This Is Just a Perfect Essay

Townhall.com is a cesspool of conservative nightmares saying terrible things, and this essay by John Hawkins, "Why Liberalism Is on the Wrong Side of History," is an A+ exemplar of the quality thinking that goes on over there.

Liberals dream of one day seeing all Americans permanently locked in the smothering, cradle-to-grave death grip of the nanny state. Nothing excites a liberal more than the idea of controlling where you go to school, regulating your work and play, deciding what type of health care you're going to have and then deciding when you get to retire and how much money you have when you do. Even if you want to choose, you can't. Even if you want to break free, you're stuck. You're not allowed to make different choices because liberals have made it illegal.

What if you're pro-choice on spending your tax dollars on a private school instead of a public school? What if you'd prefer to keep your current health care plan instead of a much more expensive new plan that provides coverage you don't need? What if you'd rather invest your own Social Security money instead of giving it to the government? Sorry, but you don't get a choice.

Liberals have made it illegal to send your children to a private school, to keep your healthcare coverage, and to invest your money in private savings accounts. TRUE FACTS! I mean, sure, there are still private schools filled with children, and, sure, for-profit insurance companies have a lot to do with who gets to keep their plans and how much they cost, and, sure, nothing is stopping anyone from investing their money in private retirement accounts in addition to contributing to the social safety net for future generations, but LIBERALS HAVE MADE EVERYTHING ILLEGAL! Because we like nothing more than DENYING PEOPLE CHOICES.

The problem with that is not so much liberals living how they want to live; it's that liberals want to force everyone else to live how they want to live. They don't like guns; so no one should have guns. They like gay marriage; so everyone must be forced to like gay marriage. They like PBS; so everyone should be forced to pay for PBS.

LOL FOREVER. See, the thing about liberal policy is that it allows for a spectrum of individual choices. The pro-choice position does not force anyone to get an abortion who does not want one; the anti-choice position, however, prevents women who want abortions from getting them. The pro-same sex marriage position does not force anyone to marry a person of the same sex, nor require that any churches perform same-sex marriage ceremonies; the anti-marriage equality position, however, prevents same-sex couples who want to get married from doing so and prevents churches who want to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies from doing so. Et cetera ad infinitum.

It is the height of mendacious absurdity to claim that it is liberals, not conservatives, who want to "force everyone else to live like how they want to live." As evidenced by Hawkins' weak and specious argument that, because liberals support marriage equality, "everyone must be forced to like gay marriage." Nope—it doesn't matter if someone likes same-sex marriage, as long as they respect the law that gives access to people who do like it and do need it.

If Justin Bieber is at the top of the pop charts, should EVERYONE be forced to listen to Justin Bieber? If Duck Dynasty is popular, should EVERYONE be forced to watch Duck Dynasty? If the two most popular foods in America turn out to be hotdogs and chocolate ice cream, should EVERYONE have to eat those two foods at every meal? We laugh at this sort of thinking in the marketplace, but that's exactly the philosophy liberals have with government.

Conservative projection—we meet again! This is not a metaphor for legalizing a spectrum of options, so people can make choices based on their own individual needs. It is a metaphor for restricting choice based on a specific preference or belief—like, for example, every single fucking lawfully encoded prejudice justified exclusively on a singular, specific religious doctrine.

Liberals like expensive health care plans that pay for birth control and maternity care; so EVERYONE has to have those plans or be taxed. Liberals love abortion; so they believe EVERY STATE must make abortion legal, even the ones that are pro-life. Liberals want to control how your children are educated; so they refuse to allow parents to choose whether they want to spend their tax dollars on public or private schools. Most people have hundreds of options on TV, on the Internet and in the grocery store; yet liberals want to use the federal government to take all of your choices away when it comes to guns, education, your retirement and your health care.

The inherent problem with the conservative ideology of unfettered individualism is that it is intractably hostile toward and fatally incompatible with a functional society.

Conservatives want the benefits of a social contract—like, for example, the ample funding of a standing army (who are sometimes sent by conservative presidents, at no small expense, to fight in wars with which many liberals would rather not pay, as long as we're complaining about all the things for which tax dollars are used in contravention of the wishes of taxpayers)—but none of the responsibilities of a social contract.

They don't want to have to kick in to the pot to help those in need, to build infrastructure, to create culture. They petulantly complain about having to have a little less, marginally fewer choices, so that everyone can have a little more.

But this is the basic agreement of a functional society. If you're going to reap the rewards, you have to assume some of the responsibility.

A society of disconnected individuals without responsibility for one another isn't a society at all. And no matter how hostile to the notions of a social contract conservatives may be, the fact stubbornly remains that we are all connected to and influenced by a shared culture—a culture that is imperiled and made infinitely more dangerous for its oppressed members by a conservative approach that rejects human interdependency and shared accountability.

Liberals aren't asking conservatives to give up everything. They are asking conservatives to give something.

[Related Reading: Penny for Your Thoughtfulness; Wealth Gap.]