Author's Note
The following began as a comment on something someone else wrote online about whether Conservatives are "dumb". I'll point out that in spite of the title of his piece, “Are Conservatives Dumb?”, the message of it wasn't - at all - that Conservatives are dumb. What I found worthy of reply, however, was that the piece suggested that Conservative thinking comes from emotions, and that Conservative thinking is not aimed at the individual and is, instead, aimed at the larger picture. I, on the other hand, see Liberals as the ones who operate from emotion and as the ones who don't focus on the individual.
Everyone is entitled to his own ideas, of course. The following is not intended to be a "dispute". It's simply intended to present a Conservative's view of what can go into a person's thinking (whether or not some of the things that can go into it are exclusive to Conservatives or not).
To be candid (and hopefully to have the following remark seen as the slightly lighthearted one it's intended to be, I've always kind of thought that the particular author’s frequent raising of the Liberal/Conservative thing has been a sign that he's been soaking in Massachusetts air.
I, on the other hand, have also been soaking in the Massachusetts air for too long; but from my little corner of a state I've come to see as destructive and toxic, the Massachusetts air to which I've been exposed has been nothing but poisonous and oppressive.
To be honest, I don't need or expect anyone to even read any of this. I am, however, writing it anyway.
Even so, my fairly informal presentation of what has gone into my own Conservative leanings follows below.
I'm far from an extreme Right-Winger, but I'm Conservative. Oddly, maybe, I see Liberal thinking as "emotional", and as not emphasizing the individual. The easiest and quickest way to sum up why is with the following examples of thinking, "We have to take care of absolutely everybody who has one need or another, regardless of whether we can afford it, have the money, or will compromise some other important element in the mix; because it's so painful to have to know people need things." (Again, over-simplified - but an an "overall example"). The other one, "Everybody has to be equal, no matter what because it isn't nice when everyone isn't all the same" (which is different from whether everyone's life is valued and respected as "equal").
In any event, before going on I’d like to emphasize that I hope readers get what I'm aiming to say without missing the point that I've over-simplified to the extent that I have.
Anyway, that's not the only reason I go with Conservative (even if I disagree with some things). Although I was Conservative before this, once I ran into some up-close-and-personal, first-hand, exposure to how the government does some things, I was horrified at how destructive, stupid, overbearing, and damaging the government, some laws, and a lot of incompetent workers (including professionals) can be in the lives of average citizens and families.
Besides the routine incompetence and oppressive policies I ran into when I put my kids in public schools, I was the one to get the education when I had no choice but to take my children and try to leave my marriage. The best way to describe that is to say it reminds me of the kids' movie, "Anastasia" (animated) when the castle was pillaged and destroyed in violence. The phrase "rape of a life" has remained in mind for two decades now, and I've seen the destruction that was solely and directly (and sometimes indirectly) caused by nothing more than the government and how things are done. I may as well have no Constitutional rights in Massachusetts, because I've seen that the state has so many policies and laws that are, in fact, in direct conflict with The Constitution.
I've come to learn that Constitutional Rights are nothing more but lip service on paper in Washington DC - because in Massachusetts (ironically, where the country got its start) the principles on which the country was founded have essentially been forgotten by the government, itself. (Certainly, not individuals citizens - but they don't help much when you have no choice but to deal with a government that has inflicted itself into your life because it doesn't even recognize that most people are better off being left alone by a mediocre, or worse, government that screws up lives.)
Let's see, which parts/agencies of government have I dealt with? Public schools, the court system (probate and other, including divorce and custody), adopting from the state, agencies associated the state's adoption "agency" when the child is 21, exposure to the foster-care program (not as a foster mother, but with plenty of exposure to it), and - oh - let's not forget the Department of Mental Health (which I could write a whole book on, in spite of the fact that I've never had a bit of mental illness in my life - although it's a miracle this state hasn't driven me to suicide by now). I've had some dabblings with the Elder Abuse people because of a victim family member; but I've also worked for Elder Affairs on a program that was the biggest joke in the world. I've at least "met" some of the entitlement agencies when leaving my marriage meant I was also left penniless by the court, and when I was encouraged to seek help from whatever government agency may offer it to someone like me (and in my case, that was none of them, because there's not a help for people in my situation). In any case, some of the examples I've included here are nothing but a tip-of-the-iceberg kind of thing when it comes to what I've seen in terms of the big and small ways in which government destroys (or contributes to the destruction) of people's lives.
