Conservatives betray their own values when they mimic enemies

I don’t want to feel angry. I don’t want to feel hopeless about the future of my country. I don’t want to feel despair about the future of the people around me.

I’ve been trying so hard to focus on thinking and writing about the ways in which principled and decent Americans can stop their society from collapsing — on the ways in which individuals can build something that’s healthy and functional even in the face of the horrible things going on around us.

But there are times when I feel as though things have gone so far that even the people who need to hear that can’t hear, because the raging cacophony of the dysfunctional culture makes it impossible for them to hear.

This is why so many socially conservative people have unwisely turned to political power as a way to create the society they want. They see cultural forces that are destroying the traditional values which gave us things that were worth conserving. They see those forces replacing those things with ideas and ways of life which are irrational and destructive and evil.

What social conservatives don’t understand, though, is that giving in to the desire to seize political power — even in the service of stopping this destructive evil — corrupts them so badly that they end up betraying the values they originally claimed to hold.

In the rush for political power, those who think of themselves as heirs to the conservative tradition have become the mirror image of those who are attacking everything they once held dear.

As a result, we have people who call themselves conservatives in the political sphere who have given up any interest in following religious or political leaders with character or decency or principles, things which were once considered bare minimums. Instead, they’re willing to follow any evil man who promises to give them the political power which they believe their side deserves.

I’m thinking about all of this tonight because I understand the way these people feel. I’m looking around myself tonight — in my real-world environment — and seeing people who make me angry and make me feel despair about the possibility of ever changing things.

I know — intellectually speaking — that joining the mad rush to grab political power and change the world through politics is a self-destructive thing, but I understand why so many people want to do it. Because it feels as though it’s the only way to fight back against people who are trying to destroy everything that made this country great at one time.

I know I can’t give in to the temptation to join the people who just want to seize political power — and who are willing to give up on character and personal values — but I understand why they end up following that emotionally satisfying path.

I’ve been struggling in the last couple of years to think and write about how individuals who share my values can change their world and their lives through making better personal decisions — and by voluntarily joining together to build something healthier and saner. But when I look at what this world is becoming, I want to rage against what I see.

Tonight in particular, I’ve been presented examples of how morally bankrupt the culture around me has become. And I’ve also seen examples of how the socially conservative backlash has become morally bankrupt as well. I’m not going to talk about the specifics, because there’s nothing to be gained by inflaming passions against the loss of values and decency in the culture. You’ve almost certainly seen examples of it yourself, if you share my values.

My passions want to be angry at what I’ve seen tonight. My short-term thinking wants to talk about what I’ve seen and criticize those who I hold responsible for it. But I know that’s just an emotional path that doesn’t lead to changing anything.

I know I need to have faith that enough people who claim to be conservatives will find the strength and courage to follow the values they claim to believe in. But the evidence I see makes it hard to hold onto my faith.

I know what can happen when individuals and communities choose to live together with the sort of values that seem important to me. But I feel despair that so few people have any interest in listening to those ideas and thinking about how to implement them voluntarily.

I feel despair that so many of my fellow social conservatives have become so much like their enemies that they’ve become blind to what politics is doing to them and to our communities.

If we accept immoral leaders who have no character, we’ve already lost. If we adopt the strategies and tactics of the people who have spent the last hundred years or so eroding societal values, we’re no better than they are.

What’s worse, if we become like them, we give up everything that ever made us different — the values and morals and ethics that have given us something worth conserving.

Those of us who believe in conservative social values and traditional ways of living can still build communities of love and decency and family values. But we have to do that by holding fast to the things we claim to believe in, not by becoming just like our enemies.

And the way to do that is focusing on how we can change ourselves and our own communities, not by staying angry at those enemies.

Note: I dictated this to Siri on my iPhone as I sat in a parking lot late Saturday night, so please forgive me if the writing and editing aren’t up to my normal standards. This is more emotional than usual, but it’s an accurate reflection of the frustration I was feeling in the moment.