Conservatives in a Vacuum

I have been very interested in the thread of discussion occurring on the post in Julien's List entitled: Halliburton Co. Never Disappoints (thanks to Marty from AmericanOnline for it)... I was all ready to respond to the comments made by one "regular" to this blog, who is woefully conservative. I found myself wondering HOW this person could truly believe what he/she was saying. So then I pondered the much-pondered question of the true differences between conservatives (that reader) and progressives (me). Below is my take on it. The words are also my debut post on Big Brass Blog - a very cool progressive site to which a consortium of truly progressive bloggers contribute their time and efforts. I invite the regulars of Julien's List to take a visit to some Big Brass also! :)

More and more people are living in poverty - the quality of life in America is NOT what it was even 30 years ago, proportionally-speaking...Our infrastructure is indeed crumbling around us; the small town is disappearing, as is the middle class.

Most people do not really see it yet beyond their own backyard (whether looking out of a picture window from their manor house or out of a tenement window in the projects...)

Every time "most people" start to see it, they are bombarded with an elevated terrah" threat, or told that allowing gay marriages means that they will have their bibles taken away from them...

Conservatives do tend to look only at today - the mind of the progressive does not think only of today...

The mind of the conservative is all about "me" (me, my kid, my job, my house, my retirement)...

The feeling of the conservative is that if I take care of me and mine, all will be right - I don't need anything or anybody - and especially not government.

The progressive does think of "me" - but also realizes that our existence does NOT happen in a vacuum...we are affected by the property values of our homes around us - by the incomes that are lost through overseas outsourcing which mean that schools and infrastructure of cities, roads, public works, etc. suffer from lack of revenue. If we don't educate our children properly they will not be able to take care of our generation when they are grown.

We are not isolated humans - we are not isolated "Amurkans" - most of the other developed nations get this -

If we continue to be over-represented by Conservative decision-makers, it will indeed mean the end of the US as true world power.

Let's equate the US as IBM, and the rest of the world to Microsoft...look who is in power now...

And when it comes time to pay the piper (China, etc.) and we don't have the funds to do it, look who will be in power...

(That being said, I thought it was US policy NOT to do business with communist nations...hmm...how come we borrow so much from Communist China that we cannot even pay more than a bit o' lip service to China's recent threat to Taiwan...)

Once again, folks, nothing happens in a vacuum...

Ms. Julien