The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Hypocrisy on the right assails personal rights

None of those supposedly conservative tenets are incompatible with my liberal ideology. There’s just one problem: conservatives don’t really mean it! A more accurate conservative statement was made in 2000 by President Bush: “There ought to be limits to freedom.”

People can disagree on the issues of “pulling the plug” and abortion. However, the message that conservatives sent in both cases is that it doesn’t matter what citizens think. No matter which side of the issues you’re on, your views come second to those of your crotchety Uncle Sam. According to the conservatives, Americans are too dumb to formulate a coherent sense of personal responsibility. So the government has to do it for us. That’s not morality, and it certainly isn’t freedom. That’s authoritarianism.

Government has a responsibility to make laws that give structure to society. However, government does not have a right to make laws that infringe on our freedom to personal conscience. All citizens must wonder how long it will be before our conservative government invades their lives and tramples on rights they hold dear.

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