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We continue our series of editorials on ten guiding words crucial to the mission of refocusing the conservative movement. We've covered reality, reason, and morality. This week we take a look at a highly neglected factor in the conservative mission - unity.
If we live in a world where good and evil; light and darkness compete, cohesion is necessary for strength. Violence, addiction, corruption, greed, and fear are persisting magnets drawing the unsuspecting to the wrong side - a side growing in numbers and impact.
Conservatives care about and are engaged in uplifting our fellow man. We recognize the importance of our own number and impact as a counter to those with more selfish agendas. Conservatives recognize the importance of holding firmly to values as we simultaneously seek opportunity to work with others. There is power in unity and you can bet the other side knows it.
Unity Creates Vigor
To counter the human tendency to go with the flow often leading in a wrong direction, those who believe in goodness must intentionally reach for one another. Conservatism, like all human endeavors, has less to do with perfection than the opportunity to build something good on common ground.
A few drops of rain can create a mud puddle. A bunch of rain drops can create a river. One is prone to stagnancy; the other holds potentials to transform the landscape. That vigor is missing in today's conservatives. There are lots of puddles, but to be an effective counter to destructive forces we must reach out to one another.
A House Divided on Purpose
In the twentieth century, conservatives struggled to find firm common ground. The authentic conservative message was repeatedly kidnapped by political opportunists seeking to tap the potentials of conservative unity without the responsibilities of true conservative values.
Socialists, variously labeled as liberal, progressive, or unionized, have also been very effective in distorting the conservative message. You may have noticed that the minute any conservative becomes visible and effective, they are quickly screened for imperfections and targeted for character assignation. Socialists only like diversity that meets their restrictive selection criteria.
Conservatives, being people of reason and reality, enjoy order and common sense. If we are not careful, those priorities can be twisted into rigidity and narrow thinking. Both are fertile ground for divisiveness and isolation counterproductive to conservative unity.
Conservatives also have to constantly guard against their natural tendency to turn healthy skepticism into unhealthy cynicism. The old adage about embracing the half full versus half empty part of the glass of water applies persistently to conservatives.
Unity Does not Require Uniformity
Conservatives need not look, think, feel, or behave the same. We can be different and yet united behind the core principles of conservatism that, in turn, best support our differences. A conservative can wear a tie-died tee-shirt as surely as button down.
The 80/20 rule has application to the twenty-first century conservative movement. If you meet someone with whom you share anything close to 80% of the same values - that is as close as it gets in an imperfect world. Obsessing about the 20% where you might have differences will insure that the important stuff gets laid aside.
Research persistently demonstrates that most Americans operate within a conservative value system. While we squabble, ignore, pretend, and isolate, a unified minority of socialistic thinkers are stealing control of America. They don't deserve it - but if nature's self-correcting system grades merit by the capacity to work together, neither do we.
Henry Ford's challenge to the innovators of his day holds special relevance to today's conservatives - "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
To succeed in fighting the harms of twenty-first century progressive socialism, true conservatives will have to embrace unity with unprecedented enthusiasm. America needs the power and nourishment of a conservative river - not the splash and inevitable stagnancy of isolated mud puddles...
Next week - 'Accountability' - Part 4 on 'Real Conservative'
Dr. Carl Mumpower
www.thecandidconservative.com
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