What We Don’t Know May Hurt Us

In the 1960s, Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative was spread in RNC convention and shaped what is now what is now the modern Republican party. I am currently in the progress of reading it purely out of curiosity. But the fact that this simple book spread like wildfire right under our noses answers a rather fundamental question I’ve been asking roughly since 2017.

During that time, I had gotten into watching the MSNBC when I wasn’t playing games in order to keep an eye on what was going on. I was in a pretty paranoid state. But one thing that stood out during this era was the promotion of books both by guests and later late night hosts. In fact, it became so frequentest that it started become a personal running joke of mine. And I’m pretty sure this likely contributed to the 2020 elections ending the way it did.

But was this some kind of loophole?

The Jungle

At the time, I didn’t know. Then when I discovered Standard eBooks, a repository of public domain e-books that were reformatted to adopt to modern readers, my question started to gradually be answered with a resounding “yes.” Technically speaking. The medium itself is rather difficult to regulate without shooting yourself in the foot.

One famous example is The Jungle, a fictional book about the brutal exploitation of immigrants and workers within the meatpacking industry. Topical. This book was so damning that it changed the industry forever. And just today when I was searching for more books to add my library, I discovered Conscience of a Conservative.

You’d think Conservatism would need no introduction. In some ways, it doesn’t. The name speaks for itself. But what is it really? At least in this crazy modern form. That is the billion dollar question I aim to discover.

Conscience of a Conservative is all about Liberals vs Conservatives, to say the least. It basically argues for small government and states rights while fighting against communism. The typical stuff we’ve heard thousands of times.

If we’re going to strictly by these binary ideological bounds, than I’ll do just that for the sake of argument: one thing that seems to separate these two ideologies is what lays the foundation for a modern movement. This conservative book might as well be read like an instruction manual compared to telling truth through fiction like The Jungle did, for example. You can easily put yourself into the shoes of the fictional character in the world of The Jungle. The conservative book is literately telling you what to think.

That right there is the big red flag.

First Impressions

Sooo, what do I mean?

So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel “progress.” In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

The book itself has a superiority complex that is quite painful to listen to in audiobook format. It seemingly makes broad strokes on what they deem is a real conservative and what they assume a liberal is. They criticize progress as being against nature while assuming we all have an immortal side. According to the book, both economics and spirituality go hand-in-hand.

And I’m just scratching of the surface.

If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security “benefits,” it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit.

It makes frequent use of scare quotes in an attempt to dismiss not only progress but federal safety nets, social security, and even democracy itself. Yet it feels rather petty or jealous to the point of reminding me of a certain someone’s frequent rage tweets. The fact that this was the foundation for the current movement that paved the way for Reagan back in the day should tell you everything you need to know.

But what remains astoundingly clear is the state of that America were in right now was always the plan. Their former enemy just so happen to have the very tools they needed to speed run the process.

The Future

I don’t know what the future holds. I’m just writer, artist, and world builder with way too much free time on my hands. What I can suggest is don’t stop being creative. Write fictional worlds and stories to get your point across. It matters more than you think.