Ways I'm more Conservative than a Wingnut

• I believe in higher standards. The incompetance and failure of others is never an excuse for you own flaws. Bill Clinton getting a blow job is not an excuse to BBQ Iraqi kids with white phosphorus.
  
• I abhor moral relativism. We are right and the terrorists are wrong. But when you act like a terrorist to fight terrorism, then you become a terrorist too. You can't wiggle out of that one with cheap relativism.
• Governments ought to fear their citizens. Elected officials are nothing more than public servants. And the smaller the government, the more power to its citizens.
• The bigger the government, the greater its incompetance. For governments, size and power are unrelated. Just look at the Bush administration. There was nothing to stop them and their fall from grace was just the greater.
• I don't believe in nation building. Citizens have their own countries to take care of. To suggest that you can impose democracy is to ignore the meanings of the words imposing and democracy.
• I believe in vengeance. When terrorists try to kill you, you kill them in return. You don't lose interest and start building new countries. To do otherwise is a sign of weakness.
• I believe in honor. When you form an alliance to fight terrorism, you don't betray your allies by using their support to further your pety political and financial goals.

It always bugs me to hear wingnuts refer to me as a 'lefty'. They see themselves as conservatives and I'm the liberal. It's a comforting picture. But with the list above, I just smashed this pretty picture to pieces and showed to wingnuts how in some aspects I am more conservative than they are. A vain attempt to put them to shame, if they still have any.
This dogmatic duality on their part makes the world easier to understand for the weak minded. But this duality is an illusion. This right/left demarcation doesn't exist. These wingnut might claim to be conservatives, but most of them only use the esthetics. Neo-conservative warmongers are closer to far-left communism with their imperialist nation-building and their permanant revolution (the War on Terror). Blinded by power, libertarian conservatives who cheered Bush basicaly peed on their own principles. The religious right made a pact with the big business conservatives (aka the devil), forgetting it is the eye of Ra on the dollar bill, not Jesus.

The thing about liberalism is it is undogmatic. Right-wingers try to paint all liberals as lefties. But the fact is, even though some liberals might be painted with the etiquette of 'lefties', it is often an oversimplification and usualy completly untrue. In most case, it is only 'left' in the context of an extreme right ideology (as they say, compared to Bush, Nixon was a socialist). When you view ideas liberaly, a conservative or moderate right-wing idea that works is acceptable. A socialist or moderate left-wing idea that doesn't work is unacceptable. And vice-versa. (For exemple, in Canada, no sane conservative pol would ever try to eliminate universal healthcare) Because of that, it is not inconsistant for some liberals to be pro-welfare and pro-capitalist at the same time. To paint liberals as dogmatic, or religious like Ann Coulter tried to do, is projection from far-right-wingers. When you are morally flawed, it is easier to accuse others of your own crimes than to face the reality that you are a dogmatic prick. It also shows the ignorance (perhaps faked, perhaps they really that stupid) of wingnuts. Communists, anarchists and the far-left hate liberals more than they hate right wingers. It's a common trait of extremists to despise liberals; just look at Bush and Ahmadinejad. The most dangerous thing for a dogmatic ideology is one (ideology) that isn't (dogmatic).

The things I have listed are not necessarely conservative. They are traditionaly associated with it, but really, that's bullshit. I guess another title could have been, "how I am different from contemporary conservatives", but it's not as catchy.

(Cross posted at Liberal Avenger)