Sore Winners

It seems to me that conservatives are a bunch of sore winners. We all get grumpy when things don't go our way, but conservatives have been on a roll everywhere (in the US, anyway). They've won the White House, the Senate, the majority of governorships. They have majorities in the courts (and those majorities are likely to grow with new appointments by Bush). Yet conservatives aren't happy. Instead, if you read the conservative blogs, they are as grumpy as ever. They are still complaining about the (much diminished) voices of liberalism that can still be found in Congress, on college campuses or in the media.

I think that conservatives have a different view of the roles of progressive and conservative voices than I do. The way I see it, both conservatives and progressives are indispensible to society. Progressives are needed to point out what are our shortcomings as a society, where we could be doing better, where there are injustices. Conservatives are needed to act as a break on progressive enthusiasm. They are needed to point out that a drastic cure can sometimes be worse than the disease. Then need to point out that there are merits to the way things have been done in the past that are not appreciated by those who are too eager to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

To me, good politics comes about through a dialogue between progressives and conservatives. In contrast, modern conservatives have almost an eliminationist view of progressives. They act as if the country would be better without them.