Pop Conservatism's Woolly Logic

Too many European Americans still don't get it.

My postal carrier recently slipped a copy of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, into my mail box. I received it mistakenly. The small pamphlet was address to my mother, who died a decade or so ago. While eating a sandwich, I read the "cover" story, "The Roots of Our Partisan Divide" by Christopher Caldwell, senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and author of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties. It sounded intriguing. I have wondered more than once if my generation, Boomers along with Generation Xers and Millennials (Generation Y) believed that they were entitled to a form of materialism that surpassed that of my parent's generation.

Well, that's not what Caldwell was writing about.

Basically, he argues that since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, America has a new constitution. (I missed the media coverage of the third Constitutional Convention.) He claims with gusto:

"Let's say you're a progressive…[skip a 129 words of baloney to his conclusion] To you, the other party is a party of bigots."

I'm a progressive. I know conservatives. Some are bigots, usually unbeknownst to themselves, and others are anything but bigots. They merely oppose government interference in the lives of individuals. Most progressives I know agree with me.

He then limps to this mangled bit of logic: "But say you're a conservation person…[skip 21 words of uselessness] There is no avenue for you to complain about …your children learning 'gender fluidity'…[skip more baloney]. You begin to suspect that taking your voice away from you and taking your vote away from you is the main goal of these rights movements."

Let's start with the basics. Kids don't learn about gender fluidity. They learn what we all have learned: Individual gender identities can vary. Today they learn about it in the safe environment of a classroom, not on the streets from their peers. Which is better?

Now let's turn to freedom of expression and protest, his main point. Since when has America limited the conservative voice? He is exercising his voice. So is Rush Limbaugh. So is Donald Trump. How about Chris Tucker and Sean Hannity? The white supremacists in Charlotte? The voices are loud. Lord, are they loud. They bellow, shout. About the injustice to primarily European Americans. No one shuts them up. Millions listen to them. So what is Caldwell's point?

I forgot to mention that in a boldface call-out, Caldwell offers this bit of akilter: "If there is such a thing as 'people of color,' and if they are demanding a larger share of rewards, they are ipso facto demand that 'non-people of color' get a smaller share. [italics are his]"

Cow pucks.

Again let's start at the beginning. Europeans and European Americans developed, fostered, and institutionalized the concept of color to describe human beings, especially during the age of slavery and eugenics. Therefore, people are merely adopting the terminology developed by whites.

Additionally, African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican American, Native Americans, women of all ethnicities, and members of the LBGQT community are not looking to punish European Americans males. They want the same access to opportunity as guaranteed by the Constitution--even the one before 1964 and the first one adopted as worded, not as interpreted by white landowners--that all European American males have enjoyed for decades, if not centuries.

Caldwell's essay does not express a point of view. It merely reinforces the notion that too many European Americans still have no clue as to the meaning of equal rights.

P.S. [March 21]: By the way, their request for equal access to opportunity also reflects the fundamental principles espoused by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Increasing the number of participants in our society will increased competition. According to the basic principles of capitalism, we all benefit. Competition will force us to improve as individuals, communities, and a nation. Equal access essentially supports what supposedly is the fundamental principle of conservativism.

Unfortunately, the conservative movement over the past 50 years has moved to preserve the wealth and power of the already empowered at the expense of all other Americans and the nation itself.

The time has come for more conservatives to think with their minds and not their pocketbooks.