COLUMN: The hypocrosy of conservatism
When a politician says he supports gay marriage but votes against it, we call him a hypocrite. When a politician doesn’t support gay marriage but says he supports small government, we call him a Conservative.
During the search for my political soul I was once a hardcore Democrat who believed that the government had a responsibility to take care of those who were less fortunate. I supported Obama’s health care legislation with the hopes that it would someday evolve into a European-style universal health care system.
I now find myself a firm believer of individual liberty and personal responsibility. It should not be the government’s job to be our safety net. We should not be forced to pay for services that only a select minority has access to, such as farm subsidies or unemployment benefits. The government should not dictate how we should live our lives. I say, “Live and let live.”
While my mind was battling to see which political camp would seize my love and devotion, it never once crossed my mind to consider conservatism. You see, conservatism is not really a political ideology. Rather it is a label in which people can hold absolutely contradictory political views without suffering debilitating cognitive dissonance.
Now conservatives aren’t bad people. Like every other political philosophy, conservatism is held as the solution to the many political problems of our country. It is their approach to public policy however, that I have a problem with.
Conservatives believes that good government is small government. They say states, not the federal government, should have the most say when it comes to public policy. They are aghast at the amount of debt the federal government has managed to rack up – that’s $14 trillion, with a T – and call for a return to fiscal responsibility.
But within this same breath they claim that they also want to bring our country back to “family values,” to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq blindly, and to trample on our individual liberties with policies such as the War on Drugs.
This is why I have such a hard time taking conservatives seriously. They make a valid case that government should be small and fiscally responsible but at the same time they are willing to justify a huge federal government in order to shove moral legislation down our throats.
Conservatives say that government should stay out of our lives … that is unless you’re gay. See, if you’re GLBT you suddenly do not have the right to marry. You don’t deserve the legal rights and protections that come along with a loving marriage. Same-sex attraction is unnatural and disturbs the natural order. In other words, you are a second-class citizen.
The conservative hypocrisy can be seen clearly. They believe government should not dictate our day-to-day lives but apparently that only applies to heterosexuals. Average people would somehow have to resolve these two contradictory positions. Conservatism claims you don’t have to.
Try this for yourself. Ask a Conservative you know if they would support the government telling us what we should and should not eat. Chances are their answer would be a resounding “NO!” Now ask them about drug use and watch as they turn into a staunch defender of the War on Drugs.
Even though conservatives say they stand for small government and fiscal responsibility, when it comes to the moral issue of drug use, they suddenly believe in justified government intervention. It is their hypocrisy that has given us this expensive and ineffective War on Drugs.
The War on Drugs has been waging for almost 40 years and we have nothing to show for it. By the government’s very own standards we have lost. So what has the government’s response been? We need more money! That’s the answer drug enforcement agencies and states have been giving for almost four decades. Even though the War on Drugs has had no real impact in terms of drug use or drug availability, we continue to spend over $40 billion dollars a year on this failed program.
But the damage has not just been wasteful spending. Millions of lives have literally been ruined by the government. Instead of treating drug users as people who may need rehabilitation, we instead throw them into prison to rot away. Even harmless drugs such as marijuana have landed hundreds into prison with life sentences. All the while, conservatives are claiming that they are fixing America’s moral ills.
Freedom does not come in pieces but as a whole. It is simply a cop-out to support individual liberty for some but not for others. True conservatism is the belief that government should never impede on mine, your or anyone else’s rights. True conservatives understand that government is not a force for good but a force for coercion and violence. This is why I am a Libertarian.
Justin Hinh is a sophomore in political science and president of the College Libertarians. He can be reached at justintsn10@gmail.com.