Conservatives and Liberals Could be the Same...If they wanted to be

Shocking enough statement, I know. Can a conservative and a liberal be the same in this great country? Let's look into this a little.

First, when I say conservative and liberal I mean in the political sense. In the current environment, conservatives and liberals are vastly different; not just in the political sense, but in just about every field of thought. For instance, I am a Bible scholar and I would be considered a conservative Biblical scholar. What does that mean?

That means that when I read the Bible, I read it for what it says and I believe that the Bible is not a document that was meant to be interpreted one way 2000 years ago and in a different way today. A liberal scholar would say that the Bible was written for a particular context for a particular time that, while it holds some truths applicable today, the majority does not apply to today's circumstances. A conservative theologian will always affirm the divinity of Jesus. Liberal theologians sometimes deny this very fundamental truth to the Christian faith as it is taught in the Bible. There is very little conservative and liberal theologians would agree upon.

Likewise in the current political environment. A conservative politician is very different from a liberal politician. Why is that and how could I propose that the two could ever be the same?

The problem is not so much conservative and liberal in politics; it is constitutionalist vs anti-constitutionalist. An anti-constitutionalist should not be allowed in American politics and it is a shame that they slip through the cracks and get elected as often as they do. If we were dealing with conservative and liberal constitutionalists, the dynamics of our political system would be very different.

A constitutionalist is simply someone who abides by the words of the Constitution of the United States.

The problem we have is that the conservatives and liberals have become very similar in that the majority of them are anti-constitutionalist. They want to follow a government structure that requires a big government and infringes on the constitutional rights of the people. These politicians would be defined as the Establishment.

There are a small number of politicians that we call conservatives and the media makes them out to be crazy people. These conservatives are constitutional conservatives. They are battling against the Establishment to restore the government back to the principles of the constitution.

How can you be a constitutionalist and be a liberal? Let's take the issue of gay marriage. I believe that a politician on the national level who follows the constitution would not differ on the solution to this issue whether they are conservative or liberal. A constitutionalist would say, with the current laws and understanding of marriage in relation to the federal government, that marriage is a matter left up to the states. Now, a conservative constitutionalist would be more likely to say that marriage should not be recognized by the government at all, because it is a private religious institution. A liberal constitutionalist might be more likely to want to pass an ammendment to either allow or disallow the practice of gay marriage. How does that differ from the Establishment?

The Establishment tries to find ways to force things upon the people who elected them. Party allegiance is more important than supporting the people who elected you. George Washington famously denounced the idea of political parties. Individuals were supposed to be elected based on their ideas and were supposed to battle it out with other politicians to prove that their ideas were better. When political parties get involved, politicians become a class separate from the people who are voting for them and their election becomes more about personal gain than faithfully serving the American people. The Establishment inherently defies the principles of the Constitution because America was supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The Establishment is a regime reminiscent of a socialistic or a communistic ruling class. It separates politicians from the average person and exalts them as someone "more important."

With a constitutionalist, everybody wins whether it is liberal or conservative. With an Establishment politician, all you can expect are lies and tricks that are designed to trick voters into giving up more of their freedoms to accomodate the political class.

Is a conservative and liberal constitutionalist the same? Not 100%. But the options they provide are either to leave the Constitution as it stands or to legally ammend it to bring about change. Pray for the few remaining constitutionalists that exist in Washington. They don't have it easy and you can't imagine the pressure they face to become another victim of the Establishment's lure.