This past week the new edition of The Sentinel was released, much to the joy of Ohio State’s conservative students. It is usually out of morbid curiosity that I even look at The Sentinel. When I see a new edition, I usually cannot help but pick it up and read a little to find out what the conservatives on campus are fretting about this time. This week the headline read “Why We Should Be Conservatives.”
The article begins with the author decrying the use of the word “conservative” being used to describe “a gay-bashing, anti-abortion demagogue.” This leads to one of his main points, which seems to suggest that “conservative” is a word which has been misused by liberals to label a person who would ideally be called a “social conservative” or “values voter.” The author apparently believes that people with similar beliefs to his own are the “true conservatives” and those who believe the government should limit individual liberties cannot fairly be called conservatives.
Since I have begun to think less like a Democratic robot and more like a progressive independent, I have come to believe that Democrats are just as guilty as the anarcho-capitalist-leaning writers of The Sentinel when it comes to denying the conservatism of certain groups. This writer has denied the conservatism of the social conservatives and values voters, much like the Democratic Party has denied the conservatism of the Republican Party. One mistake the Democrats have been making has come in the form of declaring that the Republican Party is not conservative because it has been willing to spend massive amounts of money. This is a mistake that puts the term “conservative” up on a pedestal and causes people to strive to fill the tenets of that term.
Despite the claims by The Sentinel and many unintelligent Democrats to the contrary, conservatism is an ideology that calls for big government. They need a big government in order to restrict civil liberties and silence dissent, those being two ideas that the majority of people who self-identify as conservatives would favor. It is disingenuous to say that social conservatives are not real conservatives. Social conservatives are indeed conservatives, because the definition of a conservative has evolved beyond the point where it only applies to anarcho-capitalists such as The Sentinel’s writers.
I suppose the purpose of my article is twofold. I am defining “conservatism” as it applies today rather than how it applied throughout history. I am also pleading with fellow Democrats to stop denying the conservatism of Republicans, and putting the term “conservative” up on a pedestal where it becomes a desired state for all politicians. By doing this, Democrats are validating the Republican claim that Americans are conservative. Democrats need to understand that conservatives are people who favor a large government that seeks to limit civil liberties and dissenting opinions. In the end, Democrats need to admit that Republicans are conservatives and most of the American people are not.
Brian Murphy can be reached at [email protected].
