Converting Conservatives Guide
How Conservative Values Differ
We liberals believe in community, freedom and responsibility. Conservatives limit their definition of all three. A society based upon our liberal values would be stable, free and prosperous. A society based upon conservative values would be the opposite. This is demonstrated by the changes in our society since the conservatives took control in 2000.
People, who disagree with our liberal values, often do so by reducing the number of people whom they consider to be members of our American Community, by being non-compassionate and by trying to impose their religious values on everyone, thus reducing our religious freedom.
Traditional Conservatives
Many so called ‘red state’ conservatives live in homogeneous stable rural areas, small towns and suburban neighborhoods, which have limited ethnic diversity. Their gays and their poor have left for urban areas or are not visible. They limit their belief in freedom, opportunity and compassion to people like members of their homogeneous communities. They deny their responsibility to protect the freedoms of people who are different from themselves.
These conservatives often do not understand the need for regulations and compassionate programs in densely populated urban areas and areas which are undergoing rapid change. They support less government, less taxes and less regulation. They regard compassionate programs as wasteful handouts to the unworthy, driven by vote-seeking liberals. They oppose immigration of people different from themselves.
To convert these conservatives, liberals can seek to expand their understanding of our American community.
Libertarians
Encouraged from childhood to be successful, Libertarians (who are often white males) often believe their success is due to their own efforts, ignoring the influence of their parents, teachers and general social environment. Ignoring the fact that others have not had their advantages which enabled their success, they lack a sense of responsibility to others and compassion. They often believe that government is always incompetent and thus not a viable vehicle for compassionate action.
Liberals should encourage libertarians to recognize that they could not have been so successful without being members of our American community. They should recognize that others have enabled their success. That through compassion, others can obtain the freedoms and opportunities that they have had and become successful. Government action can often be the most competent way to provide compassion. Compassionate government actions may include providing incentives for compassionate action, regulations which ban infringements upon people’s rights, or providing monetary support and sometimes services (either contracted or in-house).
Dogmatic Religious Believers
Dogmatic religious believers think that everyone should be forced to live under the same religious practices as their own. They seek to use government to spread their beliefs and enforce their practices. They seek to limit the religious freedoms of others.
They need to be encouraged to understand that their scriptures express support for freedom, opportunity and compassion, including for people who do not share their religious beliefs.
Profit Focused Enterprises
Business enterprises focus upon making profits, with other values having lower priority. Competition for profits influences them to infringe on the rights of their suppliers, employees, customers and others. We allow them to have the same freedoms a people, such that their powerful resources are used to unfairly influence us and our governments.
We should attempt to encourage or through regulation require that enterprises give a higher priority to the rights of others. They should pay for their negative impacts upon others. We should limit their influence upon our values and upon government policy.
Making Liberals
The way to make liberals is to convince others to hold our values. This requires continually expressing our liberal values: a community of diverse equals, freedom, opportunity and responsibility.