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Conservatives Are People, Too

Past all the negativity, there must be ways we can work together

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 7, 2009 2:45 PM CST

(Newser) – Today’s screaming conservatives seem to have “quite happily abandoned the pretense of playing a constructive role in the debate over the nation,” ranting instead about paranoid delusions, writes Steve Almond in the Boston Globe. But under all that rage, there must be desires that drive conservatives, and in those things, maybe interested parties from across the ideological spectrum can find common ground.

When conservatives talk about the “culture of life,” for example, shouldn’t that be embraced as an endorsement of the need for better health care? When they praise small-town America, might that not represent support for locally owned businesses? “Beyond all the hollering, conservatives seek the same fundamental blessings as moderates and liberals: a safe, secure world for their children, the freedom to pursue happiness as they see fit.”

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Tea Party Group member Sharon Bergstein of Allentown Pa., and others, gather outside Lehigh Carbon Community College in Schnecksville, Pa., Dec. 4, 2009, ahead of an appearance by President Obama. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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If you listen to the loudest voices on the right, what you hear isn’t policy talk, but soft-boiled McCarthyism, frothing paranoia, and arias of self-victimization. - Steve Almond

Conservatives want (and deserve) to feel that their hopes and fears are being regarded, not condescended to, or dismissed.
- Steve Almond

I recognize that there is a certain faction that is beyond reach, shouting the slogans spoon-fed to them by for-profit demagogues. But I refuse to believe that they represent the true heart of conservatism. - Steve Almond

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 75 comments

sidewinder

Dec 9, 2009 12:32 PM CST

Should we follow the former national socialist model and put them in ghettos, maybe special camps? Maybe we should put them to work in the fields? Somebody's got to pick the cotton right? Contemplating if conservative are people...gee, which side is sounding unreasonable and hateful?

fiestygirl

Dec 9, 2009 12:07 PM CST

So it is your opinion, along with the rest of your liberal friends, that I and other conservatives are not people? WOW! This is beginning to make me feel like a Jew in Germany. Must I show my voter's registration card? My reading material? Will I and others get a type of microchip that will ID us as subhuman? Shortly thereafter there will be forced labor camps, political prisoners, death camps? Sound way out? Maybe but then again that is what many thought as they took their last breath of Zyclon gas during their "shower."

MorboTheNewsmonster

Dec 9, 2009 5:39 AM CST

I love how this is placed in the opinion category. Not that i agree or disagree... I wasn't aware that we were debating the conservatives were their own species.

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Conservatives Are People, Too