Are Power, Ego & Compromise Ok?: Conservative Rules For Radicals (Part 4)

May 11, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Politics

As conservatives we value the independence of individuals. We defend truth. We take the moral high ground. We are bold and courageous…or at least we want to be. And we look at liberals as mealy-mouthed and more about tactics and winning than about truth. But you know what? They look at us as power-hungry and greedy, selfish and uncaring. The point is that we all look at each other from our own prism. And unless we understand the prism of the other we cannot win politically or ideologically.

Today our prism says the left is in a rapid march to grab power. But you know what? So are we. Power is not wrong. The use of power can be wrong. The means to obtain the power can be wrong. The intoxicating affect of power can be wrong. But power is not wrong. We must have power if we are to get anything done. We just don’t like it when the enemy has power over us. And that’s what we are experiencing right now. Politically there is little we can do. We can threaten to throw our elected officials out and we can revolt. That’s what we have today.

Neither a physical revolution or a revolution at the ballot box carry much threat. They are hollow. They enemy knows that today (maybe not tomorrow or next week, but today) they would quash a physical rebellion in a minute. The political machine and the will of the people are against that and physical rebellion today would set the cause back years or decades. What about the ballot box? Well that is light years away in the shifting sands of politics. Yet still we must find power if we are too accomplish anything.

Where will this power come from? It comes from playing to ego and capturing self-interest. Conservatives are often to nice to voice reality. We want high minded ideals. But what we need is motivating hot buttons. The hard cruel reality is that people act in their best interest almost all the time. Our job is to show them how we are their best interest.

To win we cannot get people to vote for a “conservative” or the “GOP.” In modern society we have presently lost the war on those words. That is because they have been marketed to have negative connotations. They do need to be redifined, but that will not happen in a day. But most people are more conservative than they think. When you start talking to them about things like securing our borders from illegal immigrants, getting the government out of the abortion funding business, and lowering taxes, people want that. Our problem is that we have been lazy and have not spent the time talking about the real issues.

Our other problem is we have refused to listen. People will not change their ideals to fit us. We must change our message to fit what is important to them. Notice I didn’t say we need to change our ideals. That’s where this whole “big tent” argument goes awry. People will always vote their primary motivating factor and will tolerate non-preferred platforms if we are THE answer to their primary motive.

But what we must do is what liberals have successfully done for the last 50+ years. We must inch our way toward our ultimate goal. Compromise has gotten a bad name. Take abortion for instance. I am flat out against it. But you know what? Today we are not going to have abortion banned in America. You don’t compromise on the platform, but while we bicker about it amongst ourselves babies are getting slaughtered. We CAN attack liberals on federal funding of abortion, especially in this economic climate. And when we win that we go after the next thing and the next and the next. It is not a compromise of principle it is a political reality. Failing to compromise and accept intermediary success creates permanent failure.

You know we do everything we can to save one baby in the pro-life movement (using my example). We celebrate it and appluad it. Sometimes we even cry over it. At the same time our refusal to compromise, not in the end goal but in the intermediary steps, is causing the needless death of tens of thousands of babies. We need to start thinking of the end and figuring out incremental change. We celebrate that change then move another step forward. That is how the liberals have done it and we need to learn from them.

In part 3 we explored how to determine what means are acceptable given your end goal. In part 5 we will look into how to educate an organizer.


PS This too is a rewrite of a post taken down by hackers. That’s why it might look familar.

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