The Conservative Response to Progressive Views

In a recent exchange with some of my progressive colleagues. I received a list of their views and positions. In order to respond to each points, I thought it would be better to publish my response here on HubPages. It would make an interesting comparison between two opposing ideology.

I received the following two final responses to my comment about the progressives seeking a “utopia” society that cannot be achieved.

- March 2019

When we pursue a more just nation, we are not pursuing utopia. Among us, first generation Americans, we enjoyed the blessings of this great nation. But among us, there are those whose families have lived in America for generations and do not have access to education, opportunity, and equal protection under the laws.
We should think about raising the boat for all, not just those who already have much.
This democracy is less than 300 years old. It is very fragile and vulnerable to elected leaders who abuse the powers entrusted to him.
As children of immigrants, we should be sympathetic to modern day immigrants. They aspire to the same things our parents did. This country was never white first. It had a diverse group of people living in it long before the white settlers came and imported slaves to till the fields.
This land was always inhabited by a melting pot of diverse peoples. It was always the white people who subjugated the other groups starting with the natives. At one time our people were more ill treated by whites in California than the slaves of the South, even though we were technically a free people.
It should be anatham to us to adopt the racist attitudes and values of the whites. In two or three generations, the whites will become the minority in America, how we as Asian Americans behave today have a great impact on how we will have a role in the political sphere when white political power is ceded to a new reality.

A "racist" nation doesn't mean it's a bad nation.

Some of us think it is a process to make things better even as we face and recognize challenges to becoming better. It's is laziness and unappreciative of what we have to behave otherwise.

Simply by saying bad things no longer exists does not make it so. It is that attitude that allows the bad things to become normal and flourish.

It is not about finding Utopia.

It's about helping to make things better for the "we" instead of declaring Utopia for the "me".

Let me start by explaining what led to this point of our final discussion. It started about racism in America, and most recently about President Trump being accused by the left as a racist.

My position is Trump is not a racist, and more over, America is not a racist country for electing Trump to be the President In 2016.

The discussion about race came as a result of the immigration debate. Is building a wall on the southern border an example of Trump’s racism?

Is the term “Make America Great Again” a racist statement implying Trump wants to make America White again?

The race debate also touched upon the latest incident with Jussie Smollett case. Why is racism on the mind of so many people?

The progressive view on America is that we are still a racist nation. After all the progress made in the last 60 years, with the election of a black President in 2008, we are not anywhere near done. Racist is still a problem that must be addressed and somehow corrected...

I brought up the discussion on the difference between “systemic and institutional“ racism versus personal bigotry. We have dealt with the first and we cannot do anything about the second. What I mean by that is we have laws and statutes to deal with insitutional racism but we cannot outlaw a bigot. Just as we can’t outlaw murder. We can arrest and punish a person who is convicted of murder but we can‘t make that person stop commiting murder. It is a subtle point but an important one.

In many incidents, we have confuse the two. In the Ferguson incident, it was not a race incident. It was created into a race incident by the BLM activist group.

In this section, I try to summarize the progressive views. Please correct me if any of my assertions are wrong.

• America is still a racist nation
• Trump is a racist
• MAGA is code word for Make America White Again
• Building the wall is racist against hispanics
• Tax cuts is for the rich
• America is less respected overseas
• Illegal Immigration or undocument immigrants have every right to be here
• Sanctuary cities is protecting the least among us
• We need these workers doing the job Americans won’t do
• Minimum wage of $15 an hour is to help fight against income inequality
• Conservatives are selfish and focus on me instead of we
• Religion is a myth, opium of the masses
• Climate change is real and we humans are the cause
• Trump is corrupt and colluded with Russia
• Trump is a liar
• Trump is a misogynist
• Trump is anti Muslim
• Trump is antisemite

America is not a racist country anymore. President Trump is not a racist. Over 40% of the voting public did not vote a racist to the highest office of the land. Progressives have a fixation about race. Not everything is about race. The MAGA is just another glaring example. Trump used it as a campaign slogan...by the way, he copied it from Ronald Reagan some 30 years ago.

MAGA is not a code word for make America White again. America was never that White to begin with. We always had immigrants. We still have over 1 million legal immigrants that come here every year. No other nation is so generous with our immigration policy.

The wall is also a symbol. It is a main campaign issue with Trump. The problem is not with race but with economics. We cannot have an endless flow of illegal unskilled immigrants from our southern borders. Yes, they do provide some labor for tasks Americans prefer not to do...such as fruit picking and landscaping...but their presence in large numbers hurt our economy by keeping wages low. They also tax our infrastructure such as hospitals and schools. We need to control who comes here and what skills we need.

The tax reform package passed by Congress was not a giveaway to the rich. It included several parts. It reduced income taxes for a large majority of tax payers. It also reduced corporate tax rates to be more competitive with our foreign trade partners.

