Why conservatives support war (and how to change their minds)
I just read an interesting blog post on the Campaign for Liberty website entitled Understanding “Pro-War” Republicans and Conservatives and was reminded that the liberty movement has a long way to go in developing an implementing strategies to win over “pro-war” conservatives. I really find myself uncomfortable with people in the liberty movement insinuating that pro-war conservatives on the popular level (not the politicians) are that way because they adore conquest and carnage. The intent should not be, as it usually seems to be, to make them feel like immoral destruction-lovers, or as mindless sheep. As much as it inflates our egos to believe those things are true, enlightened as we think we are by liberty’s flame, those charges are not always true, and it does nothing but marginalize our important message to keep making snide and snarky remarks about it all the time.
Conservatives are pro-defense. So are we, right? It’s just that they are still sold on the idea that it’s better to allow volunteer soldiers to die honorably abroad than it is to let the Muslims come back over here and kill civilians indiscriminately. Is that flawed reasoning? Tell them why it is without demeaning their intelligence, sincerity, and morality.
I think this article referenced in the C4L post is right when it talks about how much conservatives love America. They recognize their homeland and way of life to be worth defending to the death from those who have the potential to do us and our families harm. Is that really so unthinkably wrongheaded? Inasmuch as there are dangers in this thinking, we need people who can communicate them to conservatives in a respectful way.
So they believe in national defense and love our country. Naturally, then, the young men and women who volunteer to pledge their lives to uphold freedom and national security will be held in the highest honor. They’ll demand that these troops be given the reverence due a self-sacrificial savior. Remember, too, that most conservatives are the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and cousins of the troops or are themselves veterans. They remember the truly despicable behavior of the hippies who hurled insults at the shell-shocked Vietnam vets, many of whom were drafted and didn’t even want to fight. My uncle and mother are still traumatized by the anti-war activists who jumped on the coffin of their childhood friend killed in Vietnam (for whom I am named) while my uncle, another drafted vet, accompanied it in grief during a solemn procession. Opposing the war, to conservatives, means telling these people — including many of their loved ones — they see as noble, self-sacrificial servants of our nation, “Thanks, but no thanks, you who are ignorant pawns at best and bloodthirsty animals at worst.” For those who have lost family or friends in this “senseless war”, how are they going to be convinced to oppose and demean the very cause that their loved ones died because they believed in it?
For this reason, by the way, I’m not in favor of the label “anti-war”. While I am technically “anti-war”, the term has way too much baggage.
We’ve got to to understand these sentiments and address them sensitively if we want to see results. Or do we prefer to stand on our moral high horse and be persecuted for our more consistent devotion to liberty?
Not me.
