Conservatism: The Common Sense Lifeline in a Common Senseless Storm

Disclaimer:

Although I have read Mark Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny, and consider myself an economic and social conservative, I do not intend for the purposes of this essay to regurgitate Levin’s concepts in Liberty and Tyranny. I decided to add this paragraph to inform the reader that Levin’s book is an inspiring look at conservatism vs. liberalism, or Statism as he refers to it, and many of my own thoughts and writings may tend to reflect concepts in Liberty and Tyranny. Although I by no means plagiarize Levin, I agree whole-heatedly in much of the roots, mechanisms, and elements of conservatism that he subscribes to.



Conservatives believe in the concept of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The conservative believes in the opportunity for everyone to make their own fortune, better their position in life, and freely pursue and realize their goals and dreams. This concept has been roundly referred to world-wide as the American Dream. Never has this concept been referred to as the Russian Dream, the Ethiopian Dream, the Iranian Dream or the Canadian Dream. Always the American Dream. Millions of immigrants to this country over two centuries can attest to the draw and inspiration the American Dream can hold over the human spirit. As long as every individual has an equal opportunity to create, achieve, thrive, and succeed--those that desire to chase after what they want will do so, and ultimately make better themselves and the society as a whole. This is a large reason why the true conservative believes so ardently in limited government. True conservatives comprehend the concept of “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” Trying to explain this truth to someone resigned to the notion that government is the answer to all of our problems is an exercise in futility. They would rather hand over their money, rights, and liberty to government for the sake of propagating the mystique of equal outcome—a fallacy that has never been successful, and never will. The Founders also staunchly believed in a limited government with enumerated powers, and the empowerment of the individual through liberty from too much government intrusion. Further strengthening the Founders model of limited central government is Federalism. Through Federalism, individual States have the ability to govern and tailor legislation to their own unique culture and socioeconomic landscape without the stigma of a large central government ruling from afar.


The conservative also comprehends the notion that, even when afforded equal opportunity, not everyone will rise to the mantel of achievement or desire to work hard to accomplish a goal or dream. This concept goes hand in hand with the reality that equal outcome is a false utopian dream. Some people will simply choose to live off of handouts and the work of others. However, as long as they live in a civil society which provides them equal opportunity to accomplish a goal or dream, if they choose to work for it, hope remains intact for the individual and the civil society.

Some actually choose not to live by the laws established by the society they live in, and ultimately, reject cooperatively contributing to the civil society altogether. Illegal immigrants come to mind. They have just as equal an opportunity to become a legal citizen as anyone else; however, no matter how good of a person they are at heart, they choose to reject the law and live according to what suits them, despite how damaging their actions can ultimately be to everyone else.

Such is life—and the conservative understands this; however, the conservative rejects the idea that those that work hard to achieve, create, accomplish, and pursue their American Dream are obligated, or worse yet, indeed forced to provide for those that choose not to achieve, work, or follow the laws of the land. This is one major reason why the conservative yearns for entitlement program and tax reform. The conservative believes in empowering people with the opportunity to make their own success.

One of the many entitlement program reforms the conservative seeks is social security reform. Individuals need the opportunity to plan their retirement savings in a manner that may yield a more successful return on their investment—in essence, keep the money they work hard to earn. And I don’t intend to indicate that everyone should stop paying social security taxes tomorrow and just dump all their money into the stock market—that would be foolish and unrealistic.

As it currently stands, social security is little more than a massive government mandated Ponzie scheme—transferring money from people who pay into the system to others who do not in an attempt to force the utopian dream of equal outcome. Many of the people drawing from social security end up receiving more than they ever put in—those on disability for instance. This reality alone should demonstrate how crucial social security reform is. Furthermore, social security is not some massive trust fund out there in a government bank account that people pay into with the hope of drawing the money out when they retire. The 6% social security tax that is eliminated from your every paycheck has already been spent. It is not sitting in savings earning interest waiting for you when you retire. Social security is a completely unfunded entitlement program which is in fact bankrupt; however, the government continues to write the checks anyway, understandably so, because it’s not like they can just turn the entitlement faucet off tomorrow. Plans need to be made, strategy mapped out, and some sacrifices taken, but the leftist in government drives on as if social security is an entitlement for all and in fact a blank check for the future.

I fully comprehend that many people currently benefit from social security. I work in the financial industry and see first-hand how social security is in fact some peoples’ only source of income. I know there are those receiving social security that paid into it during their entire working career, and thus earned it—my grandparents for instance; however, they are receiving a diminished return on what they actually paid in. Furthermore, once they die they cannot transfer the remaining social security they are entitled to over to their heirs—another nasty consequence of the government controlling an individuals retirement. Social security is a perfect example of how government has attempted to force equal outcome, and failed miserably.

Leftists, or progressives as they prefer to be called, put full stock in the concept of equal outcome rather than equal opportunity. Ironically enough, they claim to be the champions of equal opportunity; however, a closer look at the programs and legislation they support will quickly reveal the truth. As believers in equal outcome, they believe in redistribution of wealth and go as far as to label the “rich” as evil—that they require punishment through heavy taxation—as if they do not pay enough taxes already. Contrary to the progressives mantra that the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes, as it currently stands in America, the top 40% of earners already pay 70% of the tax burden. How much more do they need to pay? 60% of the population is paying 30% of the tax burden and in 2009 alone, 40% of the people didn’t even end up paying income taxes at all, they received a tax return. Just look on the IRS website and note the tax brackets. The “rich” already pay between 33% and 35% of their gross income to federal taxes, and if the Bush tax cuts from 2002 are allowed to expire, that will increase to 39.6%. So, by and large, who is paying the majority of the taxes in this country? Do the math…

Some might say, “You just want to protect the rich while the middle and lower class suffer!” My response is two-fold: First off, the ignorance of the aforementioned mind-set is staggering to say the least; however, unfortunately many people feel this way. Of course I want to protect the rich, or rather the “wealth” in this country, but not in an unethical money-mongering way as the anticapitalist incorrectly presumes. Protecting the wealth and those who have accumulated it is mostly an economic necessity!