America is stronger and more confident and feared. This was not the case under President Obama. He had a different foreign policy. He wanted to “lead from behind”. As we’ve seen with Syria, the millions of refugees, was not a good thing. The rise of ISIS happened under Obama’s watch. Trump decimated them. The latest overture with North Korea and the cancelling of the Iran Nuclear deal are both good signs.

The open border policy along with the sactuary cities is undermining the rule of law. We have immigration laws and though not perfect, are there for a purpose. That is preserving our sovereignty as a nation. If we want to have more immigrants, it should be addressed by improving the legal process not by turning a blind eye.

The false argument of - they are doing jobs Americans won’t do...is just untrue. Americans will do the jobs as long as they are being compensated accordingly. The minimum wage of $15/hour is another progressive attempt to address income inequality. It is misguided. The wages will rise automatically when we have control over our borders. When the supply and demand equation is changed, the price and wages will adapt and adjust to a more equitable level. The illegal immigrants here year after year, championed b the progressives Is part of the cause for the low wages. It is ironic the very policies they support work to undermine the results they seek.

Progressive believe conservatives are selfish and only looking out for number one. That is also false. Conservatives want everyone to succeed. They want to help people h lp themselves. That is why conservatives believe private charities will do a better job of helping the poor. Government providing entitlement benefits does not help but will propagate the welfare state.

Religion is also a thorn on the side of progressives. They think it is the source of many of our world conflicts. It is also the source of bigotry and discrimination against women and gays... Not true. Religion is the stabiliIng force in an ever changing world. Many of rhe progressive policies seems like making “progress” but ended up not living up to the promIse. As it turned out, many religious believes are tried and true and survived thousand years of human history. God knew what he was doing all along.

Climate change and going green is the latest progressive mantra. Conservatives like me are skeptical of the theory of AGW - human caused global warming. The science is not settled. Too much is still unknown. The climate models, some 31 of them, are all incomplete. More study needs to be conducted before a coherent policy can be adopted by all. The Paris Accord is not the answer. That is why Trump decided to withdraw the US from that accord. It was a voluntary effort by the world community.

Finally, it is all about Trump. The Trump Derangement Syndrome is creating a crack in the media and in Hollywood and in Washington DC. The Mueller report will show there was no Russian collusion. The two and a half investigation did not reveal any illegal activity between Trump and Putin‘s Russia.

This country, the US of America, was founded by white Christians. Instead of dictating their religion and will on the people, they came up with a new Constitution. The premise was that the people would rule by a democracy and with their consent.

The religious freedom was enthrined in the first Amerndment.

As for race and immigration, we had slavery but it was outlawed after a hard fought civil war. The North won and Lincon declared emancipation of all slaves. We also had a very liberal immigration policy. It was obvious as a new nation, we needed people, and workers to explore and develop the vast country. Yes, the local Indians got a raw deal and they were eventually pushed into reservations. It is the way of our world. Survival of the fittest.

With immigration, we always have a legal system. One that worked for decades. It stopped working when some embrased an open borders policy and a sactuary cities policy. These hurt average American On many levels.

• Self Reliance
• Individual Freedom
• Support and defend our Constitution
• Color blind society - ala Dr. MLK
• American Exceptionalism
• Divine providence

President Trump was a democrat for most of his adult life. This is an undisbuted fact. He donated to Democratic candidates. He only became a Republican in recent years. He ran as a Republican against 16 other GOP candidates and won. He is not a conservative. Many in the GOP leadership did not support him. Some criticized him openly. Some even left office. In effect, he is the face of the third party. The forgotton group of people. The people who were disenfranchised by both Democrats and Republicans. He was the ultimate Washington outsider. He ran on issues that matter to the American people - securing our borders and preserving our sovereignty.

This is a warning to those that are anti-Trump. You can disagree with his policies and try to defeat him at the ballot box. This is how all our political differences are settled. With Trump, there seems to be something new. The mere hatred and objection to this man being elected to President has driven some over board. These include many in the media and in Hollywood and academia and the political pundits. This is a real danger. It is a danger for you to go down this rabbit hole. Ocee you go down the racist charge, it is impossible to retract. It becomes a self full-filling prophecy and takes on a life of its own. This is not healthy.

It was 1992 and the election of Bill Clinton. The Democrat strategist James Carville coined this phrase. What he meant was that people vote their pocket books. If the economy is bad, they would more likely vote for the other guy. If it is good, as in 1996, they would vote to keep the status quo, despite all the corruption and scadals and baggage of Bill Clintion.

In 2020, it will be the same. If the economy is humming along, Trump will be re-elected probably with a bigger margin than in 2016. IMHO

The debate between progressives and conservatives about how our country should be governed has been going on for a long time. The demonization of the other side has to stop. We are all Americans. If we can’t agree on policy, at least we should agree on this. We all want what is best for our country and our people. We just have fundamental differences on how to bring it about. This debate is better conducted without emotions. It should be based on real data and on achieving results and not on good intentions. As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.