Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives: Number 2: Conservatives Hate the Poor

I’ve been posting a series on the Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives:

Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives: Number 5: Conservatives are fascists.

Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives: Number 4: Conservatives are anti-science neanderthals.

Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives: Number 3: Conservatives are anti-government war-mongers.

Today’s contribution will examine the Top 5 Lies Leftists Believe About Conservatives: Number 2: Conservatives hate the poor.

Where to start with this nonsense?  I mean, it’s so patently absurd that it’s easy to dismiss, but we dismiss this one at our own peril.  It’s their number 2 talking point, their number 2 reason for that annoyingly puffed up (and false) sense of superiority, their number 2 reason for thinking that they are “the compassionate ones,” and importantly, it’s their number 2 means of keeping disgruntled (D) voters in line.  It’s also a complicated one to address because it means something so different to us than it does to them, but it gets straight to the heart of the gigantic difference in our ideologies, the heart–really–of what we mean when we think of “America” and “The American Dream.”

Rather than debunking the surface of this one (I’ve done this before here, here, and here–yes, and in a zillion other posts, it seems), I’ll focus instead on the bigger picture to which I’ve just alluded.  After all, we already know that conservatives tend to be more religious and/or spiritual (often, but certainly not always or necessarily, Christian), we already know that conservatives tend to give more (time, money, and labor) to charity, and we already know that being more religious and/or spiritual is directly tied to caring for the poor (think tithing, etc., and look no further than BO’s lame attempts to use Christianity to justify his anti-Christian, anti-American communist agenda).  So what’s going on with this “conservatives hate the poor” thing?  Quite a few things, actually, but they are all rooted in the twin goals of the far left:  destroying capitalism and destroying America.  Same thing, you say? Naw, they’re related, but not the same.

Consider: the attacks on the American Dream that have been subtly taking place . . . until recently when they’ve become strident, shrill, desperate.  The left has succeeded, I think, in making the once-magnificent American Dream something small, focused, mundane, quotidian, even silly; they’ve managed to boil it down, redefine it, narrow it to (ugh) merely home ownership.  Even many (so-called) conservatives will say when asked that the American Dream is to own a home.  Head thunk.  No. A thousand times no.

The American Dream is vast, sweeping, in-our-souls-immense and without boundaries.  It’s freedom, it’s individual liberty, it’s opportunity for all, it’s finding and defining success for oneself and being able to pursue it on an even playing field, it’s living without fear of the state and secure in our individual rights, it’s everything that America stands for, fights for, is. And that is why it had to be restricted, redefined, destroyed, declared “dead” (for fun do an internet search on “American Dream dead” and note that all the posts declaring it so appear on leftist sites . . . the rest are conservative bloggers rebutting the meme.).  Only when declared “dead” can The American Dream be “rebuilt.” The “rebuilt American Dream” is an abomination.  It’s antiAmerican; it’s unAmerican.  I’d go so far as to say that it’s just plain evil, and so, of course, it comes from the far far left–0’s buddy–Van Jones (0’s former “green czar,” a self-declared communist).  What could go wrong?  Having first minimized, shrunken, wrung-out, and declared dead The American Dream, the far left is in frantic “rebuild the dream” mode.  Note that’s rebuild the dream, not rebuild the American Dream.

Those trixsy leftists have been very successful in keeping we heroic hobbitses quiet on this one, even to the point of complicity.  Sure, we agree, owning a home is The American Dream, going to college is The American Dream, and well, sure, I’ll even agree, these things can be part of it.  Where we erred, as usual, was in not pushing back, not standing up for what we know in our very souls: The American Dream is not simply or solely either of these things or both of them.  It may include that to some of us, but in our heart of hearts, we understand, we get, that The American Dream is expansive.  So how did it get declared dead, only to be “rebuilt” as not-American, as simply a “dream.”  And a commie one at that?

So this commie dream that’s being “rebuilt” in the stead of The American Dream is perhaps best illustrated in Herr Obama’s recent “Julia” video.  The insults, the complexity, the horror of this video have been discussed ad nauseum across the conservative (and even leftist) blogosphere and media, but at its root, it’s exactly the vision the far left has for America: total and utter dependence on the giant, “benevolent” government who will give everything and take nothing, the mythical, fantastical utopia of communist dreams (yep, of 0’s father, of his many fathers—all of whom are communists, Marxists, and/or radical Islamists).