Oh - let's talk about the court-appointed lawyers and GAL's (divorce case) who are, I am fairly certain, directly or indirectly responsible for the fact that my elderly, sick, mother had a heart attack, lived bedridden, and lost her legs before dying fifteen months later. (I'd asked them to keep my mother out of my divorce and custody situation, because she was elderly and sick and absolutely terrified by my leaving my marriage. I was ignored, and she had the heart attack I knew she would most likely have.) I've got other horror stories that I can't post here. The main point is that I could write a book on all the atrocities the government (state and Federal) does in the lives of individuals and families; and another book on how even when someone manages to put a life back together, the government swoops back in and undoes it all again.
The State House, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, one agency or another, the "welfare insurance" that people who want their tax refund have no choice but to sign up for - all horrendous, oppressive, and ignorantly designed in ways that are destructive in ways only someone with some exposure to them would even see.
My three children have been hurt big and in a ways I won't go into here, but I will say that their lives continue to feel the impact of the state's screw-ups, indifference, and lack of accountability.
I'm not some anti-social anarchist (or something), but I hate so much about the government and the way it destroys lives, undoes what people work so hard to do, and rapes lives (and "destroys men and lives", as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence).
I know that someone reading this will think, "Oh well, that's you. There must be something about you that made all that happen. That kind of thing won't happen to me. " That's where someone would be so wrong. If that kind of thing could happen to someone like me, boy, I can't imagine how bad it could get for someone not as "on the ball" or as strong as I am.
In the meantime, I live very much under what would sure seem like "modified house arrest", without the freedom to pursue my own happiness and choice of livelihood; and without the freedom to simply be free to come and go as I want, be with whomever I want to be with (and not with someone I don't want to be with) - and this has gone on for twenty years now. Twenty years!!!
It might be nice if my right to information about my own legal situation were honored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where I'm forced to reside, but which is no longer anything I'd ever consider my "home"; but my right to information and records has been denied as well, and I've been given the run-around when I've tried to assert that right.
For all that I've ever built and had torn down by the government, and for that I've rebuilt and had torn down by the government again (although sometimes only indirectly and as a result of the government's not knowing what laws would prevent such tearing down); I've come to see that while we, of course, need government; we would all be a heck of a lot better off if we can keep it, and its increasingly oppressive and ignorant laws and practices, out of our lives as much as possible.
Personally, I don't think Liberals OR Conservatives have a clue as a group or a platform, because the people who DO have a clue are often not even fit to tell their stories and how it all happens at the hands of the government. I, on the other hand, seem to miraculously have survived at least enough to be able to tell my story; but my problem (and I suspect that of a lot of other people) is that after one's life have been raped and pillaged the sense of violation and horror is so overwhelming it can be impossible to make oneself be able to share the details of a life and make it yet more of an open book than it already is.
And then... My "favorite" thing is when people act like it is the "less government" party that are the monsters or the people who don't understand, or haven't experienced, the stuff that the "less fortunate" have.
I'm happy to be able to say that my family (my kids and I) remain strong and solid and close, but that's only because I knew how to work so hard (and found ways to keep up the energy to keep working so hard) to hold us together when the government's intrusion and psychological/emotional violence felt like the worst of storms battering four innocent people and some others within proximity.
What isn't easy is to deal with the fact that twenty years I mentioned aren't just my own twenty years of life. They're twenty years in the lives of at least three other people, and that particular three people are today only thirty-five, thirty- and twenty-seven. Do the math.
I'd love nothing more than to post every last detail of every last horror that the Liberal and oppressive Commonwealth of Massachusetts inflicted into our lives over - what - a simple divorce that could been handled without horror and disruption and worse IF the government recognized that there's such a thing as an individual citizen who knows pretty well how to run a life and keep a family whole and close even when divorce is necessary. I'm not able to post those details, however, for reasons I've mentioned above (among others). God knows it's not really my own privacy at stake at this point. It's just that I don't want to share some details that involve the privacy of the people who have already been so hurt by what went on, what hasn't been fixed or acknowledged, and what I will continue to seek justice and/or compensation for until the day I die (if it takes that long).
I'd like nothing more than to show up here under my real name, post the pictures of those three innocent children (and now those three grown-ups whose lives continue to be impacted, name names, and include details about each and everything that went on (and that would obviously make it clear that even though I'm not "the victim type" I was clearly an innocent and undeserving victim of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, its mediocrity, favoritism (in ways) toward low income, poorly educated/trained, people who are happy to turn their lives over to the control of the state.
