Focusing on the wrong end

I keep hearing it from the Republican so-called leadership who are hijacking the party into moderate materialism... "We need to focus on the financial conservatism and jettison the social conservatives... so that we can reach more people." They have their tactic completely and totally backwards. If anything, we need to do completely the opposite. I'd go so far as to say that if I had to choose between social or financial conservatism, I would choose social.

Did anybody reading this also read George Orwell's Animal Farm? I recommend it. Right now I am thinking of a specific character in the story, a pig named Snowflake. In the story, the farmer is chased from the farm and the pigs set up a socialist government that turns brutally totalitarian by the end. Snowflake, chased off and killed eventually by the power-seizing Napoleon, is a 'gentler dictator' and genuinely works towards the good of the other animals. He may be an economic liberal, but he acts as a social conservative, and does not seem to govern his own life by the mantra that you do what you can to secure your own power and satisfy your own pleasure. He is not a moral relativist.

I will never truly believe that socialism is the best way for a country to operate, but I would rather have a good dictator than a society left adrift and manipulated by evil men. Even government-mandated programs for the poor is better than a set of undisciplined rich men who sneer at and oppress those beneath their income levels. Indeed, in a morally-corrupt culture, a firmer hand is needed. Liberty is for adults, not children.

If we truly work for the good of our society, we must focus on morality, even above freedom. If our sons and daughters are not raised in such a way as to be willing to give up power voluntarily, what will it matter when we send them into public office with their heads full of capitalism? We will end up with tyranny of a different sort.

Those who prize economic conservatism above social conservatism will create a land so undisciplined and brutal that socialism will be needed eventually just to hold man's passions in check. Those who prize social conservatism will create a land in which government power holds no fear for the citizens and can be lowered over time by those who have not grown to love power.

We are headed for a time of increases socialism under Obama, but we can still train ourselves and teach our children to be people of moral standing, who not only understand, but feel that lying, cheating, and stealing is plainly wrong. That is the only way we will continue to be worthy of the economic conservatism we so badly want back!