An Open Letter To American And European Liberals From A Red State Republican

Since George W. Bush was reelected there has been a lot of very angry talk from the left about “Red State Americans”. Since then,: those of us in the red stateshave been called “greedy,” “sister marryin’,” “slow learners” & “fascists” who live in “Jesusland”.

Well, I’m a “Redstate Republican” from the South and I think it’s a good idea to take a few minutes to let the left, American and European, know how things appear from the other side of the looking glass. Sure, maybe this won’t faze any of the “Michael Moore is genius and conservatives are Nazis crowd,” but we can always hope, can’t we?

First of all, this may come as a shock to our condescending liberal European cousins who believe they live in the crown jewel of civilization and tend to think Americans are backwards barbarians, but many of us across the pond don’t see much worth emulating in Europe.

From our perspective, the majority of the last hundred years has been nothing but Europeans getting into trouble time and time again and Americans being called upon to pull their buns out of the fire. Think about WW1, WW2, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, and then Serbia in the late nineties. Many liberal Europeans may believe themselves to be more sophisticated, smarter, and generally superior to Americans, but who has been calling on whom for help over and over again? But of course, when finally WE here in America asked for Europe’s help in the War on Terror, many European nations begged off, many delivered very minimal help, and almost all of Europe’s left have acted angrier with Bush and America than the terrorists we’re fighting to stop. That’s not very neighborly and I suspect at some point in the future, we will have the opportunity to remind Europe’s left of that fact when they’re asking us to save the day for them once again.

On top of that, what do we see in Europe where liberalism has largely taken over? We see secular welfare states, strangling in red tape, featuring mediocre militaries & sluggish economies. Furthermore, today’s Europe has adopted the appeasement mentality that Neville Chamberlain was much derided for, they don’t like America very much, and birthrates have dropped so far, so fast, that much of the continent seems to be in a death spiral. Is that something we here in America should aspire to? Not bloody likely….

Now, on to America. Many liberals here tend to assume that conservatives hate them or think they’re stupid. Personally, that’s not true for me. However, I do think liberals tend to be hopelessly naive about human nature, are borderline suicidal when it comes to their views on national security, and they tend to be titanically arrogant about how right they are and their capabilities given the paucity of what they’ve accomplished in…oh, say the last 30 years or so at least.

I’d also note that liberalism these days often (but of course, not always) seems to be largely synonymous with “blaming America first,” extreme hostility to religion and American businesses, and a willingness to entertain bizarre conspiracy theories. Likewise, liberals tend to assume that opposition to their ideas in of itself is base: that it’s based on greed, racism, homophobia, and dare I say it…just plain, old, eevvvviiil.

Well again, I don’t want to shock anybody, but conservatives genuinely believe that the whole country, rich or poor, men or women, minorities or majorities, are not only better served by conservative policies, but that liberal policies hurt the country. Yes, we think a small government is better than a big one, that low taxes for everyone, including the rich, are good for the country, & that the “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” portion of the First Amendment is just as important as the, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” section.

Additionally, when conservatives wave the flag, it’s because we like doing it. When conservatives say “we support the troops,” it’s not some kind of dodge; we realize what a tough job they have and believe we should look out for them because of it. When we listen to Rush Limbaugh, it’s not because we think he makes up great lies about liberals; it’s because we believe he’s telling the truth.

Liberals, American and European, probably won’t buy into what I’m saying because it’s much easier to just paint conservatives as gap toothed, fundamentalist, bigots and homophobes who dream of locking liberals in camps and running some sort of one party theocratic state. Believe that if you will, but it will not make it into reality, nor will it change the ugly face of modern day liberalism into something that will appeal to most Americans.

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