As published in The Leavenworth Times, April 3, 2012.

Liberals routinely claim the moral high ground.  They believe government should directly help the poor and other groups of victims, and assert that conservatives just want to make things better for the rich.  An air of superiority permeates the demeanor of many university professors, wealthy movie stars, and cable network personalities.  For them, there is no debate: they are morally superior.  To that end, they push for ever bigger, more intrusive government.  That has a feedback effect: the more people depending on big government, the more downtrodden to vote for Democrats to continue it, and the more superior they feel.

But are they more moral, as a group, than conservatives? Should we hold them up as models of morality? First, a disclaimer – politicians of all stripes are often corrupt and self-serving, but let’s ignore that and just assume liberals and conservatives act for what they believe is the greater good, not just for themselves.

First of all, liberals reside on the left of the big-to-smaller-government spectrum, as well as the left of the government-power-to-personal-freedom spectrum. They always push for bigger, more powerful government – with more regulations, more taxes, and less freedom for the individual.  Point for conservatives.

Liberals want government to decide who is poor, keep raising the poverty line, and do all they can to keep government largesse flowing to them, rather than improve their overall circumstances. They don’t really want the poor to help themselves. They have allowed nearly half of the public to get away with paying no taxes whatever.  In effect, they attempt to make many voters dependent on government money.  Conservatives want to make it possible for people to help themselves.

Liberals aren’t fiscally responsible.  They’ve grown the deficit and the public debt under Obama, and despite holding all power for two years, have made no move to reform anything.  They’ve run the government on continuing resolutions, never daring to produce a budget which might have to cut a government program.

Leftists are notorious for dishonesty.  They believe the end justifies any means.  Liberals dance dangerously close to that attitude.  For example, liberal journalists and TV personalities routinely pretend to be objective while pushing the liberal agenda.  This is hypocrisy. 

LIberals consistently attack family values, such as traditional marriage and religious freedom. They have asserted rights that never existed before, and imposed them on the majority.

Liberals have no compunction in using mobs to enforce their minority will on the majority.  The huge, organized demonstrations in Wisconsin are an example; the various Occupy movements are another.  Mob action is the opposite of rational discourse and democratic process.  Conservative movements like the Tea Party have behaved properly, and have never used mob action to try to enforce their will.

Liberals seem to hate capitalism.  They want totally regulated economy.  Never mind that such has never worked – even Russia and China have had to back away from it.  Vigorous capitalist economies have done more to raise the standard of living than anything else, particularly in America.  But Liberals still fight it.

From all of the above, and much more, conservatives in general really hold the moral high ground.  The Obama administration proves that.  Obama flaunts the will of the majority – mostly conservatives who want smaller, simpler, less intrusive government, personal freedom and responsibility, and a lawful society.  He has increased government power: ignoring congress on many issues, increasing government size, allowing the debt to grow more than all previous presidents combined, taking over health care, spending ever more, refusing to even consider entitlement reform (while saying he is interested in doing so), pushing irrational energy ideas, and on and on.   

He does all that with an arrogant, confident air.  But you can’t blame him: he’s a liberal, therefore he believes he is morally superior.  He’s wrong.