Back in the days of routine attacks on the religious right, liberal politicians would often say that conservatives want to know what’s going on in your home. But the truth is that’s simply not the nature of conservatives.
Conservatives usually want to be left alone and, in turn, want to leave others alone, as well. Conservatives have a strong sense of right and wrong. But believing in right and wrong is not the same as telling everyone how to live.
Telling people how to live is creating restrictions on salt intake, trans fats, what we can eat, what we can drink, how much water can come out of our shower, etc.
Conservatives only ask that you live a moral and decent life, and do no harm to others. Have high standards, and police yourself. Part of the foundation of conservatism is privacy rights and letting people live the way they choose to live.
I don’t care how much someone else is making. I don’t care about what kind of car someone else is driving. I don’t care how celebrities are living. I don’t care how my neighbors are living. I don’t want to police other people’s children by enforcing car seats, helmets or rubber mats at the foot of every piece of playground equipment.
I don’t care about, or even notice, skin color. People are just people, defined more by their actions and character than by what they wear or what they look like. There are whites who are asses and blacks who are asses. Conservatives, liberals… every group has their members that embarrass the entire group. Every groups has members who’s actions contradict the way most of the group lives.
Conservatives are truly tolerant of other views and are most often anxious to hear them – if not debate them. While strong in their beliefs, most will allow for the chance that they might be wrong.
I don’t care about sexual preferences. To me, it is entirely a private matter, and I’m not the least bit interested in the preferences of others.
Most conservatives simply want to be left alone. They want to work hard to earn their plot of land, and they don’t want you coming on it without an invitation. They want to take care of themselves and their families, and they want to teach them right and wrong as they understand it, not as the government mandates it.
They’re not interested in policing society. They simply believe people are capable of taking care of themselves.
It’s not the nature of conservatives to broadcast every aspect of their private lives on the Internet for all to see. What we’re doing is really no one’s business but our own.
In general, we should all be very suspicious of the availability of personal data there is online. People can access far more information about us than we think. And when we voluntarily put information or photos out there that are less than flattering, we just give people that much more ammunition to use against us.
This is also the reason why conservatives bristle at the idea of having electronic medical records available to doctors and hospitals. Like the information we put online – be it our purchase information, emails on Google’s Gmail, or whatever we post on a comment board or forum, conservatives are afraid that if it’s out there in digital form, it can be taken by identity thieves, potential employers, or worse – the government – and used against us.
The CEO of Google said that a lot of kids are going to want to change their names after posting all of the sordid details of their youth, which, prior to Facebook, lied safely in the past for most of us.
To me, I’ve just never really understood the merits of social networking. When I want to keep in touch with someone, I do it by talking to them. It’s faster and more personal.
There used to be a time where liberals, with the aide of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, were very concerned with privacy rights. I’m not sure whether they’re only concerned during Republican administrations or what happened.
But it seems to me we should always be concerned with what can happen to our personal information – especially when they’ve made it so easy for us to willingly give it away.
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