Conservative PR Campaign...Neo-Neos Against the Matrix

This post is actually the continuation of a conversation taking place in comments to the post: Neo the Conservative. My response to the latest comments ended up so damn long, I decided to make it a post....thereby inviting everyone into the conversation.

Obviously, if you want to know what going on here, read the original post, and the thoughtful comments to it. Then read this.

GS


Velociman, YES! Just what I'm talking about: "Dissident". Nice.

And you've nailed the problem with the labels we are currently using. They're all tainted one way or another, ruined by 1) purposeful deception ("Liberal"/"Progressive"), 2) a conspiracy of the Government-Media complex of misrepresentation ("Conservative"), or 3) extreme "exotica" that disconnects ideology from reality (Libertarian). hat tip Arctic Wolf

One problem is that there are two sets of "Liberals". Cultural Liberals and Political Liberals. The Former are those people that still believe in the principles of Classic Liberalism, and haven't yet realized that the latter are posers, using the original label, but, in fact, championing an ideology that runs utterly counter to Classic Liberalism, which would be more accurately called Socialist Fascism.

Cultural Liberals are people who believe in "Liberalism" as understood in the Enlightenment: human liberty & dignity, freedom, individuality, human equality before God and the law, citizen participation in government, rule of law, and justice. They believe in Liberalism as it is classically defined. And because they are not political, they are unaware that the designation has been co-opted by Socialist Fascists because the Socialist Fascists use the classical Liberal language to disguise the ideological, moral and political shift.

I remember very clearly the moment I realized that it was Democrats who were making all the laws I thought were invasive and liberty limiting. I remember feeling betrayed by the Left whom I had always believed were the champions of freedom....because they continually told me they were. (I never checked to see what they did....I only listened to what they said!)

When the 20th cigarette tax increase was passed, when the seat-belt laws made my driving style a crime, when I was suddenly required to wear a helmet instead of having the "wind in my hair" on my motorcycle, when I was asked to support illegals with my taxes...I started paying attention to who was responsible. And I was devastated to realize the Democrats/Liberals who had always told me they were all about Liberty were very busy in the Legislature trying to take mine away.

Yet...even so, I assumed the Republicans would be worse. Because, after all, it was the Liberals who were for individual freedom. I knew that because they told me so. And they had a good record: for abortion, for sex, drugs, rock & roll, for gays, for illegal aliens, for single mothers, for prisoners' rights...

And how can you be more dedicated to individual freedom than that? (Don't let your head explode...)

It was not until 9-11-01 that I got flipped. NPR's Liberal bullshit about that castastrophe was so egregious I almost threw my radio into the bay. Luckily, instead, I turned to Conservative Talk Radio and found people who were saying stuff I believed in. They'd been saying it right there, all along, for years, but I'd believed my early training...and assumed they were just what the government-education-media complex said they were—and totally rejected them without a hearing.

And I know that a lot of other so-called "Liberals" are still caught in that trap. They are struggling because the Left—like ShamBama— keeps saying the right stuff....but never quite do the right stuff. But because they've bought into the lie that today's "Liberalism" is what we now call "Classic Liberalism", and because they've been bamboozled into believing Republicans - and especially Conservatives are for returning women to the kitchen barefoot and pregnant...they believe that as bad as the Left is....the Right is intolerably worse. And there they stay...imprisoned by misinformation, by ignorance, by fear.

In a nutshell, most Cultural Liberals are what we call Conservative, but they don't know it. And because they've been taught, and believe, that "conservatives" are backward cretins, they don't see Conservatism as a viable option.

And whose fault is that?

I've told the story too many times about how after my discovery of Conservtive Talk Radio I could not find further information. It took several years for me to get the whole story on Conservatism...and that was possible only because I was bulldogishly persistent.

We need to make it easier. Clearer. Hipper. We need to make Conservatism cool. And present it as the revolutionary ideology it actually is! We need to get rid of the sourpuss image we've got. Not any of us individually, of course, but the movement in general. We know how happy and funny and creative and ironic and innovative conservatives are. But the public image of conservatives is stait, uptight, peevish moralizing sermonizers. God....I wouldn't want to hang out with people like that, either.

We have to "repackage" conservatism. We've got a great product....in outdated packaging. I don't want to change a single ingredient. But we can do a lot to modernize the image.

We need a P.R. campaign. And product ad campaign. We need updated packaging, an updated look and feel. And there's nothing deceitful about that.

I think the cleverness & success of the Socialist Fascists in image and publicity has turned us off to that endeavor...to our cost.

And what's weirder, we're doing just what we accuse them of doing...using packaging that doesn't reflect the product inside.

They hide their wormy rancid hamburger in an edgy, hip cool, current package...they're selling the sizzle!

We hide our Super Premium, Grade A, marbled, tender filets in a grease-stained brown paper sack...we seem to be selling the drab!

Our product is already so much better than theirs - we just need to learn how to package it, and sell it. Studying the tactics of the "competition" is wise. They're good at it.

Personally I think the first thing we need to do is stop using the label "Conservative". It's got a lot of baggage. And perhaps most important, it doesn't really mean anything. It's a relative term like "above" or "through".

Conservative only means you want to conserve something. And it's all well and good to say that we want to conserve the Constitution and the intentions of the Founders of America. The fact is, Conservatives of others countries and other times can be shown to have been very definitely against individual freedom, very against the "little man", very much in favor of slavery, and monarchy, and feudalism, and the aristocracy.

Indeed, in any country that had any of these things, Conservatives would be busy trying to conserve them.

I know adults should be able to tell the difference between these Old World Conservatives and American Conservatives, who obviously don't wish to conserve any such thing, and a gentleman wouldn't use the word or label in a way that we didn't mean...but ignorant adults don't make those kind of distinctions, and our opponents are not 'gentlemen'.

I'd like to get away from "Conservative" and come up with a new or "repurpose" an old word that will serve us better. Velociman suggests "Dissident" because it has the hip cache of the moment....of being the one who "speaks truth to power" (gag), who "questions authority", who is a courageous individualist, a political prisoner...or at least the brave, iconoclast target of the fat cat, powerful, political elite.

It certainly fits us these days. And it's likely to be true for a while. It could work.

But it occured to me that it, too, is a relative term. Should Conservatives be elected, "Dissident" would obviously be a misnomer...and then, having glorified the word, would we have encouraged dissidence against ourselves? Just a thought.

I agree with Arctic Wolf that "republican" is the perfect word. It describes exactly who we are, what we support, and the sort of government we want.

The problem is obvious, of course. It's been tainted, shredded, stained, stepped on and run through mud and blood. And now it means something completely other than it did originally. The connotation has outstripped the denotation, I'm afraid.

Further discussion, please!

The Gunslinger