A well-known commentator said the following yesterday in response to Barack Obama’s speech. Without peeking, who do you think the author is and does the statement stand on its own to definitively define the difference between conservatives and liberals?
We all want opportunity for our kids. We all want a growing, expanding economy. The argument we have is how do you get there? The argument is very simply put, or the distinguishing aspects of the argument are: Liberals want to use government based on a contempt and lack of understanding and confidence that average Americans can overcome things in life. Conservatives like us believe that if you just trust people, the inherent goodness and decency of people will come to the forefront if you don’t tamper with their freedom, if you don’t tamper with their liberty, if you understand what our Founding Fathers understood, that our freedom and liberty comes from our Maker, from our Creator. We are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. My view of the Democrat Party today is that those are under assault. We know that life is under assault. We know that liberty is under assault. Don’t make me give you all the examples. This is something that’s not even arguable. We’re talking about banning certain kind of lightbulbs; talking about how you can use your property, all these examples — liberty is under assault at the leadership level of the Democrat Party. Pursuit of happiness, they’re not happy; they don’t want anybody to be happy. They are miserable. They look out across America and they see misery and they enjoy it. These are people who are happily miserable. So all three of the basic tenets of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, are under assault by the American left today.
Now, how can they say we all want to move in the same direction when that is where they — I don’t care if it’s Hillary, I don’t care if it’s Barack Obama, I don’t care if it’s John Edwards, I don’t care who it is, Algore, they are all the same. Life is under attack; liberty is under attack, ’cause they don’t trust people with liberty. They don’t trust voters to do the right thing. They don’t trust you to drive the right car. They don’t trust you to have the right kind of anything. And of course the pursuit of happiness, there’s an all-out assault on happiness. Nobody has a right to be happy in America today when there’s so much misery elsewhere. We, on the other hand, believe that liberty is part of our creation, freedom, natural yearning to be free is part of our creation, is what has distinguished this country in 220 years, from all other populations of human beings in the history of this planet. Our DNA is no different than anybody else’s on the planet, but how is it that we have come to be this awesome and for-good superpower? How has it happened? It has happened because of our founding documents; it has happened because of an inherent understanding that our freedom and ambition, who we are as human beings, is part of our creation.
The answer is Rush Limbaugh and in my opinion the answer is clearly "Yes".
Unlike any of the Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination, Limbaugh articulates exactly what the principles of this country were at the time of its formation and what they ought to be today.
That’s why I have called Barack Obama’s message one of anti-hope – because at its core it seeks to diminish the freedom and independence of every American of any race, creed, or color.
The same is true of Hillary Clinton too, of course, although I believe her agenda is a less-intrusive one overall, outside the field of healthcare. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer her to win the nomination, the other being her greater ability and inclination to lead the continuing fight against international terrorism.