Conservatism is a dirty word

Enough liberal bashing. I wonder under which rocks RN&R finds such great minds as Bill Hamma’s (”Where’s the liberal guilt?” Guest comment, Oct. 2) or the other fossiled Nevadans who frequently write in. I admit they’re about as entertaining as they are wrong. America is about as threatened from communism as Nobel Prize winners are from Mr. Hamma’s prose.

Conservatives are sadly misguided souls who I’d pity if they weren’t so damned mean. Let’s start from the beginning. A conservative’s two most common holy shrines are Jesus and the Constitution. Jesus was a radical liberal activist who railed against traditionalists (conservatives) of his day. He even seemed to enjoy toying with their small minds.

The Constitution was the most liberal governmental document of its day. By much of the world’s standards, it remains so. Since it has taken 2,000 and 200-plus years respectively for conservatives to “get it,” we see the primary fallacy of conservatism. They prefer their feet remain stuck in mud rather than accept progressive change at faster than a glacial pace. Choosing two of the most liberal icons imaginable as their philosophical foundation tells us logic is not a strong point of conservatism.

Cussing government and taxes, conservatives have no problem using the streets, fire departments, police, airports, hospitals and homeland defense these things make possible. They just want someone else to pay for them, so they can freeload. Try explaining hypocrisy to a conservative.

Conservatives see themselves as moral, yet they routinely support racism, bigotry, greed, selfishness, intolerance and environmental destruction. They idolize the almighty dollar as their real God and haven’t evolved beyond the primitive philosophy of survival of the fittest. Neo-cons promote the virtues of perpetual war. Try explaining morality to a conservative.

We do have some legitimate fears. Bushco’s already planning the next war and how to pick the pockets of working people to give to the rich, use wedge politics to divide us, take away our civil liberties, dominate the rest of the world, get religion to dictate everyone’s lives, scapegoat hated minorities and quiet dissent. They know the tactics well. Benito Mussolini used such tactics during his fascist reign. No, we don’t have anything to fear from the failed philosophy of communism, but creeping fascism is another story. Enough of the cons.