Telling someone dragged in by an overzealous, incompetent, court system that you're not interested in his opinion about "whether there should be a divorce" (because you've decided that there WILL BE a divorce, have been thinking about it for years, and aren't interested in the opinion of anyone else) is viewed as out of line in Massachusetts. Asking people not to go around to your family members (and elderly, sick, emotionally distraught mother) and your neighbors to ask about their take on you is ignored in government-overloaded Massachusetts. Expecting the court system to keep a divorce between you, your spouse, and the three children involved is expecting too much (at least in Massachusetts). Offering to prove everything you offer to the court (and being able to figure out some way to prove that whatever you present is honest, objective, and even fair to the other person is not enough).
Expecting to have your day in open court is too much in Massachusetts. In fact, two spouses can be left outside the room as lawyers and GALs have "secret talks" that don't include the two spouses or their children.
AND, for all the unnecessary and incompetent "help" that the government is more than happy to inflict into the lives of people who don't want or need it, there isn't any genuine help for people who ask that their rights, children's rights, and children, themselves, be protected.
Here's a silly (but infuriating) example of how the government does things: When I was kicked out of my house and left without a home or income, I called around to state agencies to see if someone would give/lend me the $600 I needed to get back the license that I'd lost when I was ordered (essentially) to drive a car (and live in it) without consideration for the fact that the court had arranged things in a way that made it impossible for me to work: I called around to ask if there might be any kind of emergency or temporary help for me. There wasn't. Fine.
I was, however, offered job training (I don't know how much that costs). I told the woman I didn't need job training, and pointed out a few things I have on my resume. I was told (and I quote), "maybe you'd like some job training anyway"). Another time, I told the person I was talking to that I wouldn't want or need any assistance of any kind because my only problem was the separation agreement that resulted from the mishandling of the divorce. I was told, "That's not something we get involved with," which, of course, wasn't. How stupid is it, though, that there's nothing in place for someone like that state employee to call someone else and say, "I have someone here who claims the only reason she can't work is that her divorce was grossly mishandled and based on lies presented to the court by people who had no business presenting anything to the court in the first place." That might give someone in my situation the chance to have his/her case reviewed by someone else in The System, and possibly lead to the person's being put in touch with a new lawyer. Instead, state employees are left helpless and in the position of essentially saying, "Do you want to try to get some assistance, or do you want to forget it; because if you want to try to get assistance you'll have to pretend to have some problem you don't really have. And, if you don't want assistance and don't want to get into the whole thing about pretending to have a problem and also, by the way, getting your family's business dragged into yet more government files, you're just completely out of luck."
There were some mentions of one type of help or another from the government, but it turned out that my White European last name, and the color my skin meant I wasn't qualified for those; AND, in a country that is ordinarily quite familiar with reasons why women must leave marriages (through believing they have no choice), there was no help for women who had lost custody of children as the result of an angry and/or misguided spouses' raising questions of her mental health. Having been "unfortunate" enough not to have been beaten up by a husband, I was disqualified for help for people in that situation.
I've never wanted anything from the government except a basic education for my three kids, and the schools didn't do much by any of the children; but I was able to make up for that by knowing how to supplement their mediocre education. The one thing I wanted and needed from the government (at least in the beginning) was a lawyer who would get to the truth for my children and me, and a separation agreement that would allow me to find a place to live (or stay in my home, the way most mothers of young kids do), drive and work (in view of the fact that I had a broad background and solid experience). I wanted the government to help me get to freedom before things had gotten any worse at home, so my kids (who hadn't been around some of the increasing "difficulties") would be spared more.
By the way, women's "equality", "women's rights", and the protection and best interests of children - all just the same kind of lip service and baloney on paper that The Constitution is.
Who, exactly, are the "geniuses" that have set up that kind of thing without ever even building into it a way to to put people who really don't want or need assistance, but who have had a case mishandled in probate court (and can easily prove it if given someone to whom they have that chance to prove it)? I could pose any number of "who-are-the-'geniuses'" questions here, but you get the idea.
I also have a set of "who-are-the-other-'geniuses'" questions when it comes to some Conservative thinking and how some things are done in government, but the real point here is that it doesn't matter which "geniuses" (and at this point I really do hope you see that I'm being sarcastic here) are responsible for which failures and oppressive policies/laws exist; because they all exist within government, which means that keeping government out of one's personal life (if at all possible) is the best way to assure that one won't learn the hard way exactly how oppressive and oblivious to The Constitution and principles of freedom from oppression government really is at this point in history.
