Limiting Choice

I think I'm finally better able to understand the politics of the right. I regularly read the opinion section and letters to the editor in the Sacramento Bee. Right leaning writers, I think above all, passionately decry any interference in their ability to choose. When we are taxed, when we restrict Arctic drilling, when we legislate fuel economy or regulate beef processing, we are in effect limiting choice. This is my basic understanding of Conservatism.

The choice to be able to externalize costs and maximize profits -- when this is restricted it brings out the most vociferous protest. This is why failure to exploit ANWR and the Santa Barbara coast are the reasons most often cited by the right as the cause of our current energy problems. Not demand or the non-negotiable American lifestyle. Not speculation or the falling dollar. And certainly not oil company profiteering.

I've always though of myself as conservative. But I now understand that being conservative is not the same as being a Conservative. I assumed in the past that if I kept my own finanacial house in order I must be a Republican, and so I was for many years, because I take personal responsibility for my own financial affairs (and Democrats don't). So it is that single payer healthcare, social security, progressive tax rates and the EPA are required by our society only because others fail to take personal financial responsibility. If only everyone else worked as hard as I do, or at least worked as smart as I do, then they could afford their own health insurance, wouldn't need an old-age handout, we'd all be taxed the same (and I'd be taxed less) and could choose to live in places that weren't polluted like shipping ports or near refineries.

Only until quite recently have I taken on such ideas as environmentalism, social justice, and international solidarity. And I think it stems from a shift in my thinking that while I can exploit, I no longer choose to. I've chosen not to exploit limited natural resources. Not to exploit cheap foreign labor or indebt another generation. And not to bomb brown people. This is never presented quite so starkly as it is here in the Franklin monologues...but my understanding of today's Conservatism is exactly this, cloaked in family values, economic prosperity, religious piety, and the defense of freedom.