Liberals vs. Conservatives As Envy vs. Ambition

Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to the differing core, underlying values and attitudes which must drive liberals and conservatives.

From my recent reading of Amity Schlaes' excellent book, "The Forgotten Man," current reading of Mark Levin's "Tyranny and Liberty," and frequent viewings of Glenn Beck's Fox News Channel program, it's been easier for me to reflect upon the circumstances surrounding the Founding Fathers' as they wrote the Constitution.

Nearly forgotten now is the struggle those men had in securing the freedom to engage in economic activity as they wished. In the mercantilism system of Great Britain of that time, colonies supplied natural resources and raw materials. Finished goods were largely prohibited to be manufactured. It's not well-recalled now, but in that day, machinery, machine tools and plans for machines were not allowed out of Britain to her colonies.

The Revolution which Americans fought against Britain was as much about economic freedom as it was about political freedom and fair representation to a taxing, governing authority.

In reading about the men who founded our country, there are various references to John Hancock as the colonies' wealthiest man. But you never hear him berated for that. Nor any speeches during the framing of the Constitution calling for punitive taxes on Hancock or his ilk.

Rather than attempt to take the wealth of men like Hancock, the new Republic's structure tried to allow for any other man to rise to similar levels of wealth. The concepts of opportunity and ambition vastly outweighed those of envy or jealousy.

Now, we seem to have reversed this. All we hear is that business people earning "too much" need to pay higher taxes. That the important issues are to provide income and health care to the poor.

No longer does anyone seem to recall that the minimalist Constitution was so written in order to allow everyone to realize the fruits of their own labor and best efforts. It wasn't to levelize incomes and redistribute the new country's total personal incomes.

In short, thanks to the past seventy years' of post-FDR liberal pressure, our Republic is now more focused on seeing envy of economic success given priority over each person's opportunity to realize their own economic and other dreams.

Ambition is given lip-service, while laws are crafted to carry out envy-driven wealth- and income-transfers.

If you can't keep the wealth you create in America, what motivation is there for the poor to improve themselves? Why would anyone labor if the fruits are evaluated and that declared 'excess' by some politician confiscated?

Truly, one can see much more clearly in the current environment that liberals are primarily governed by envy, rather than the individual's ambition to create her/his own better life through one's own labor and talents.