Shared Beliefs of Conservatives and Progressives

We believe in freedom.

We believe in hard work.

We believe that good work should be well rewarded.

We believe in the right to own property which is the reward of our work; and we believe in the right of our spouses and children to inherit our property upon the occasion of our passing.

We believe in the rights of the individual to pursue their self-interest wherever it may lie. We also believe in the rule of law as a protection against the excesses of the few for whom the pursuit of self-interest crosses the border into the criminal and thereby threatens the health, safety, privacy, and security of our persons, our families, and our interests.

Therefore, we recognize the necessity for a government to enforce the rule of law.

We believe that all people must be treated equally by the law, and that a person’s genetics, heritage, fortunes, or social status must not be used to dispose the law toward that person in either a favorable or an unfavorable manner.

We believe that the interests of the people outweigh the interests of the state, and we agree that the people should look askance and even raise an outcry whenever the state seeks an expansion of its powers.

We believe in democracy, because we believe that the government’s purpose is to serve the people, and we believe that the right to govern can only be bestowed by the people.

We believe in the Constitution. We cherish the separation of powers which prevents our great nation from slipping into the clutches of tyranny.

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NPR’s Conservative Bias

A detailed analysis of political coverage by National Public Radio reveals a distinct partisan bias.  The following article provides irrefutable numeric evidence to support this conclusion.

While biased news coverage is commonplace in today’s media, most of us have come to expect better from NPR, which strives to garner paid memberships through its open-minded capacity to “consider all things” as it were.  We expect National Public Radio to make a conscious effort to provide nonpartisan news coverage.  Indeed, most people, if asked, would probably say that National Public Radio is subject to a liberal bias.  But numbers don’t lie; and the numbers say that NPR’s coverage of politics is heavily slanted in favor of the conservative viewpoint.  If you don’t believe my calculations, I invite you to visit NPR’s online archives, create a spreadsheet, and draw your own conclusions.  The data is there for anyone who wishes to parse it.

Requests for Comment

I contacted NPR’s Talk of the Nation repeatedly with requests for comment for this story, but they chose not to respond.  After several days I then went over their heads and contacted NPR’s corporate office directly; but NPR corporate likewise did not respond, much to my disappointment.

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My neighbor’s car has a bumper sticker that says, “How’s that whole hopey-changey thing goin’ for ya?”   This moronic expression is not only annoying because it reads like it was meant to be a Sarah Palin quote. It is annoying because I would actually like a whole lot more change, please, and I still hold out some hope that change is possible. It is annoying because my neighbor, people like my neighbor, and the type of politicians that my neighbor supports, are responsible for the slow pace, and in some cases the complete absence, of change. It is annoying because my neighbor seems to think that I – who still have a “Got Hope?” sticker on my truck – might be regretting my earlier support of the principles of change because, in my neighbor’s view, the changes that were proposed to the health care system looked like the dangerous path to socialism. My neighbor is a fool.

What a shame there are so many millions of people just like my neighbor throughout the country. I maintain hope that rational, well-meaning people can overpower the conservative defeatism that is attempting to drag down our efforts to create positive change and to instead mire us in the conservative muck.

Conservatives are opposed to change. That is what the word “conservative” means: people who espouse this philosophy wish to conserve the status quo. It does NOT have anything to do with fiscal responsibility, as was so aptly evidenced by the egregious economic mismanagement of the Bush administration. The result of Republican economic policies: double-digit unemployment.

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