The garbage in/garbage out situation that happens with files that have bad information and lies in them prevents me from getting anyone to look at things with a fresh eye - so as far as I can guess I could remain under "modified house arrest" for another twenty years (if I live that long). AND, I committed no crime and have never in my life had any form of mental illness (although I may be developing some exhaustion-related depression at this stage in the game). I've had kind offers of help on the Internet from time to time, but a) I don't really know who I'd be sending that personal business to, b) I wouldn't even know if someone was who they say they are, and c) even if a new lawyer looked at the case, chances are the garbage in/garbage out thing would kick in again and result in yet another dead end. BUT, I do have the right to vote even if I'm a woman. That, I guess, feeds into the crap about how there are "laws to protect citizens" and guarantee rights.
Here's the thing, any time in my life when there's been a matter of winning or losing, I've always won when the game was played by the rules. That's all it took. Nobody, however, no matter what they do that's right or how fairly and honestly they play, can win when The System throws out the rules and disregards the laws and rights. All I know is if The System (the government) is not going to play by the rules and abide by laws it pretends exists, the only thing any perfectly innocent citizens AND their children can do is aim to keep the government out of their life if at all possible. That's unfortunate, of course, because that would mean trapping any number of people into unhealthy home situations as a "better" alternative. That's just more oppression too few people realize is a reality born within the very government that pretends to be against oppression.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - the chance to go out where the jobs are and get hired without having a garbage-in/garbage-out file follow me to background checks and references. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - a full-time job so that I can have my own, private, health insurance or health-care fund.
So, instead, I have a freelance business made of whatever work I can get within a distance that allows me to arrange for a ride and be dropped off at back doors, so that people won't see that I don't drive. (Thank goodness for e.mail, smart phones, and the Internet which help eliminate the need for too many of those back-door drop-offs.) Not always a full-time endeavor, and never the pay I could have been getting over the last twenty years if the government had a law that said courts can't order people to drive cars unless it's also arranged that they'll have at least $16 to fix a cracked tail light to meet state inspection requirements; or unless that person would be exempt from sticker-related tickets. Another nice law that's apparently not something the government is smart enough or decent enough to have: A law that says a person cannot lose a driver's license and get absolutely no response from the Registry for 19 years, and over a cracked (but still working) tail light. Cruel and abusive, maybe. There are any number of ways the government (the Registry of Motor Vehicles or someone else) could eliminate this kind of "atrocity", but apparently (again) people in the government are too stupid or too indifferent (or too something) to even address this kind of thing.
Someone commented to me not long ago that there seems to be an "undercurrent" in what I post online. There's an "undercurrent" alright.
There's a whole lot more that I can't include here. As I said, I leaned toward Conservatism long before the divorce disaster and rape and robbery of my life. At this point, one might think my thinking is "emotional", but - believe me - I've long ago gone way past "emotional" and to, instead, a "cold, dead" lack of emotion when it comes to anyone and anything associated with government, particularly the Massachusetts system. (I'm certainly the same as I've always been in other ways.)
Words of My Own Father, and World War II Veteran, When, As A Child, I Asked What Happened in Europe Could Happen in America
"You don't have to worry that what happened there would happen here. This country has too good a defense for that. If anything is ever going to destroy this country it will be from within, and it won't involve a war. Instead, it will be more a matter of people listening to people who have the wrong ideas, and people who don't know how easy it is to lose freedom."
Of Puzzle Pieces That Are Wrong
I know that because people (even those in my personal circles, with the exception of my children) who haven't seen how things have occurred in our situation. After all, people can't turn into little birds that can ride around on one's shoulder and see each situation, incident, and event that leads to the larger picture. So, there are people who see something like someone else's divorce and custody case (even mishandled ones) as something that took place at one time or another, and something that people should adjust to and move on from.
That would not be the belief of anyone who knew exactly how things took place, what went on, and which innocent people were seriously damaged. No person with a normal amount of self-esteem and self-respect would be willing to simply accept what went on and move on. And, no normal parent who saw what The System did to, and brought to, his/her children would simply accept it and move on.
