We’ve spent the last couple of days talking about the conservative story. What is our Vision? What is our Mission? Now it’s time to define our elevator story.
Every enterprise needs an Elevator Story. It’s the spiel you give to someone in 30 seconds or less when they say: What do you do? Now that conservatives in their political instantiation in the Republican Party have been roundly defeated, we have to ask ourselves: What is our story? What’s the point of being a conservative?
If you’re going to tell a story then you should tell a story. You should start by setting the stage, define the essential conflict, point towards a resolution, and describe the happy outcome. So here goes.
Setting the Stage:
In America today, government is cruel, corrupt, unjust; and it just costs too much.
Isn’t this just about how conservatives feel? The current welfare state, in which the American people cough up for $900 billion of government pensions, $950 billion in government health care, $875 billion in government education, and $470 billion in government welfare, every year, is an abomination. Never mind the corrupt patronage system. There is the cruelty of a system that has destroyed the family in the underclass, the injustice of a system that screws the working poor and rewards the non-working poor. It. Is. Wrong.
The Conflict:
Liberals created this monster. Liberals believe that compulsory government programs are the way to help the poor and comfort the afflicted.
But they are wrong. Government is not compassion. Government is force. You cannot solve social problems by force.
This is the basic touch point between liberals and conservatives. Liberals believe you can solve social problems with government programs. Conservatives believe that you must solve them person-to-person, face-to-face. That issues out of the meaning of the word compassion, literally, “suffering with.” Running a government program with tax dollars to help the poor isn’t “suffering with.”
The Resolution:
Society is not social force; it is social cooperation. That’s why we must reform the welfare state into the welfare society.
In the welfare society the American people, not liberal experts, will be in charge of their own health care, their children’s education, the comfort of the afflicted, and the decent provision of pensions.
Liberals believe in the welfare state; conservatives believe in the welfare society. That issues out of the basic conservative belief, initially voiced by Edmund Burke, that “To love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of publick affections.”
When you are thinking about politics it is best to take advantage of our better angels than to work against them. And we humans are, first of all, social animals that must live together rather than apart. So conservatives believe that “social problems” must be solved by people in their little platoons--family, neighbors, friends, associations, and charities--and not by bureaucrats. That's not easy, of course. It means that we can't just pay our taxes and complain about the government. We have to get involved and help people.
The Outcome:
With conservative reforms America will truly become that shining city on a hill, “still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom.”
So there is our Elevator Story. The current situation is intolerable. Liberals are to blame. The solution is to get government out of the way and put people back in. And the future is glorious, just as Ronald Reagan promised.
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