If You Are A Conservative, You Probably Aren't Christian

The dictionary definition of a conservative is: "a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics."

A conservative is someone who wants to preserve the status quo.  New or innovative ways and beliefs are evil and must be resisted.   Conservatives live their lives by looking in the rear view mirror.  A Conservative's goal in life is to preserve his way of life at all costs, no matter the effect upon others.

Conservatives never doubt themselves or their beliefs.  They know they are on the side of everything good and sacred and therefore, anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong but evil.  Since they "know" their opponents are evil, they have no problem doing whatever is necessary to silence dissenting voices.

In religious circles, conservatives are called fundamentalists.  Fundamentalists are motivated by the belief that they have a direct line to God, and therefore to disagree with them is to disagree with God Himself.  And because they are so close to God, they believe they have not only a right but a duty to resist and fight against their enemies.

Conservatives view their world with rose colored glasses.  They see everything in their world as perfect, in no need of change or correction. The only correction that needs to be made is to those who disagree.  As GK Chesterton said:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

Conservatives also live their lives in fear and anger. They are fearful of anyone and anything that challenges their world.  Because of their inability to do any introspective thinking, they lash out with hatred and scorn at those who threaten to upset their worlds.

Nothing has made this more apparent than the reaction of conservatives to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of reacting to the great suffering and death caused by this pandemic with compassion and empathy, we have seen only anger and hate. But it is not the disease that has upset them. Conservatives don't blame the disease, which many claim is a hoax. They blame those trying to control the disease.

In a matter of less than six months, we have seen 5,466,689 confirmed cases and 345,600 confirmed deaths worldwide. In the United States, as of this writing, there are 1,677,870 confirmed cases and 99,057 confirmed deaths. And we are just getting started. Click the links to get the up-to-date figures when you read this. These statistics are changing almost every minute.

COVID-19, as these statistics show, is extremely contagious and deadly. It is easily passed from person to person. Yet the conservatives tell us that "the cure is worse than the disease." In their distorted view, the lockdown is not about protecting people from a deadly disease.  Conservatives believe the only reason for the lockdown is to take away of their liberties.  Conservatives tend to make everything about themselves.

The Conservatives, using anecdotal evidence, blame the lockdown for harming people in many different ways - domestic abuse, drug abuse, excessive drinking, suicides.

But is it the lockdown that is causing these things, or is COVID-19 merely revealing the number of mentally and emotionally unstable people in our society? Would a normally functioning person suddenly start acting completely out of character and become violent towards his or her family, start drinking or taking drugs or commit suicide due to unexpected stress?

From an article by The American Psychological Association dated May 18, 2020 and entitled "COVID-19 and Suicide":

But it will be a while before COVID-19’s actual impact on the nation’s suicide rate is known, says psychologist Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD, vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “We’re two years away from having data,” she says. And it’s not a given that the pandemic will cause suicide rates to increase, emphasizes Harkavy-Friedman, who is also an associate professor of clinical psychology, in psychiatry, at Columbia University.

“One event can bring stress, but it’s not going to make someone suicidal out of the blue,” she says, explaining that it is typically a combination of biological, psychological, environmental and other factors that renders people vulnerable to suicide. Take the Great Recession of 2008, she points out. “About 4.8 million people lost their jobs, and the suicide rate didn’t skyrocket,” she says. “We’re much more resilient than we give people credit for.” 

Plus, she says, the media and the mental health field have done a good job getting out the message that stress is a normal reaction to the current crisis and that routines, healthy habits, social connections and relaxation techniques can help ease that stress.

For some, the fight against the virus may even result in a sense of solidarity that protects them from thoughts of suicide. “Sometimes in periods of stress, people find strengths in themselves they didn’t know they had,” says Joan Asarnow, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “In World War II, for example, they were anticipating all kinds of problems during the Blitz, but it turned out people for the most part didn’t have any additional mental health symptoms.” 

And for some populations, being stuck at home may even be a plus. Children, for example, are being more closely monitored by their parents, which can help prevent suicide. “We’ve actually seen quite a number of kids doing well without school and at home with their parents,” says Asarnow. “It’s not always a negative story.”

There can be no doubt that the enormity of the disease with the added impact of a suddenly bad economy is putting tremendous stress on people and causing many who were already unstable to act out.  But again, is the lockdown causing this or merely revealing problems that were already present?

