Flashpost: The Fading of Conservative Principles

If you know me at all, you know that in everything I do - I have always tried to see both sides of an argument (for better or for worse). This has meant that I entertained anti-intellectual, racist, and sexist rhetoric under the guise of trying to understand.

Part of this is because my entire life I have been largely in white, evangelical Christian, and conservative spaces. When I no longer accepted or agreed with some of the things I grew up with, I was not willing to completely abandon the people who helped make me, the people who loved me, and the people who I loved - so I listened. Even now, I have friends who have different beliefs and worldviews that I have and I listen. Sometimes I scream out in frustration and post, but for the most part - I listen and I learn and I try to understand.

So I think what has been the most confusing thing for me in the last few months, is how the things I considered principled deal breakers of conservatism have been disregarded because of outcomes aligned with partisanship policy or acceptable marginalization of certain groups. Two examples:

1) The 2nd Amendment: For decades - really my entire life I have listened to arguments about why the 2nd amendment is one of the most important rights protected under the constitution. How all other freedoms and liberties depend on that amendment; thus, making any restriction a problem, regardless of its rationality or its potential to save human lives.

As we witnessed and experienced mass shooting after mass shooting, school shooting after school shooting, I no longer believed that an unregulated right to bear arms should take priority over controlled gun ownership, but I accepted that the belief that unregulated gun ownership is necessary to protect against individual and governmental encroachments on liberty is a valid argument and a principled belief. In partisan circles this usually translates into the battle cry that non-conservatives want to and will take your guns if ever given the authority.

And yet, when the current administration suggests after ONE transgender person does a mass shooting that a policy moving forward will strip an entire group (transgender people) of their unregulated right to own guns - it did not lead to conservative uproar.

2) Freedom of Speech / Cancel Culture: This is probably the most striking development of it all. The GOP has been at least for the last decade - the party of free speech. When colleges and universities attempted to create safe zones and restrict hate speech, there was uproar about the problems of not protecting speech (including hate speech). This one is actually one that no matter how progressive I get, I still believe in. Free Speech, more than the Second Amendment, to me is the bedrock of our democracy. I will forever defend a person's right to say hateful things, even hateful things toward me, because I understand that allowing government censorship of anything, surrenders all speech to government censorship.

When President Trump was removed from Twitter - invocations of the First Amendment were everywhere. It led to the eventual purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk who vowed to restore the platform to its heyday of open and free speech (the First Amendment's non-application to private entities is a post for another time). This bleeds into the critiques on so-called "cancel culture." In 2020, when people were losing their jobs for racist or sexist comments or patterns of racist/sexist decision-making - lots of people I know rebuked cancel culture as unfair and a version of leftist problematic censorship.

And yet, the current attorney general has recently suggested that the Justice Department will start criminalizing hate speech (an illegal assertion I might add) to combat leftist hate speech. Just this week, people were fired or warned by their superiors not to post anything that could be considered derogatory regarding the recent conservative political influencer's assassination - regardless of whether that speech was about his death or about disagreements with how he lived his life. University's sent out letters strongly advising employees not to engage in any speech concerning that situation during or outside of work. Jimmy Kimmel was fired based on his comedic monologue about the President and the handling of this situation.

Why are conservatives not drawing the line?

Now, admittedly I know that there quite a few principled conservatives that are speaking up when these previously deal breaker concerns are being broken by the current administration - but I just have not seen that in my own circles.

This is a very long rant and really has no purpose other than to get some of my thoughts on a page. But also if you have made it this far, I guess I am genuinely curious about how we as a people (specifically us Americans) have become so polarized that even our most rational and cherished big "C" conservative principles are acceptably on the chopping block.

Is it truly simply a matter of attaching a "right" or a "left" wing to the action?

One thing about me is that I believe in principles and I believe in integrity. Even if we disagree, I can respect someone who holds to their principles and values - regardless of who violates those things.

Pre-2020, I disagreed with but still respected a lot of the very smart conservatives I knew.

Post January 2025, it is getting harder.*

* - and I know that the "left" or "liberals" are not always consistent with their principles/values/ideology, but to be frank most of my inner circle are conservative-leaning and the current administration does not claim to be in anyway leftist, progressive, or liberal - so I am simply not talking to them at the moment.