The Temptation of Liberalism!
May 1999

Conservatives are constantly baffled by the love of liberalism. How could some one believe that Welfare, gun control, and abortion are good things? The ideology of liberals is contrary to everything Conservatives have been taught and believe. The concept of embracing liberalism is like embracing communism.

Maybe its not as complicated as one tries to make it out to be. In one short word it is called "laziness" or "convenience." But that still does not help a conservative understand the Temptation of Liberalism.

One of the best analogies described to me comes in the form of pot hole repair after a long harsh winter. Orange barrels start appearing all over the place causing traffic delays and headaches for everyone. One year after a huge winter storm caused hundreds of pot holes in a certain stretch of old highway roads, the local transportation department tells everyone their new plan to help alleviate the traffic problems associated with repairing pot holes. They will fill each and every hole at night only. No orange barrels during the day rush hours. The job would be done in a couple weeks. Everyone loves the idea! No traffic problems in that area while they drive to work and back home each day.

The next winter comes and again after a large winter storm the same stretch of road is so bad that the construction crews say they will take four weeks to fill each pot hole and they may even have to work during the day once or twice. Everyone is still happy, they can deal with only a couple days of traffic. Year after year the pot holes get worse, the repair costs keep going up, and the time it takes to make all the repairs gets longer.

At first it all sounded great, but as time went along, conditions kept getting worse. That is the liberal philosophy. If the construction crews would have followed the conservative plan of ripping up the entire road and re-paving the entire thing the very first year, the continued problems would not have happened. One summer of annoyance could have saved everyone lots of money and time later.