Whether it's in my own life or in the larger picture of society in general, I see larger pictures as puzzle pictures; and once in awhile there's a puzzle piece that shows up and doesn't really fit in the way it should. People are too willing to "just adjust". Adjusting is what we do when no person is at fault for something. It's not what we should do when human beings who have either failed to do their job, failed to correct mistakes, or else failed to set up the right kind of system create "puzzle pieces" that are never going to fit correctly into the larger picture.
People who believe in "just accepting" and "just adjusting" are essentially people who think the answer is to try to jam those wrong puzzle pieces into the puzzle. What happens when someone does that is that the larger picture is very likely to become warped and misshapen.
I believe that a lot of Liberals tend to look at the warped and misshapen larger picture and try to figure out how to fix it, in view of all those misshapen pieces that have resulted from trying to fit in some that are so wrong into a picture that has only gotten more and more warped over time.
I think a lot of Conservatives don't even see some of those "bad" pieces. They look at the overall, warped, picture and maybe imagine what kind of big, heavy, thing they can use to try to flatten it and smooth it out.
I've seen far more of those bad puzzle pieces than anyone who does what he should and mind his business should. What do I think ought to be done with them? I think of another metaphor in response to that question, and that is that horrible saying, "When life gives you lemons make lemonade." You DON'T just happily make lemonade when human beings (not "life") send you those lemons and bad puzzle pieces. You throw them back, aiming at the head of whoever threw them at you, and say, "NO. You send us something better than that, because we don't want any damned and stupid lemonade; and we sure as hell aren't willing to have a warped picture because you showed up where you don't belong."
Although I've got my disagreements with some of the things Conservatives stand for, I chose that side because even if they're clueless in a lot of ways, they are at least not just accepting a warped picture and trying to figure out ways to comfortably live with it.
There are a lot of things about both Conservatives and Liberals that I wouldn't give you two cents for and that, in fact, infuriate and/or disgust me. Before my divorce, however, I saw how over-taxing the people who had gotten a good education, worked hard to build up their income, and did all the things so many people think other people should do were taxed and disregard to the point of pushing such middle-income people into being struggling people.
The party of taxes and redistribution of wealth isn't out to "rob from the rich and give to the poor". It's out to rob from the middle class people who have done what people "are supposed to do" in order to earn a high enough income to at least get past struggling. (It takes quite a good income to be "just past struggling" and "sort of comfortable, even if not all that stable.) These are often the college-educated (and better) people who work long hours, are married when they have their children and either have two working parents or else the "ever-admired" stay-at-home mom and father who works 60 or 70 hours a week. These are people who often buy a modest house because affording rents is more difficult than affording some mortgage payments. They're people who have what looks like a pretty decent income and yet are just past struggling and "kind of comfortable if all keeps going well".
That's not even considering the middle-class people who earn less than those just mentioned. In any case, taking from them and giving to "poor" has consequences too broad to go into here. Further, when you've seen that a lot of those "poor" are people whose poverty has been directly and/or indirectly caused by the government itself, it's hardly a wonder that the state of things has gotten to be as bad as they are.
Basically, here's how the government does things: First we trap a bunch of poor people in poverty with our failures in the education system and welfare system. Then we create a bunch more poor people when we screw up their lives and refuse to be held accountable. THEN, we create yet some more people when we tax those of middle income levels down to being poor and just about poor. That's not even factoring in those ways in which the government has contributed to some of what has gone wrong in the Economy. Neither is it factoring in any additional burdens as a result of people who have come into the country illegally and end up costing yet more tax dollars.
Something else not even being factored in here are the famous $3,000 toilet seats (or whatever), the corruption that costs what it costs, the ineffective and/or time-wasting government employees who are hired for reasons other than being the most skilled for the job, or a whole lot of tax-draining endeavors/programs that are a big waste because government people so often listen to experts (and experts so often have their own agenda and inflated sense of importance).
Short of "Acts of God", I pretty much see a huge percentage of the country's problems being directly and/or indirectly caused by the government that then turns around and spends money, trying to figure out how to "educate" and better inform all those "ignorant citizens" who are, of course, the cause of so many problems. And, so often, even when government figures out that it's within government that a problem lies, who gets hired to try to figure out what the root of that problem is? More government people, because so often the government gets other government people to police itself.
So, even though I wouldn't particularly call myself a big fan of Conservatives (and God knows the whole "Republican thing" has been a big freak show for the last x number of years), there's no way in hell I could EVER at all align myself with the party of big government.
