservatives in the world? The Taliban in Afghanistan. What were they trying to conserve? A way of life and thinking from the Dark Ages. Women could only be seen in public with their husband, brother, or father. Woman had to be completely covered. Woman couldn’t go to school. Everyone had to be a conservative Muslim and believe what they were told.
Now, in the 21st century, who are the conservatives? The people opposed to gay rights, same sex marriages, and abortion. What are they trying to conserve? They claim family values but which family values are they trying to conserve? The only family conservatives are trying to conserve is one father, one mother, and children. Every other form of family is unacceptable to conservatives.
As you can see conservatives have supported a number of causes that result in the subjugation and exploitation of different groups of people. Conservatives wanted to conserve the Catholic Church’s hold on power, slavery, disenfranchisement of blacks and women, continued domination of India, control over a woman’s body, the subjugation of women, and the continued treatment of gays as second-class citizens.
Let’s run through a list of some of the greatest liberals in history: Jesus, Martin Luther, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, James Madison, John Hancock, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Thurgood Marshall.
How about some conservatives from history: the Popes who took money from wealthy nobles allowing them to get into heaven, King George III, slaves owners, Adolph Hitler, George Wallace, and the Taliban.
If I called myself a conservative, I would be embarrassed to have to keep company with that distinguished list. I prefer the liberal list. After all, you are known by the company you keep.
So here are a few things conservatives are for: Conservatives say they are pro-family, what conservatives don’t say is that they are only for one kind of family. The family conservatives are for is the one father, one mother, and children family. That is the type of family conservatives want to conserve. To conservatives, all other family forms are unacceptable.
Conservatives are pro-money, which means conservatives want to conserve monopolies, which hurt small businesses.
Conservatives are for religion. They religion conservatives want to conserve is Christianity. Just ask Pat Robertson or Bob Jones or the Pope what they think of Muslims. (Or Jews or Buddhist, etc)
Conservatives say they are for freedom, yet they want to limit gays’ freedoms, a woman’s freedom to choose, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression.
Why anyone would consider himself or herself a conservative is beyond me. I prefer freedom of expression, freedom of choice, and freedom of religion. I will always be proud to call myself a liberal.
Conservatism has no place in the 21st century. Conservatism is a relic of the past. What the world needs today is open-minded and enlightened leaders and populations.

The Pope's Remarks

Recently the Pope for whatever unknown reason managed to inflame the Muslim world by quoting an obscure 14th century emperor of the Byzantine Empire. In his speech, delivered in Germany, the Pope quoted Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. Palaeologus said “everything Mohammad brought was evil and inhuman such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The Pope has said he meant no offense or harm with the comment. The Pope comments have led to widespread protests and demonstrations against the Pope in many Muslim countries. Just when the uproar over cartoons depicting Mohammad as a terrorist had subsided the Pope goes and throws gasoline on the simmering embers that remain. It is beyond me how the Pope, who must be a somewhat learned man and theologian, would wrongly believe his comments wouldn’t provoke any backlash. Either the Pope doesn’t read the speeches that are prepared for him before he delivers them or else he lacks any understanding of the Muslim world. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to know that if you speak out about Islam and Mohammad it will cause a furor. Besides that, what business does the Pope have in criticizing another religion? A person of one faith is in no position to criticize another faith. Only people in that faith and culture have the right to criticize. There is plenty in Christianity for the Pope to criticize. Criticizing another religion borders on pandering to your base. If you speak out against a supposed evil religion, you can turn attention away from what people really want to discuss. You can draw attention away from scandal by distracting people by making another religion seem like a threat. The Pope is demonizing Islam. He is not interested in building bridges between faiths as his predecessor was. The Pope is a Yahwahist. He believes in the punishing, all-powerfully god of the old testament. His thinking is straight out of the 14th century. I guess that is why he would quote an obscure Byzantine emperor. The Pope in no way should be criticizing another religion. He fails to understand history and what happens when you criticize another’s religious views. Far too many times in the recent past have people criticized another’s religion with disastrous results. Sunnis criticize Shias and vice versa, Jewish criticize Muslims and vice versa, Hindus criticize Buddhist who criticize Muslims who criticize Christians and it goes on and on. I believe the problem isn’t about god but what people do in the name of their god. Christians believe that the only way to salvation is to accept that Jesus Christ is the savior and only through him can people get to heaven. Well, that leaves how many hundreds or millions of non-Christian in a lurch. How can they get to heaven if they don’t believe in Jesus Christ? Muslims have a different belief about how to get into heaven. If you don’t believe what Muslims believe how will you get to heaven? Each faith grew out of its own political, social, and religious reality hundreds to thousands of years ago. Each religion, when it was founded was created to meet the political, social, and religious needs of its audience. Mohammad needed to convince nomadic tribes living in a desert that his way was the right way. Early Christian needed to convince people living in the Roman world under Roman influence that Jesus was the way. The writings of each of these figures reflect those realities. All the books in the old testament are based on different political, social, and religious realities. Plus they are all myths created by nomads as they moved about a desert environment. The stories reflect the scientific understanding of that particular time. None of which is particularly relevant today. Science is the new religion. Belief should be based on what a person can see and experience not what an archaic text written anywhere from 8000 to 1600 years ago. I can accept that Jesus probably existed, was a charismatic teacher, and had some good things to say about how to treat people. What I have trouble accepting is the miracles he supposedly performed. Indications are that the gospels were based on stories that were circulating around the Mediterranean from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Persia. The writers of the bible stories were smart and literate enough to copy and change the stories to make them fit their political, social, and religious realities. The same should be done today. The bible stories either, (a) need to be relegated to the dust bin of history, along with the god of the old testament and the god-man Jesus, or (b) reinterpreted to fit our current political, social, and scientific realities. If we reinterpret the stories to fit today’s reality, the stories become nothing more than myths like the stories of Zeus, Hades, Jupiter, Ossiris, etc. All of these gods have been discarded as human knowledge and scientific knowledge has expanded. Yahweh needs to be discarded, as does the god-man Jesus. If we strip away the miracles and religious underpinnings of the god-man Jesus, we are left with a humanitarian who preached love, tolerance, kindness, and compassion for others. And really isn’t that what we should all be doing, practicing love, kindness, compassion, and tolerance not sowing the seeds of hatred and distrust as the Pope has done.