Why the Left is more successful than the Right

John Adams eloquently stated that our Constitution was "designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other." At the same time, our Declaration of Independence enshrined the concepts of freedom and equality into our nation's DNA. The central objective of conservatism (ideally at least) is to keep our nation within the general bounds of biblical morality, also known as the Judeo-Christian Ethic. This is what the Founder understood as natural law. The conservative philosophy accepts the premise that this boundary is vital to the healthy funstioning of our society. As the Scripture says, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." The Right seeks to conserve this value into the future.

The problem is, there is an inherent contradiction between moral boundaries and freedom, at least in the minds of those who consider freedom to mean "absolute moral freedom." In the first 150 years of our nation, we have been involved in a great quest to extend the genuine attributes of freedom to all of our citizens. As of today we have achieved remarkable results in this area. But the modern liberal philosophy is that for freedom to be true freedom, it must not be constrained by biblical morality. Therefore, while the fundamental spirit of conservatism is to "hold fast," the fundamental spirit of libralism is to "push on." This makes liberalism a more naturally agressive political philosophy than conservatism. The Left seeks to liberate society from traditional moral restraints.

Joseph Farrah provides a good example of how this works in the real world. His issue of choice is same-sex marriage – or, as the left calls it, “marriage equality.” Farrah writes, "A mere decade ago, the very idea of same-sex marriage would have prompted the overwhelming majority of Americans to burst out in laughter. But the left kept pushing it – not only through the political channels and the courts, but, more importantly, through the press and entertainment industry, the schools and universities and all of the powerful cultural institutions they control and dominate. Today, as a result, a notion that seemed preposterous a decade ago is a reality today."

Today, with its political base strengthened by much of the press and entertainment world, liberalism is proving to be a more potent offensive force than the crumbling defensive force of conservatism. This imbalance is not likely to change in the forseeable future, if ever.