Over at The Next Right, Chris Bannon has some great insights on how we as conservatives are often playing by liberal rules. I like his comparison to the movie Big Daddy. Check it out:

Conservatives should stop playing by liberal rules.

I see it all of the time.  Take any issue. Conservatives come up with an idea for how to solve the issue. It sounds new and fresh and bold. Conservative representatives make some, if not many, concessions to more liberal leaning representation and the liberals stand up and take credit for solving the issue. We give them a soapbox and they bring in a microphone and turn off our loudspeakers. It wasn’t always like this. When conservatives were right in the 1980’s about the Communist state of the USSR and the way to defeat it, many, though obviously not all, liberals stood with, even behind Presidents Reagan and Bush. When conservatives pushed for and won welfare reform in the 1990’s, sure we gave President Clinton much of the credit, but there were many Democrats in congress who stood behind the legislation of the Republicans, while the Republicans stood out front. However, it is not like that anymore. Liberals, infected with relativism, don’t need to play by the same rules as conservatives do. We should stop giving them an opportunity to speak and take credit for our ideas. Without our talking points on ideas that we came up with, liberals make less sense when speaking to the American people, and therefore are less likely to be voted into office.

Another example: the Constitution. This is probably the most egregious example of where liberals change the rules in their favor, but I place it second, because I think conservatives need to start thinking more about the third issue. On the Constitution, the difference between conservatives and liberals is obvious. As conservatives, we think in this order: You write down some rules, (we call them laws), and for everyone to participate, we think, everyone must follow the rules. You may not win every time, but when following the rules you at least know how the contest is played and have a pretty good opportunity to win.  In contrast, liberals play like this: I WIN! Yes, like the little child in the movie Big Daddy, liberals simply avoid the rules to reach a winning result. Conservatives end up being the food delivery guy screaming about how messed up that is. Think about how liberals continually run roughshod over the Constitution, or constitutions, in order to achieve maximum results for their ideas while all the while proclaiming tolerance of everyone else’s ideas. This is how we need to explain our differing views, rather than citing the difference between the “living Constitution” and “Originalism.”

Finally, in the realm of life and the way that one lives one’s life, Conservatives have too often lived like liberals. We need to start living less like we are attempting to achieve the maximum amount of individual pleasure and instead focus on our responsibilities and again stand as role models in our communities. In this area, there is a lot of rebuilding to be done, but it is necessary because our ideas are tested by time, and if nothing else good comes from recent experience, our current national situation shows that our principles are right. Simple truisms and directives like: “Don’t spend what you don’t have,” “A child needs a mother and a father,” “Go to church,” “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” “What goes around comes around,” and  “Words have meaning, and Actions have Consequences,” are much more insightful and compelling than any campaign slogan that I can think of. Liberals, as relativists don’t believe in truisms because they don’t believe in truth. The quicker we, as conservatives, realize this, the easier it will be to begin operating in the world in its natural conservative framework once again. As Margaret Thatcher said: “The facts of life are conservative.”

I couldn’t have said it any better.