This is the world that 0 and his traitorous horde envision (and mind that it’s not an America they envision, but literally, the world): you are, from cradle to grave, a subject of the state, a number, a nameless, faceless commodity.  How useful are you to the society at large?  What do you contribute to the “common good”?   Are you old, infirm, or otherwise “unacceptable”?  You will be dealt with accordingly.  The state has the solution, and it’s often the final solution.  You are propped up by and dependent on the state for everything from your God-granted rights (those don’t exist, the state gives and takes rights at its will . . . for “the Greater Good,” never ever “good.”) to your food, shelter, basic needs, even to what you are permitted to think and say.  The state will provide, dictate, dominate, subjugate, and you, lucky lucky you, get to go along with it . . . or face the consequences.  This is the left’s vision of “helping the poor.”

Obviously, this vision doesn’t include a free market or a free people.  It doesn’t include any freedom at all, except to the government, which is free to do what it pleases to ensure that everyone–excepting the political class and its allies–is equally poor, equally miserable, equally enslaved.

Because we reject this vision, we must hate the poor goes the leftist line of illogic.  If you don’t want the state to provide everything, then you must want the state to provide nothing.  If you don’t want the state to be everything, you must want the state to be and do nothing.  Resisting totalitarian control, government entitlements, and all forms of wasteful and ineffective leftist assistance to the poor means that you hate the poor.  Period.  You can explain until you’re blue in the face that you don’t think this works, you can give example after example of the miserable failures and massive slaughter that always–always–results from the application of this ideology, but no matter what you say, these self-appointed guardians of “The Greater Good” will simply sneer and say that capitalism is “unfair” that equal opportunity is “unjust” that equal justice is “RAAAACIST.”  Equality, to them, is something you impose, by force if necessary, not something that we are born with, that we are endowed with on the basis of our humanity.

Capitalism, the free market, our constitutional republic create, they argue, too much inequality, leave too many people behind.  The only solution is, obviously, to make everyone equally poor.  Uh huh.  The problem, of course, and even they admit it, is that our system of government and our economic system have created the most wealthy, most successful, most powerful nation on this earth.  Our system has made even our poorest among the world’s “1%.”  Or you know, we were . . . before 0 came to power.

Conservatives don’t “hate the poor.”  Quite the contrary, we believe that the poor benefit best from freedom, from self-reliance, from American stick-to-itiveness and ingenuity.  We believe that standing tall is better than being beaten down, that with our rights comes personal responsibility, that equal opportunity for all is more desirable than “special” opportunity for “special” groups (with the requisite lowering of standards to accommodate this insanity), that each American should have the same opportunity and the same benefits of American citizenship, and that the free market is the best way to achieve these goals.  Does this mean that some “get left behind”? Sure.  But everyone has the same shot, the same chance, the same opportunity to get up, dust off, and move forward.  Will some fail?  Sure.  Will others succeed?  Sure.  But, and here’s the key difference between conservatives and leftists, success is not measured by, guaranteed by, or interfered with by the government.  The government is there to protect my rights, not grant them (or take them away); the government is there is to ensure that I have the same opportunity as someone else (not to give me preferential treatment because I’m a woman like *gag* “Julia”), the government is there to protect and defend my freedom (not to limit and destroy it).

The flip-side of the “conservatives hate the poor” meme is that conservatives love and support the rich, to the point, as leftists are wont to argue, that we do so to our own detriment.  We vote, they say, “against our own best interests.” And they actually believe that.  They have bought the “fat cats,” “not paying their fair share,” “capitalism is evil,” “big business/banks/oil/etc. are Satan” tripe and actually believe that success, achieving what we used to call–at least in part–The American Dream, is to be demonized, even “punished.”  They insist that they get “their fair share” (which actually means that anyone who has more than they do “owes” them.  You know, somehow.  For, you know, something. Or, more usually, for absolutely nothing.).

Conservatives believe that a rising tide raises all boats, while leftists believe that the tide can be controlled, managed, forced to their will.  It’s worth noting that it was JFK who said that about the rising tide, and that he did so in defense of his tax cuts and other policies that “benefited the wealthy.”  Conservatives understand that a booming economy under a free market capitalist system actually benefits all and that a stagnant economy bound by regulation, high taxes, and government control drags everyone down.

As “they” say, the left loves the poor so much it wants to create more of them.  Well, the flip side, the truth, is that conservatives so love the poor that we want to lift them out of poverty on the rising tide of success.  And to do that, we have to stop creating more poor people, and start enabling, fostering, growing independence, freedom, and liberty.  We have to give the power to the people, allow them pride, self-sufficiency, and independence.  Conservatives know this is not selfish; it’s selfless.  Conservatives know that a proud, self-reliant, empowered citizen is a powerhouse of potential, of compassion, of truly neighborly support.  We pull together, we work for ourselves and our community, we are free and we are empowered.  Faced with adversity we pull together, we rebuild, we stand tall and strong.

We are Americans, secure in our constitutional republic and in our patriotism.  We love our country, each other, and ourselves.  Make no mistake:  leftists know this.  They just can’t abide it.