To Defend Conservatives Essay, Research Paper
People always say that “No one who has a heart can resist being a liberal, and no one who has a brain can avoid being a conservative.” Whatever side we take will greatly determine how we look at life and how we live our lives. Most people in America want to live in a society that is predominately traditional with strong families, high moral values and belief in a Christian religion of some kind. This is a conservative point of view. I support a conservative viewpoint rather than a liberal one because a conservative view fits today’s society much better. A conservative viewpoint with an emphasis on traditional family values, limited social welfare and restrictions on immoral behavior are views that are not as highly valued by liberals as they are by conservatives. Conservatives value and support the traditional family, limited social welfare, and regulations on immoral behaviors as the keys to keeping and preserving our society and the American way of life.
To begin, conservatives tend to want controls on social welfare. It doesn’t mean that the government doesn’t have compassion for the people. It means that people who really need assistance should get it but not become dependent on “Uncle Sam” for everything. Social welfare should encourage people to become self-reliant by encouraging people to get their education or the training necessary to be free from government dependence and become gainfully employed. This would give people opportunities to work rather than simply receive a monthly check for doing nothing. When people become employed and self-reliant they must depend on themselves and work to survive. Both society and the individual benefits from this because the individual contributes to society rather than takes from it. Taxes are lower because more tax money comes in because more people are working and less tax money goes out in welfare to support people who should be able to support themselves. Moreover, people become active by working. For example, there are three people in the Smith’s family, two adults and a baby. They get the government’s support– food stamp and WIC because they are a low-income family. The two adults don’t work because the government would take away their welfare assistance. They learned the welfare game well enough to cheat the system. From this example, we know that some people become lazy with social welfare. For these reasons, conservatives favor regulating and limiting social welfare to providing jobs and education as an effective way to help the poor and solve the evils of welfare.
Some people support the liberal view that it is the government’s responsibility to provide for people who live below the poverty level. By providing increased social welfare programs to low-income people, it is thought that everyone has a right to a minimum standard of living. When the problems of the poor are not solved by money, it becomes the government’s fault. Liberals conclude that more extensive welfare programs are necessary to solve the ills of society. However, we can’t ignore the negative side effects of too much social welfare. True, welfare programs in the short term help to solve some problems, but welfare always has disadvantages when something is given for nothing. First, welfare creates a significant burden for the people who pay taxes. It is unfair for one group of people to pay the tax burden and not get the equitable benefits. Meanwhile, the government creates a greater and greater burden on those that pay for those that do not. Second, too much social welfare leads to a vicious cycle of poverty that is difficult to break. The poor become unwilling to work hard and be responsible for themselves while depending on government assistance. For these reasons, the government should restrict social welfare.
Conservatives also express concerns about the decline of traditional family and oppose gay marriage. Families are viewed as the essential element of society. The health of the family has a greater impact on society than anything else. Parents are the fundamental key to a child’s upbringing. Children need a normal family that can care for them and teach them proper discipline and right from wrong. Today, there is an incredibly high divorce rate of nearly 50 percent. The traditional family unit is becoming an endangered species in a society that has significant social problems including juvenile delinquency and teen pregancy. For example, Andy, a seventeen-year-old boy, lives with his single mother. He always stays out late with a rough crowd. He uses drugs and stays out late at night. His mother doesn’t have the time to spend with him and teach him right from wrong because she works two jobs and barely makes enough to be above poverty level. Moreover, Andy doesn’t believe there is true love in the world because he feels unloved and hopeless. Nothing harms children more than losing the support and involvement of a parent. Also, in a gay marriage gay couples are allowed to adopt children. How do the children in this kind of abnormal family feel and view the world? Do they get confused with gender orientation and have less self-esteem? Traditional families have helped society raise more healthy children and thereby establishing a more stable society than families that are not traditional.
Liberals argue that divorce and gay marriage are part of human nature. They say that sexual orientation and divorce are individual decisions and that the government can’t regulate individual decision making. They say that people have the right to choose and gay marriage should be allowed if it is between consenting adults. Liberals conclude that people don’t have to live in traditional families because the world is changing. However, divorce and gay marriage will affect our future as a society. Alternative life styles such as divorce and gay marriage cause more stress and mental problems for those people who live in these situations. Children are affected by divorce and non-traditional families thus causing children to have lower self-esteem and a faulty view of life. People should take responsibility for themselves, their families and to the society to whom they owe something. The government needs to encourage the health and survival of the traditional family and to discourage the tide of divorce and gay marriage.
The strength of the conservative point of view is support for traditional moral values and the family as the cornerstones of society. In today’s American society, there is too much immoral behavior. Too many people do not take responsibility for themselves. Consequently, there are too many people that do not see that they have a responsibility for their own society. In other words, people are becoming selfish and self-centered. They pursue their own pleasures and desires with “a blind freedom” simply because they have a right to do this. The impact of this problem is that it affects the next generation as well. As a result, immoral behaviors are seen as normal and part of society. The next generation’s own moral and social development will be damaged. At the same time, many of our social problems such as poverty, the abortion rate and rape will increase. We should have a moral standard that is traditional and high for everyone in our society. People should be educated to have traditional moral values. Peter for example is an eighteen years old dropout who has no respect for his family nor his teachers nor his neighborhood. He thinks it’s funny to humiliate his teachers and terrorize his neighbors. He does not value school, religion or any kind of moral value system that society views as important. To him, the “man with the gun” has the power to get what he wants. Some liberals claim that traditional moral values limits people’s freedom, and they go on to argue that it violates human rights to try to control moral behavior. Do people have the right to choose their life style? Certainly the government doesn’t have the right to regulate people’s personal choices. However, there is no such thing as absolute freedom in any society. When the freedom of one harms others and the interests of society, the government has the right to stop it. With the recent presidential election, people should consider what is important. Social welfare and the breakdown of the traditional family and moral values are the most important problems facing society. Conservatives feel that they can deal with these problems better than liberals. The republican, which represent a more conservative philosophy is a better choice for the people than a democratic, liberal choice.