Are the Conservatives right?  Would it really be better if we had just let the disease run its course?  As of this writing, we have nearly 100,000 confirmed deaths in the United States with the lockdown.  How many deaths would we have if we had carried on with business as usual? 

There are studies that say if we had locked down just one week prior, we would have saved tens of thousands of lives:

From WebMD dated May 21, 2020:

Nearly 36,000 American lives would have been spared if strict social distancing measures had been enacted across the country just one week earlier than they were, new estimates suggest. 

And if those measures had been imposed two weeks before most people started staying home, about 54,000 COVID-19 deaths would have been avoided by early May, Columbia University disease models show, The New York Times reported. The U.S. coronavirus death toll stretched past 93,000 on Thursday, with more than 1.5 million cases.

And if we had locked down earlier, we would most likely have gotten the disease under control much earlier. We have heard the story that South Korea had their first case the same day as the United States. Unlike the United States, South Korea immediately took action, doing massive testing, contact tracing and quarantines. The result: as of this writing, South Korea has 11,190 cases and 260 deaths. And of the 11,190 cases, 10,213 have recovered. 

Here are charts showing the dramatic difference in the rate of new cases in South Korea as compared to the United States.  Notice that the South Korean cases are measured in the 100's, while US cases are measured in the tens of thousands:

In March, New York had the majority of all US infections and deaths. New York at one time was the epicenter in the entire world. To combat the disease, New York did a statewide lockdown. All businesses, schools and churches were closed with the exception of essential businesses. As a result, New York is now leading the way in the United States for decreased number of cases and deaths.
In fact, if you take New York out of the US cases, the United States rate of infections looks much worse.  New York numbers are actually helping the rest of the United States look better than it is:

New reported cases by day

in the rest of the U.S.

New reported cases by day

in New York City

20,000 cases

20,000 cases

10,000

10,000

7-day

average

0

0

April

March

May

April

March

May

By Weiyi Cai and Lauren Leatherby·Source: New York Times database of reports from state and local health agencies.

So all protestations from conservatives notwithstanding, the lockdown in the face of the pandemic was absolutely essential in stopping the spread of COVID-19.  Further, if the US had followed South Korea's example and attacked the disease from day one with testing, tracing and quarantine, we might already be fully open for business.

One thing is certain:  if we listen to the conservatives, motivated by anger and fear, we would be in an even worse position. To argue against the lockdown in the middle of a pandemic is like arguing that people should be allowed to roam around outside during the middle of a hurricane.  Only a mad man would make such an argument.

So why are conservatives so blind to reality?  Because as I wrote above, conservatives live their lives in fear.  And fear distorts everything.  Look at their blogs and websites.  Look at conservative media  It is all about them against the rest of the world.  They hate anyone who suggests there is a better way of doing anything.  They really hate anyone who suggests that Conservatives might actually be wrong.

It is no coincidence that the same people who deny that climate change is destroying our planet also deny the reality of COVID-19.  These are people who believe if they just cover their eyes and ears and keep repeating that something isn't real, then it won't be real. 

Conservatives all pride themselves on being pro life.  But in their minds, the only pro life issues are abortion and euthanasia.  It boggles my mind that those wearing the label "pro life" are also pro gun, pro capital punishment, pro war, and pro big business which is responsible for the deaths of millions and major damage to the environment through their destructive practices.  Conservatives fight against allowing immigrants into their countries or doing anything to help those fleeing from war and destruction.

Conservatives honestly cannot understand the following statement from Pope Francis in the encyclical Gaudete et Exsultate:

Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.

If a Conservative is not personally affected by an issue, then he or she will dismiss it as either of no importance or as a lie.  Pope Francis is hated by conservatives in the Catholic Church for this very reason.  The Holy Father sees the world for what it is.  He sees the destruction of the earth, the suffering of the poor, the inequalities caused by our materialistic way of life.  He tells us that as followers of Christ, we need to be concerned about these issues.  He also tells us that we should not condemn sinners but instead show them compassion and mercy. 

The reaction of fundamentalist Catholics? 

They hate and denounce Pope Francis as a heretic. 

In my next post, I will explore the Biblical view of Conservatives.