My point of contention has nothing to do with whether or not the claim at hand is "right" or "wrong", I can see benefits from having an official language and I can see unnecessary problems being created by enacting such a position. I'm more concerned on the notion of this idea being consistent with conservative views. Currently there is nothing making banks place Spanish on their ATM's, nothing that makes a company purchase a billboard in Spanish, nothing that makes my phone provider prompt me to select my preferred language. These things are all in place because these private industries choose to put them in effect. They profit because of them or they wouldn't do them.
A true conservative position would stand on the side of less government and regulation. If we decided we wanted our government to make English our official language how would we do it? Would we make a law, add an Amendment to the Constitution? This is more government and it takes away liberties of private companies to operate how they choose. Pure and simple, it's regulation. Again, I'm not arguing the point of whether or not we should do this, I'm simply addressing the fact that the idea isn't conservative.
Recently I posted on a story in the local newspaper that covered a weekend DUI checkpoint where over one hundred vehicles were pulled over and one intoxicated driver was located. Meanwhile, fifty five citations were issued to drivers that weren't pulled over for probable cause, rather a mandatory search of their property by the police. I'm not bashing police. And I'm not bashing people that support checkpoints. I'm pointing out this type of thinking isn't conservative. In this case it's just the opposite, it's quite liberal and very progressive.
Our Founding Fathers believed the government shouldn't have the ability to get into the private business of the citizens if those citizens weren't breaking any laws or causing any harm. If you believe times have changed and drunk drivers pose a serious enough threat to the public at large that we need to have police officers set up operations to randomly pull vehicles over and check for intoxication, so be it. Many people would agree with you. However, this isn't conservative by any means. In our Founding Fathers eyes they viewed things as people and the property of people. A car would be no different than a home, or a gun, or painting to the drafters of the Constitution. If I could prove more people were killed each year in their home due to a gun than by a drunk driver on the road, would you be cool with police officers randomly checking your house for guns. And on top of that, if they didn't find any illegal weapons, just go ahead and write you some tickets for your pot plants or your prescription Vicodin that belongs to a family member that you borrowed or your illegal cable box or cite you for throwing recyclables in the wrong side of the trash? Maybe times will change someday and we'll get to this point. But if we do it won't be considered conservative.
Mitt Romney, prior to being the Governor of Massachusetts, helped create a company called Bain Capital. The company basically consisted of some pretty rich people pulling together $37 million dollars to invest into other companies to, obviously, generate revenue for Bain Capital in the long run. The company was formed in 1984 but found itself reluctant to pull the trigger on investing any of its capital because they found almost every opportunity too high risk. Eventually, in 1986, Bain found a small business they believed offered the potential they sought for their investment, a store by the name of Staples. In 1986 when Bain pumped millions into Staples they were one store big. By the year 2011 Staples had grown to over 2000 stores. Romney served on the board of directors for Staples for over a decade.
Bain Capital was originally created to invest in start up businesses. After Bain was able to establish itself and enjoy returns on its investments it ventured into new areas to seek profit. One of those avenues involved buying out troubled companies. Most of the time the buyout led to the failing company surviving and going on to turn profits again. However, some of the time the companies didn't make it.
Now that Romney seems to be on track to winning the Republican nomination other candidates in the field are attacking him for his involvement with Bain Capital. Some have even called his venture capitalism "vulture capitalism". Newt Gingrich claims he is more conservative than Romney because of Romney's business of buying out failing companies. Right now in South Carolina (next on the docket for primaries) Gingrich's crowd are showing commercials of regular people that lost their jobs "because of Bain" and their lives are now in ruin. The people then go on to blame Romney personally.
I can't stress this enough, I'm not arguing for or against this type of conduct. To be candid, this type of business venture seems very legitimate to me and isn't as "evil" as it's made out to be, but that's here nor there. I'm addressing the fact there are millions of people that claim "conservative" values that look at Bain Capital and see it as un-American. I have news for these people: it's American as apple pie. It's the freedom of private entities to conduct business freely, without regulation, with the intent of gaining profit.
The conservative party is hardly conservative anymore. When W. Bush was President he spent money like it was going out of style and left us with record deficits. He started a "pre-emptive" war. He pushed the Patriot Act. None of these things are conservative by any means. Ironically, anyone that calls out any of these people for their inconsistent views is deemed a RINO (Republican in name only).
I admit I might not be "hardcore" conservative, mostly because I'm not hardcore anything, but I do believe most of my views are pretty conservative. That's why I find it so frustrating that the Republican Party finds itself in such a confused state. I know there are those on my friends list that think I've turned liberal and simply enjoy bashing Republicans. That's not it at all. It only has to do with the fact the party that is most likely to promote my conservative views has been hijacked by people that aren't conservative at all. They don't even understand what it means to be conservative. They get fired up over one issue and then swallow the pill on everything else. It's embarrassing.
We're so divided and worried about image and power that we are reluctant to admonish our own crowd when it is needed. Priests molest children and it takes atheists to demand criminal justice take place. People are so invested into their own agenda they can't have it tarnished. My church will look bad if I report this so I'll just keep my mouth shut. Penn State doesn't report child molestation because it will make the school look bad. Cops can't admit pepper spraying non-violent college students isn't a wise tactic. BP can't come forward with safety violations and hazards. Republicans can't spank the crowd that has hijacked their party and trampled on the idea they regard as sacred: conservatism. We no longer yearn for honest dialogue, based on fact and reason and integrity. Instead, we opt for the easy option, no matter how detrimental it may be in the long run. We lie to ourselves about what we are. We label ourselves something and it doesn't matter if we meet the criteria, it's easy and feels good. We are a strange creature.
"We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated 'Whig,' 'Free Democrat' or something else; though we think some simple name like 'Republican' would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery." ~ Horace Greeley
No comments:
Post a Comment