Prude wants Harry Potter banned.A religious “conservative” wants to have her narrow concerns over witchcraft acted upon by her local school board. This is a perfect example of wrongly-labeled conservatism. Her backward personal views might be correctly viewed as conservative, but her desire to use government as a mechanism for imposing her views on her community is anything but conservative. Anytime someone presumes to know what’s best for the larger community, and impose it through government policy, they demonstrate activist infringement of individual liberty. The infringement is most easily grasped when we disagree with the viewpoint being imposed. If I propose to ban certain cooking oils, restrict handguns, or mandate sex education in a school curriculum; it is quickly identified by many as an unwarranted intrusion of the nanny state. But when the proposed intrusion is more agreeable to the audience, like banned internet gambling, displayed Ten Commandments, or restrictive abortion access; it’s still not “conservative” governance. It represents an undue intrusion of government upon our personal liberties. True conservatism should seek to restrain government and limit the compromises of personal liberty to only the situations where public safety or societal good overwhelmingly call for intervention. Let’s be more conservative in how government imposes the viewpoints of both liberals and social conservatives. Let’s preserve the liberty to draw our own conclusions and live according to our individual consciences. Michael Previous: Abortion Pride? -- Next: Slouching towards Gomorrah, Comment from Paul Davis: To add a similar story with irony so thick….. Posted by Paul Davis Oct 6, 05:23 AM # |
Favorite Posts:
Other Blogs:Links:
Feeds - SFP updates for your homepage:Previous Posts: |
