THOUGHTS by Duane Bristow POLITICS My political philosophy was developed over a number of years of study of history and current events; of reading Locke, and Adam Smith, and Karl Marx, and Thomas Jefferson; of the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and the liberalism of Lyndon Johnson, of the pragmatism of Richard Nixon, and the moralism of Jimmy Carter. I have observed the leadership of Winston Churchill, and Anwar Sadat, and David Ben Gurion, and Mikhail Gorbachev. I have noted the destruction caused by Adolph Hitler, and Pol Pot, and the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao. I have seen the economic changes caused purposely by Franklin D. Roosevelt and blindly by Ronald Reagan. The basic idea is that none of us is smart enough to tell another of us what to do. Democracy means the rule of the majority tempered by respect for the rights of the individual. Democracy and capitalism are inefficient systems, but they are the best we have been able to devise. Our collective intelligence as expressed in a democratic system reduces all our intelligence to that of the average which is pretty dumb. The liberal philosophy won't work because it assumes we are smarter than we are. The conservative philosophy doesn't work because it doesn't give us credit for ever being able to better our society by tampering with the system. The conservative philosophy is to leave the free market system to fend for itself because we are not smart enough to fine tune it and that government is best which governs least. I can buy that. But it assumes that the present system is perfect or at least the best we can ever have. I can't buy that. The liberal philosopy is to always implement changes in the system to make it better. That sounds like a fine idea. The only problem is that, in practice, it doesn't work because better in theory isn't always better in practice. The liberals said that quality of care in nursing homes, in ambulances, and in child care centers should be better. So they outlawed those institutions that did not meet certain minimum standards. The short term effect was that many nursing homes, ambulance services, and child care centers went out of business and millions of people had to do without these essential services. The long term effect was that quality improved but many people could no longer afford the services. If we raise taxes and let the government pay for those services, then people will have less money to buy food and clothing. Conservative pragmatism works but without liberal idealists there will never be improvement or progress. Conservatives tend to preserve things as they are while liberals tend to change things. Change may make things better or worse. If we fear making things worse, we will never make the changes for the better. Is it better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all? In theory yes, but in practice? Conservatives put emphasis on individual rights but not on common efforts to improve individual lives while liberals emphasize the quality of individual life at the expense of individual freedom. Since we know what's best for old Aunt Jane, let's do it for her regardless of what she wants because she's too old to know what's best for her. A conservative might say, "Leave Aunt Jane alone to do what she wants, even if it kills her." I think these are pretty accepted and pretty well defined definitions of conservative and liberal. But look what happens when you apply them to current questions. Anti gun control - CONSERVATIVE Pro gun control - LIBERAL Anti Communist - CONSERVATIVE Pro Labor - LIBERAL Nature preservation - CONSERVATIVE Industrial development - LIBERAL Pro-euthanasia - CONSERVATIVE Anti-euthanasia - LIBERAL ? Anti-abortion - LIBERAL Pro-choice - CONSERVATIVE Pro-censorship - LIBERAL Anti-censorship - CONSERVATIVE Comments received: From: "Swiss Alpanian" Hi Duane, Though you seem to have been influenced by a number of great political thinkers of our time, you seem to have mixed up certain theories. First off, the liberal philosophy is not to always implement change to make the system better, but rather to provide a system in which things can be changed if they need to be made better. The problem is that if a system is conservative, it is impossible to change it, even when it is bad. Secondly, your list of conservative and liberal opinions on various issues is somewhat wrong. A good way to know would be to ask yourself what the most conservative institution would think about an issue. I think most would agree the church to be that institution. Therefore, let me assure you that pro-euthanasia is definitely liberal as well as pro-choice and anti-censorship. Nature preservation is a little tricky, but you might notice the newly elected german coalition widely considered as socialist. They are mainly formed by the green party of Germany. cheers.