How to Define a Conservative and Liberal

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The true conservative in the mold of [r]epublicans like Madison and Washington and Taylor of Caroline and the Englishman Burke and 20th century versions you would find like Tolkien and C.S. Elliott and Russell Kirk and others, they would not recognize today’s conservatives.  I think that says an awful lot of bad things about today’s conservatives.  I used to ask the question: what is it that we want to conserve?  It’s not all about politics.  Sometimes it’s about literature, sometimes it’s about manners, sometimes there are matters of faith, matters of virtue and character.  These are the things that ought to describe the conservative.  It seems to me that you find that liberals are more open to saying the culture of every other country doesn’t suck, as you’ll hear many conservatives “That country stinks.  They’re knocking America.  They stink.”  The conservative acknowledges that there are other cultures that are just as viable as ours and that maybe we can even learn things from them. Check out the rest in the transcript…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Tom is in New York.  Hello, Tom, how you doing?

Caller Tom:  I am doing wonderful and you are the only man, I believe, on the fact of this Earth who can help me with this problem I have.

Mike:  Wait a minute.  This isn’t physical in nature?  I don’t have to do anything while you cough, do I?

Caller Tom:  No, no, no.

Mike:  I have to ask.

Caller Tom:  I did not frame that question well.  I apologize.

Mike:  I’m just messing with you.  What’s the problem?

Caller Tom:  I know that being in Upstate New York that my vote for Romney will be canceled out by about 200,000 or 300,000 other people voting against me.  I have several friends or acquaintances that claim themselves to be liberal.  In conversations I have with them, I discover that, at least in my estimation, they’re not as liberal as they claim to be.  As I try to pull more people to the right side, I’d like to be equipped with two or three questions that I can ask them that would reveal truly if they are a liberal or if they are a conservative.

Mike:  Well, that depends on who you are asking that question to.  If you say, “Hey, Ann Coulter, give me some advice,” she would say something like, [mocking] “Anyone that hates America, anyone who doesn’t want to bomb anyone.  We need to turn the Middle East into a plate of glass.  That’s a liberal, anyone that opposes this.”  The general answer to your question is, I would be described as a liberal by most of your decepticon friends.  Here’s what I find is thrilling to me in the second half-century of my life, and that is that on certain issues, I find more comity between myself and those that describe themselves as liberals than I do between myself and those that describe themselves as conservative, especially when it comes to issues of war and peace.

Why is it that we are just so — for the amount of devotees of Catholicism and the descendants of Catholicism, we have so many people that are just opposed, diametrically, I believe in every fiber of their being, opposed to the concept of peace.  I think the issues of peace are one thing.  [mocking] “They’re a bunch of pacifists.”  Well, there are some pacifists, as I’m certain there were probably martyrs and saints that were pacifists.  Does that mean in a violent world that it’s prudent to have all pacifists?  I think not.  I think on questions of war and peace, you’re probably going to find more libs than you do conservatives.  I think libs tend to think in terms of what a friend of mine calls “radical autonomy,” which also seems to sound an awful

lot like libertarianism sometimes, which is it’s my body and I can do what I want.  It’s our country, our right, we can say whatever we want.  It’s this, that and the other, we can do whatever we want.  This is a free country.  There are no restrictions that are placed on anything.

The true conservative in the mold of [r]epublicans like Madison and Washington and Taylor of Caroline and the Englishman Burke and 20th century versions you would find like Tolkien and C.S. Elliott and Russell Kirk and others, they would not recognize today’s conservatives, Tom.  I think that says an awful lot of bad things about today’s conservatives.  I used to ask the question: what is it that we want to conserve?  It’s not all about politics.  Sometimes it’s about literature, sometimes it’s about manners, sometimes there are matters of faith, matters of virtue and character.  These are the things that ought to describe the conservative.  It seems to me that you find that liberals are more open to saying the culture of every other country doesn’t suck, as you’ll hear many conservatives [mocking] “That country stinks.  They’re knocking America.  They stink.”  The conservative acknowledges that there are other cultures that are just as viable as ours and that maybe we can even learn things from them.

I know what many of you are thinking.  You’re thinking [mocking] “You’re stumping for Islam now.”  No, no, but that doesn’t mean that cultures in the Far East, Asia, outside of the communist people that try to run them, doesn’t mean that certain European cultures and certain South American cultures or even Polynesian or whatever the case may be, that they don’t have admirable traits.  We seem to think that we are the fountain from which admiralty flows.  That’s a mighty arrogant position to hold, don’t you think?  To answer your question, you ought to be looking at how do you describe a conservative?  If you read some of the people that I’ve been reading of late, it’s hard to find true conservatives today and people that aspire to be exemplars of true conservatism.  Let me answer the question that way.  How’s that?

Caller Tom:  That was very well said, a bit confusing, but that’s good because I’ll run it through my head

today and formulate a good summary.

Mike:  I’ll tell you what, I’m going to make a transcript out of that so you can refer back to it.

Caller Tom:  I was just looking for one, two, three, but that was pretty good, too.

Mike:  I aim to serve, my friend.  Thank you very much, Tom.  Call back anytime.  Good to have you out there in New York.

End Mike Church Show Transcript