Why We Hate Conservatives

The Hypocrisy of Legislating Morality

As I said at the beginning of my previous article, Why We Hate Liberals, I am a moderate. I am of the majority of Americans who are downright fed up with the bickering, nattering, and perpetual (and childish) either/or false dilemma posed to the people by conventional politics. I hold some liberal views, such as homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and I hold some conservative views, such as government shouldn't try to regulate what citizens do in their personal lives.

It is that very contrast that throws into sharp relief exactly why it is that Conservatives are so deeply despised by so many.

Unlike the Liberals, Conservatives have no problem with themselves. Their hallmark is Pride, whether deserved or not, and their deep self-love gives rise to ethnocentric behavior. They tend to adhere to tradition for tradition's sake alone, doing things the way they've always been done for no reason other than the fact that they have always been done that way.

Where Libs often make the mistake of putting other peoples' views and values before their own, to the point of excess, the Cons demonstrate an equal faculty for deliberate ignorance in the opposite direction: they will often put their own values ahead of everyone else's. Both of these are all well and good on an individual level, but are a terrible way to govern a nation that boldly proclaims "Liberty and Justice for all"; either way we choose, somebody gets the short end of the stick. It is literally an "us or them" situation, a false dilemma made real by our lack of viable alternatives.

But it is the Conservative tendency to perceive one's own view in any controversy as automatically correct, often for no other reason than it is one's own, that ultimately leads to the biggest problem with Conservatism: Hypocrisy.