Thing is, no one "speaks for us all" just like no one "speaks" for all liberals, and no two conservatives hold the all of the same beliefs any more than any two liberals hold the same beliefs. For example, I'm fairly hard right on defense and free-market economics and slightly center-left on a lot (but not all) social issues. My guy in the GOP nomination race was Jon Huntsman. The thought of Gingrich or Santorum winning makes me slightly ill. Yet other conservatives like big-government activism and isolationism and take a hard-core turn on social policy. There's not such thing as a stereotypical conservative.
I'm not saying that anyone person speaks for all conservatives, but no one seems to be speaking up for the conservatives like you, so it's hardly surprising that people build up stereotypes.
What ever else you can say about Democrats, they don't speak with even nearly as united a voice as the Republicans do. Many people mock the democrats for that, but I think it's a good thing. Speaking out against even a democratic president is normal among Democrats, just look at the attacks against him for his lack of action on gay rights, particularly early in his term. This kind of diversity of opinion makes it much harder to stereotype democrats.
I think it would be healthy for the Republican party if more people spoke up when they don't agree with the very extreme candidates they seem to be settle on. All the main-stream candidates have come out against hormonal birth control and in favour of personhood amendments. This is very extreme stuff, and I know all Republican don't buy into that shit because of the recent vote in Missisipi where a very red state rejected a personhood constitutional amendment. Why do the candidates not reflect more of the diverse views of American conservatives? The only answer I can give is that conservatives are afraid to speak out for some reason, perhaps it's seen as dis-loyal or something?
And every complex political controversy is more significant than mere bumper-sticker slogans. Every issue on which conservatives and liberals disagree has a legitimate, substantive disagreement about *something* at its core.
That used to be defintiely true. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm seeing a lot of reflexive nay-saying. E.g. the individual mandate was a Republican idea, but as soon as Obama was for it, we saw sponsors of past bills FOR the individual mandate suddendly delaring the whole idea unconstitutional! Similarly, Pay as you go is a very sensible and very responsible Republican idea. Obama was for it, then, the Republican leadership turned against it, and killed it.
I KNOW there are principled, intelligent, honest conservatives with a lot ot add to the political discourse in the US, unfortunately, they don't seem to be getting elected! Instead, extremist, reflexive hyper-partisans seem to be getting elected, and they are giving all conservatives a bad name.
To dismiss all conservatives because you reflexively disagree with a caricature of conservative opinion is not, I think, a sign of superiority or sophistication. It's merely the other side of the token of ignorance cast at those with whom one disagrees.
I agree, so it's not something I do or support doing.
I am often very critical of republicans, but it's never because they are republicans, but because of what they are doing or saying. I think it's very important to be able to have a civil discussion, and to be able to compromise, but, both of those things seem to be bad words to the majority of elected republicans in the US houses of congress at the moment.
I wish I was blindly ignoring all the strong evidence to the contrary, but alas, I really don't think I am
B.
