Daddy, what's a conservative?

A Man and his Daughter:

Bedtime arrives, and it’s time for the young man to put his wise little daughter to sleep...

“Goodnight, honey, I hope your day was good. Before you go to sleep, is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Yes, daddy, what’s a conservative?”

“Well, I guess, strictly speaking its a person who likes to conserve his resources. Think of the root word, honey.”

“So they probably get along good with the conservationists.”

“Well, er, no honey, they aren’t really into conserving our habitat. They believe in a free market... without things that get in the way, like pollution controls and regulations. Conservatives like big business and sometimes those corporations do naughty things that really mess the environment up.”

* * *

“I guess what I meant to say is that conservatives are more conservative in the way they view America. They wish that things could be like they were before the world got so crazy.”

“So they want the world to be like before we had fast food, TV, that stuff?”

“Yeah. That’s it. They don’t like change.”

“I remember how gramma B said that in her day, nothing was wasted.”

“Well, that’s true...”

“Grandpa made tin cups out of old cans, and they even composted for their garden. They never wasted or threw away anything. The only people I know who are living like that are your hippie friends. Are they conservatives?”

“Er, no honey, I, er... give me a moment here. You’re right of course.”

* * *

“I guess what I meant to say is that conservatives want to conserve the public dollar. They speak for accountability in the public sector, and they just want to lower taxes for the working people.”

“Silly daddy. Remember last night? Your bedtime story was about how defense accounted for more than half the national budget during the Reagan years. You told about how Reagan accrued four times the debt of all the presidents before him combined. Less than a trillion in, over four trillion out. You said he was the most popular conservative president of our time.”

“Well, I’m glad you were listening, honey, but...”

* * *

“I guess what I meant to say is that conservatives want to conserve family life. They want the American family to return to the way it used to be: A married man and woman living together with two to four children."

“But daddy, didn’t you tell me that in grandma’s day the whole family lived in the same house - aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins?”

“Well, yes, before the industrial revolution, that’s the way most families lived. Its called the ‘extended family.’ Sometimes I think that’s where we went wrong - when we separated the children from daily contact with their grandparents.”

“So the conservatives want us to go back to whole extended families all living in a farmhouse together?”

“Well, er, no... they advocate what we call a ‘nuclear family.’ The mother, the father, and kids.”

“How long did that kind of family exist?”

“Hmmm, I’ve never thought about it, but I guess from after the Great Depression until around the 1970’s when the nuclear family started to unravel. I guess that kind of family was dominant for about twenty or thirty years before it started to get in trouble.”

“So they don’t really want a traditional American family. They just want the kind of family that they knew when they were growing up?"

“Er, well...”

“And, if I understand you correctly, that kind of family was the first step in the eventual unraveling of the American family. Once they removed the elders from family life, things went
downhill fast.”

“Uh, well, yes. I guess I never really thought of it that way.”

* * *

“I guess what I meant to say is that conservatives want to conserve legislation. They feel that the free market works best without artificial controls. That’s what the whole ‘Reagan revolution’ was about. Reagan was a great visionary that came up with the idea that a market self corrects. He said that if you just leave the market alone, it will always stay healthy. What’s good for business is good for America.”

“Um, daddy? Don’t you remember telling me how a long time ago people used to believe the same thing? Before the great depression?”

“Well, yes... now that I think about it. It was called the Classical model of economics.”

“And wasn’t that school of thought proven wrong by the big stock market crash?”

“Hmm... yes it was... but I’m sure that Reagan had some new ideas, he was great at cutting taxes and saving people money.”

“But didn’t you tell me that Reagan entered office with less than a trillion dollars in national debt, and left office with over four trillion?”

“Yes...”

“So he pretended to give us money, but we ended up owing more in the end?”

“Well, I guess you could put it that way...”

“Where did all that money go?”

“Well, aside from enormous defense spending, Reagan gave tax breaks to large corporations so they could re-tool and build new factories. The US was still operating with World War II machinery, and other countries like Japan and Germany had an advantage over us.”

“Didn’t those companies use that tax break money to build new factories overseas?”

“Well, I guess that did happen a lot.”

“So the American people paid to have their own jobs taken away?”

“Well, it’s more complicated than that, honey...”

“But daddy, you said that what’s good for business is good for America - that doesn’t seem true here.”

“Well, I guess you’re right, honey.

* * *

“I guess what I really meant was that the word ‘conservative’ is very misleading. Now go to sleep, dear.”

“Good night, daddy.”