For the sake of stimulating some rational thought, I would ask the leftist to contemplate the following questions:

• Who do you think are the job creators, entrepreneurs, and property owners who largely employ the “middle and lower class” in this country?

• Who are the people that own businesses, hire people, and help create competition in the market, ultimately leading to decreases in price?

• Who do you think took risks, created businesses that gave way to product innovation and technology advancement in this country?

• Who spends higher volumes of money in the private sector, thus stimulating the economy way more than government ever can?



The answer to all of the above questions is not government; it is those evil rich people that leftists want to tax to death!


Here is some ‘Economics 101’ food for thought:

If more tax revenue is the ultimate objective, raising taxes can actually be counterproductive to the end goal. Raising taxes constricts businesses and limits the ability to hire more people, take risk, expand, and spend. Getting people back to work will make more progress toward creating tax revenue simply because there will be more people in the workforce paying taxes. Imaging how much more tax revenue the government would benefit from of the country was back to 4% or 5% unemployment as opposed to the 10% we are currently at…
Raising taxes—any kind of taxes for anyone--in a recession is counterproductive to recovering from the recession because it stifles growth and does not  facilitate sufficient job creation.   This is one of the many reasons why taking on such incredible amounts of debt (the Stimulus, Bail-out’s, Obamacare, etc. etc.) is so detrimental to our overall economic progress. 

I want to ensure that the wealthy and the business owners in this country can keep what they have earned (insert concept of American Dream here) and keep spending the way they do and thus keep their means intact to create jobs, initiate more business innovation, and positively stimulate the economy. This is not a left or right political issue. One either accepts basic economic principles, or they reject them and insert their own emotion-based or dogma-based ideologies. Businesses do not hire more people when they are stifled by heavy tax burdens and uncertainty in the marketplace, and businesses definitely do not hire more when they have zero confidence that the government is not going to help foster an economic recovery by getting out of their way. This is why under the Obama administration unemployment has been allowed to soar and has failed to go back down. The American business construct is showing its lack of confidence in this congress and administration. Bear in mind, the democrats have been in complete control of both houses of congress for the last four years—and the White house for the last two. Furthermore, as long as we demonize and punish wealth in this country we will stifle and constrict the entrepreneurial spirit that is traditionally unique to this nation and ultimately, is the spirit that creates jobs! Punishing wealth creation in this country effectively stops risk-takers in their tracks, does not incent businesses to take chances, and overall, darkens the American Dream. Why would anyone work as hard as they can to earn wealth when it is just going to be punished and taken from them anyway? Why would anyone get off their butt to go earn a living and contribute to the economy when the government will take from the earners and redistribute to those who choose not to earn?

Unfortunately, America is overrun with government full of leftists and progressives. This means our own government leans more toward the concept of forcing equal outcome and legislates accordingly. Under the rule of those that believe equal outcome can be governed, legislated, or created, some very destructive things occur. People who work hard to earn, create and achieve are forced to pay for those who do not so that the illusion of equal outcome can be upheld. Thus, the leftist supports higher taxation and government controlled entitlements.  They just forced healthcare upon the entire country as a government-provided entitlement. Rather than empowering the individual with equal opportunity to work hard and create their own wealth, and spend their money they way they choose, equal outcome believers must force their ideology upon the populace because it does not naturally exist. The equal outcome utopia requires a lot of government programs and regulations. Inflating government is an expensive enterprise; however, it is necessary in the mind of a leftist because equal outcome must be legislated. To the conservative, growing government and increasing government programs equals taxes, taxes, and more taxes and ultimately less freedom, choice, and liberty. The conservative comprehends that the believers in equal outcome will choose to raise taxes in order to financially facilitate their inflated government and throng of government programs. They will not eliminate or reduce the programs set in place, for the programs are required to facilitate their utopian dream. Unfortunately taxes can never be raised high enough to pay for it all, so another destructive consequence of the leftist utopian dream is inflation, and a lousy dollar. In order to keep interest rates artificially low, they then have to print more money. This can lead to the cost of products and services going up, yet does nothing for income or standard of living—and actually, standard of living will decrease during inflationary periods, damaging the very people they claim to support the most—the lower and middle class.

Further legislating economically destructive policy, the Leftists in government then may decide to raise the minimum wage in an effort to project the notion that they are thinking of the “little guy”, that they support the “average” working American. They will propagate many heart-wrenching stories of how hard it is for the middle and lower class citizen to make a living and raise a family—they must be given more money for their hard work—they simply must! Unfortunately, all a forced wage increase does to the economy is force prices to increase yet again. What once was a $5 burger at your local diner will become a $7 burger in an effort to offset the increase in cost of doing business.  Furthermore, they may (and actually did) legislate bad policy which entitles people to a home--even if they do not qualify for the mortgage.

The sick part of this destructive spiral is that it was the leftist’s bad economic policies which made it difficult for the average citizen to make a living in the first place and ultimately, guess who is going to be there with open arms, entitlement programs and welfare when the individual is disenfranchised, bled dry, and broken? The very same leftist! This keeps those disenfranchised citizens voting for the leftist rather than against. I am undecided as to whether the leftist is simply an economic imbecile with no concept of the future or the “big picture”, or a sly genius subtly orchestrating a massive strategy to keep people dependant on government and thus voting accordingly.