My neighbor and I have chatted off and on about politics. He calls himself a conservative and tracks the Fox line well but is not religiously motivated nor have I noticed any hatefulness in his comments…. some non-PC language but not hateful. His conservatism is of the variety that I would call reactionary, no special ideological strain, just a lot of attitudes you can hear on Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. I want attitudes from him, not stands or positions. His background is that of a working man without a h.s. diploma and he has done well. He is about my age and grew up, as I did, in the Phoenix area. My questions for him derive from our conversations and some of the statements I hear made by self-styled conservatives on television and elsewhere. I mentioned to him that I had some questions for him I’d jotted down and he said he’d be happy to answer them. And I’m sure he would. I tell him that these are the things that so puzzle liberals.
The first question goes to the kind of fantasies we have about the “other side” and what they would do with the country if they had the chance. And the last question is the broadest of all.
#1 If it turned out that the liberals had been right all along and conservatives just threw in the towel and went along with all the liberal policies, what do you think you would lose, what would you be unhappy about, specifically? And if it were the opposite, if the conservatives had been right all along and the liberals just gave up on their liberal policies and accepted the conservative path, what do you think I would lose, what would I miss most, what would I be unhappy about?
#2 What is the reason that liberals “hate America?”
#3 What do liberals stand to gain by destroying America?
#4 What do the media personnel stand to gain by destroying America?
#5 If American soldiers are to confiscate the guns of Americans and there are around 2,000 troops involved in the action, where do the troops come from who will obey this unconstitutional order? That is, will a cross-section of American soldiers contain no persons whatsoever who would blow the whistle on such an illegal action?
#6 If liberals want open border and to let in anyone who enters the country and Obama is a liberal, why did Obama deport more illegal aliens than any previous president? And why did illegal entries drop dramatically under Obama?
#7 Why do conservatives think liberals want open borders merely because they object to taking toddlers away from their parents?
#8 Why do conservatives equate people who cross the border without the proper paperwork with people who hold up convenience stores? Calling a person who commits a misdemeanor a criminal is unusual, so why is ‘criminal’ a regular label used by conservatives?
#9 Conservatives say the War on Poverty and similar social programs have been failures because we still have poverty. Then why do we continue to incarcerate criminals since we still have crime?
#10 Why is it when you have things you can count, like the number of people crossing the border or the number of Executive Orders issued by each president, why do conservatives insist the numbers cannot be right? That includes things like the number of fraudulent votes cast, the number of people attending Trump’s inauguration. And why do conservatives say Obama’s job numbers are fake but Trump’s are accurate when they come from the same source?
#11 Why do conservatives say that people who point out cops who break the law are “anti-cop”? That’s like saying that someone who presents evidence of bank fraud against a banker is anti-banker.
#12 Thomas Jefferson put in the Declaration of Independence that he wrote it out of “a decent respect to the opinion of mankind.” Wh don’t conservatives respect the opinion of mankind on issues like human rights, civil rights, and international law e.g the Iran nuclear deal?
#13 What do liberals find problematic about using terms like “faggot” to label people. Why is it PC to object to that when conservatives object to being labeled racists and bigots?
#14 What crime have you been a victim of?
#15 Polling shows that generally people the most afraid of something are the furthest from it, e.g. those most afraid of being mugged by a Black thug live in all-White counties or voters in the U.K. voting for Brexit live where there are few immigrants, supposedly their chief complaint about the E.U. Why is this?
#16 Why is it that when the former head of Homeland Security and now current WH chief of staff accused a Democratic congressman of making false claims in a speech and a video of the speech was shown which showed that the congressman had done no such thing (specifically that she had given credit for something to liberal Democrats and you could hear plainly on the tape where she credited Republicans! ) Why do conservatives continue to support liars like this?
#16 Why do conservatives not recognize the practices and policies we have engaged in e.g. separating children from parents of African and Native American people and even killing them?
#17 Why do conservatives dismiss anyone who speaks up for their group e.g. women writing on women’s issues, gays speaking for gays, Blacks protesting police crime against Blacks, immigrants on immigration, as biased but a White man can become an expert on any group?
#18 What is it about White Christian men that makes them uniquely fit to rule?
#19 When you say Obama is a socialist, what policies of his were socialistic?
# 20 What is the essence of America?