Independent is a four letter word

I blame the press. Hey, this is America we have to blame someone.

And this mostly applies to being an independent conservative. It seems that people treat the idea of being an independent conservative as an oxymoron. And actually there is some basis in this thought.

Most conservatives, especially middle and upper middle class, are joiners. Conservatives as a group look for comfort level, familiarity, acceptance, or basically they are not risk takers. Change is not a good word around conservative groups. And of course there are all types of people and not everyone fits neatly into a mold, however, you can build a bit of a framework of descriptive words that does apply to many conservatives. Now some people who call themselves liberal may be risk adverse in certain situations or do not like change in the workplace. These are just some examples of you cannot label people with words completely, yet conservatives in America do have many similar tendencies.

And there is more of a public or at least political public acceptance that liberals can be independent. And yet if you really dig deep most independent liberals still hold out to the majority of what the Democratic Party thinks. They just call themselves liberal, but their overall opinions do not vary much from the Democratic Party. Many may be more liberal than the party, yet they still associate in elections with the Party. They can call themselves independent liberals because society sees this as a norm and this is also accepted by the press. You will hear or read news stories and someone is mentioned as an independent liberal. How often do you hear that for independent conservative?

People who are conservative nowadays though are having a hard time finding a voice due to the takeover of the Republican Party by the right wing thinkers in this country. Unfortunately because of their tendencies they have a hard time disassociating themselves from a group. Many conservatives in the Republican Party are struggling with the way the party is going, but cannot break away because that would cause an internal conflict. There is a better word than conflict I just cannot think of it right now. And most independent voices that call themselves conservative independents are really very very right wing.

There is the libertarian party and people who follow their ideology, but they are a unique group. They are somewhat conservative in their thinking for political matters, yet also liberal in their social policy. In my opinion they wouldn’t truly be an independent conservative body. I am happy they exist because they do offer some alternative to the two main parties, but their dichotomy on the separation of issues keeps me from being a member or espousing support of their party.

So where does that leave people such as myself? I feel strongly there are many people with similar opinions as mine, but cannot break away with the accepted protocols of what conservatives are suppose to do and what organizations they need to belong. And in some ways this blind joining is one reason I have never joined the Republican Party. There is way too much tendency to accept what the group says is correct or right without examining the details. It helps if you feel comfortable with the group so you tend to follow the herd mentality. Unfortunately when it comes to the present political climate this is highly dangerous to democracy.

And here is where I blame the press. The press has its audience that it panders to because they are owned by large corporations that earn money from advertising. The press for all its talk about itself is still failing the United States. Yes even the non-main stream or “independent” publications such as Salon.com or Huffington Post pander to their liberal audience. At least though they do not hide from their liberal bias. This does not benefit our country though. And we all know throughout our history that many news organizations had a slant left or right. The difference between then and now was they still addressed issues and stories with an attempt to attract a larger audience so they could make or sway a point. Now the press just makes their point to make their audience happy. A complete failure of the concept of calling themselves the fourth estate. And thank goodness the press doesn’t use that phrase anymore because they would be lying through their teeth.

And due to this pandering there is not a real mass media voice for independent conservatives that are not right wing. No one in the corporate world sees an audience here or there would be some attempt to galvanize this audience for a profit benefit. Yet many people in polls call themselves conservative and liberal independents. How does an organization pander to this either type of group can be a problem. There is some liberal organizations, but unfortunately they are only an extension of the MSNBC etc groups that pander to the perceived Democratic mainstream. It is harder to identify what works to attract an independent conservative audience than the audiences that associate with the two major parties. And this is the press not stepping out to be an active part of democracy, but a participant in the sham of the democracy our country is becoming.

Our forefathers gave the press freedom to protect them from a government dictating its own agenda. And with this freedom they also gave them a responsibility to help the people be informed of what the government is doing. If the press wants to make certain groups happy for its own benefit, read profits, then how can it fulfill its responsibility to inform the public of all that is good and bad?

And my personal beef amongst all this is I cannot find a company or organization that truly attempts to espouse a conservative agenda that is not right wing. Shoot I even listen to NPR every now and then just to dream there is still a chance for something to develop. And you do get a little bit of independence in some PBS broadcasts, but not a large scale mass media endeavor this country needs. If people saw that others believed the way they do it would open up more alternatives in our political world to get a true conservative, non-right wing agenda before the populace to help move this country back into a true working democracy. Until this happens the ever increasing decay of our country will continue.

And on a secondary note, am I the only person that sees the danger of undue foreign not just money influence because of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Actually scares the you know what out of me. So much so that I see the potential for very serious treason against our country coming into play. If you do not know who is supporting a candidate, then how do you know the underlying agenda behind it all? You don’t and that isn’t free speech. Free speech is to be able to speak your mind without fear of reprisal especially from the government, not the ability to exert influence without public accountability. Any belief that this decision opened free speech is either ignorant, or willfully compliant to treasonous behavior. This goes against everything our forefathers gave us to protect the people from tyranny.

Again where is the independent conservative voice this country needs?