Conservative Reflections on Politics, Culture and Religion
The current political and media environment is dominated by a left progressive groupthink that is based on the clear certainty that arises from shallow reasoning. This Leftist babble drowns out and frequently misrepresents the conservative view, simplistically characterizing it as reactionary and uncaring.
Conservatives have responded by turning to social media, creating a lot of great conservative content. However, most people simply are not able or inclined to spend much time searching for and reading or listening to this content. This is not surprising given there are around 440 million blogs worldwide and a never-ending flood of content, making the competition for people’s attention overwhelming. The longer articles or podcasts inevitably speak to the few rather than the many. In fact, very few people read more than a few paragraphs of articles and you are doing well if you hold people’s attention for longer than 3 minutes on YouTube!
Following the lead of PragerU with its successful 5-minute videos and other vlogs with a shorter format, the main purpose of this blog is to present a conservative position on controversial public policy issues positively, persuasively and, most importantly, succinctly. To present the conservative case in a digestible form to the many rather than the few. I think PragerU has it right in aiming to persuade in no longer than 5 minutes. And I also think they have it right in seeing the need to argue a case. Slogans are effective in relation to what people already value or believe, but by themselves this short-hand method won’t persuade those who are undecided or indifferent.
The chosen form for public policy reflections on this blog is that of the policy statement. The policy statements attempt to distil the essence of controversial public policy issues and formulate principled but politically implementable positions in as few words as possible, using and building on the best ideas and extracts from material I have read, and combined in a manner that most persuasively argues the case. Similar to a pamphlet or fact sheet, these policy statements each focus on a single topic and are written for the ordinary person.
Most of the policy statements also note and address the key concerns, gray areas or objections that conservatives sometimes ignore or haven’t thought through how to address. Failure to address these issues frequently enables the Left to caricature and dismiss conservative views, and as Mark Steyn points out, you should always be wary about playing to caricature (“Downing Street Down” at 19:50, The Mark Steyn Show April 7, 2020 https://www.steynonline.com/10197/downing-street-down).
The sources used in developing the policy statements are listed at the end of each policy statement (with hyperlinks if available online). They are an entrée to the vast world of good content on social media and some of the most useful books I have read on these topics that explore the issues in depth. Listing a source does not mean that I agree with everything someone else says or that I have vetted any of their other material or that they are even a conservative. It simply means that they have had something valuable to say and that I have used a particularly apt or persuasive phrase or idea and built upon it, or that it expands upon the topic which for reasons of conciseness I haven’t been able to accommodate. Sometimes my conclusions may even be somewhat different, although naturally the sources I refer to are generally in alignment with my views.
Hopefully people will be prepared to spend 5 minutes reading the policy statements and, for those who are interested, delve into the links to find their way into some of the best parts of the blog- and vlogosphere.
This blog is not intended to provide a regular content stream. Policy statements and other webpages will be published infrequently and only after a great deal of tinkering and polishing.
The policy statements are intended to be linked to or distributed far and wide. Consequently, I have published them under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. I encourage the copying and distribution of the policy statements to as broad an audience as possible. Social media is a godsend in that regard.