Bullshit: Or Why I Don't Understand Conservatism

1.) The Free Market- There is nothing democratic or competitive about it.

2.) Conservatives often claim to believe in less government spending.

That's admirable, but which programs specifically? The $3 billion in aid to Israel every year so that it can systematically destroy Palestine? or how about the billions spent on unused, untested military equipment?

3.) Conservatives tend to believe in smaller government.

Ok. What part of the government. The CIA, which has routinely made a habit of overthrowing democracies around the world to instill military coups?-Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Vietnem, Chile... Or how about the National Security Council which has found, since world war two, urgent national security threats all over the world that have virtually nothing to do with the homeland.

4.) Conservatives overzealously glorify America. 'One Nation under God' (a phrase not developed until the fifties), 'The founding fathers' (which founding father? They were not one unit and often disagreed on many things), 'honest hard-working Americans' (the people being put out of jobs and forced into manual labor as a result of free trade and the free market etc).

5.) Conservatives are generally jingoists that see pacifism as some sort of weakness.

6.) The ideal conservative government is one which dismantles as much of the government as possible- including social welfare programs.

7.) In a fairly recent pew poll, it was found that red states have considerably lower IQs than blue states.

8.) Quick to attack anything that might be a communist, socialist, fascist, anti-american, terrorist, illegal immigrant; as if they are all the same thing.

9.) Historically, conservative regimes elsewhere in the world have been extremely oppressive: Pinochet, Hitler, Suharto, (Any U.S. President since McKinley), Ayatollah Khomeni...

10.) American conservatives tend to be staunch christians- to the point that they don't accept scientific consensus on things like biological evolution, or the effects of mass carbon emissions.

11.) Often refuse to participate in government, that "gets in the way".

12.) Not always true but they tend to oppose the rights of gays, and equality for ethnic minorities.

13.) For some reason they don't accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (one of the most published documents in history) and don't believe that health care is a right for all, not a priviledge for the wealthy.

14.) There is some sense of hyper-patriotism and false honor in conservatism.

Its no wonder the rest of the world literally laughs at the United States, we are one of the last remaining hard core conservative nations on the planet. Latin America has seen a wave of democratically anti-American leaders, The Middle East is violently against the United States exploitation of their people and resources that they formed civilian "terrorist organizations", Africans see America as ignorant and arrogant, Europeans just seem to laugh at our media, political structure, and seemingly narrow view of the outside world.

Why don't we have a labor party in this country, like every other industrial nation?

Why is it that tens of thousands die without health care in the United States every year?

Why is there so much greed and arrogance?

We have two parties in this country. Republicans and Democrats- both are very conservative, and neither truly reflects the views of the general public.

You want to know what conservatism has done to this country? Look around. Small towns are slowly beig destroyed, evolving into the homogenized culture of Wal-Marts and McDonalds and Starbucks. This country has initiated more wars in the last fifty years than any other. Nobody looks to America as a shining beacon of freedom, because we fell behind the rest of the world.

Bottom line- there are many things wrong with the way America is functioning and we need to face them now.