Skip to content

Conservatives need to overcome vulnerabilities

It’s time, my friends, to have a frank talk. It’s time for conservatives to take a long, hard, look at certain issues.

It’s time, my friends, to have a frank talk. It’s time for conservatives to take a long, hard, look at certain issues.

You see, if conservatism is going to win the cultural war that neo-liberalism is determined to wage against it, it’s time to decide if we’re in this battle to win, or not.

If we’re in it to win, if we want conservative values to prevail, then we have to decide to fight for conservatism in a fashion that leaves us a chance of winning.

Make no mistake, today’s liberalism is at war with conservatism, and they will go to great lengths and stretch every boundary in order to win.

Last year’s unholy coalition coup attempt by the three left-leaning political party’s of Canada being only one of many examples.

In the United States, we see that war in the way virtually all the cable news outlets, except the ratings leading Fox News, have attacked the grassroots “Tea Party” tax protests.

But, as I said, we have to talk.

Conservatism has managed to saddle itself with not just one, but several Achilles’ heels that the left manages to successfully use against us, and if we really want the mental disorder that is new-age liberalism to go the way of the Edsel, then we have to deal with these issues.

One of the things we have to do is get off the abortion hobby-horse. It’s a no-win issue, and they manage to beat us over the head with it too often.

Look, I have serious issues with unfettered abortion access.

I don’t think that the lasting effects of abortion get the kind of attention they deserve, and I do believe that a case can be made that the use of public health-care dollars to provide abortions is a serious moral issue.

I’m also perfectly aware that abortion is not a cut-and-dried issue on the basis that there is a very profound personal decision behind most pregnancy terminations, that somehow needs to be recognized.

What I can say is this: By falling into the trap of equating abortion with murder and the Holocaust, we polarize the debate so powerfully that we fail to get our message across, and we lose.

Another issue that has to go away is creationism. Look folks, you have to use the intellect God granted you, and creationism is for dummies.

There is no single, unified theory of evolution. There is, though, a massive body of evidence that supports the idea that all life on Earth evolves over time, in ways that are not always fully understood.

There is no evidence to support the idea of creationism. Period. None.

Every single concept put forth by creationists is the intellectual equivalent of insisting that, say, Larry King, must have killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman solely on the basis that you don’t believe O. J. could have done it .

If anything, if evolution truly doesn’t occur, then God must have a tremendous sense of humour, because he has designed every single thing in all of Creation to appear as though it has evolved.

Don’t push capital punishment. Look, the issue may or may not have traction in this country, so don’t make it the hill we’re going to die on.

If we are successful, and can undo some of the decades of damage that neo-liberalism has done to our nation, we might find Canadians wanting to re-visit the idea. If Canadians really want it, they’ll bring it back.

Give up the idea of conservatives being “inclusive.”

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I don’t like people who aren’t really conservative calling themselves “conservatives.”

If you don’t believe in smaller government that doesn’t intrude in every aspect of our lives and then some, you’re not a conservative, and if you’re not a conservative you have no business calling yourself one.

Our provincial Conservatives are the highest spending, and thus the highest taxing, in the nation.

Our federal Conservatives increased spending at the kinds of breathtaking rates we only thought liberals were capable of, and expanded the cluelessness of our Quebec-centric national government.

I’m going to tell you this: Trying to win the hearts and minds of those on the political left in the faint hope that you can then govern from the right is just plain stupid, and for every one you gain over there, you lose one or more over here.

And, I’m going to keep telling you that until you get it.

Bill Greenwood is a Red Deer freelance columnist.