WikiLeaks Follow-Up

Two days ago I made some predictions about WikiLeaks. It seems that I was correct on at least one prediction. I predicted that the conservatives, who claim to be for small government, will condemn WikiLeaks.

Take Bill O'Reilly, for example. One of my most hated people in the world. Today I was bi-curious to find out what he said. I did a search and found a Huffington Post article that quoted Bill O'Reilly as saying that the leakers "should be executed or put in prison for life".

Then I also was interested to know what the sexy and beautiful Sarah Palin had to say. I did another search, which I found on AOL, that said that Sarah Palin considers the leakers to be terrorists and must be persecuted as Al-Qaeda.

I was disappointed when I found out that Michael Savage, the infamous conservative commentator, and someone who I have a certain amount of respect for because of his generally good economic views, also took a stance against WikiLeaks. This I did not find on a source quoting him, I heard this directly from him. I did a YouTube search on what Savage says about WikiLeaks. Savage believes that WikiLeaks is a socialist anti-American conspiracy because it only condemns conservatives and never goes after liberals. I disagree with him on this because the function of WikiLeaks is to be anti-war. That is all. WikiLeaks does not teach about the labor theory of value. WikiLeaks does not encourage the workers of the world to unite. WikiLeaks does not say that the capitalists are evil and must be exterminated. All what WikiLeaks is focusing on is on war. Since conservatives are the people mostly in favor of war and liberals are not it follows that WikiLeaks appears to condemn conservatives. But it does not seem to take a stance on anything else. Savage also said that WikiLeaks should be investigated by the US government for what they did.

Rush Limbaugh also has a similar view to this WikiLeaks situation. Not that I know anything about Rush. I just one he is one of the more popular conservatives.

It seemed I was correct after all about these conservatives. I then later did a YouTube search for Andrew Napolitano who is a commentator on "Freedom Watch" for FOX news. I was not surprised when I heard him defend WikiLeaks. He basically used the same arguments that I used, i.e. that WikiLeaks is exposing the state and that is important in defending freedom.

I am still now sure how Glenn Beck feels about WikiLeaks. I cannot get his take on the subject. He never said anything good about it. But I was not able to find anything that he said negative about it either. Glenn also mentioned that everything that he found on WikiLeaks he already knew. So I guess Glenn leans on the pro-WikiLeaks side.

So there are conservatives who commit themselves to conservatism. Sadly, not very many, the more mainstream conservatives like Palin, or O'Reilly, or Rush, or even Savage, fall into the same category. It was not hard for me to predict who would be pro-WikiLeaks and who would not. Each time I made a search for these people I made a guess what their responses would be. I was not surprised when I learned that Palin, O'Reilly, Rush, and Savage would oppose it. And I was not surprised when I learned what Beck and Napolitano said about it.

This reveals the true nature of mainstream conservatism. Mainstream conservatives use a small-government platform to get votes from the people. There are lots of Americans who support small-government (smaller). That is how George Bush won his first election, by running on a smaller-government platform. This is how Ronald Reagan won his election by also running on a smaller-government platform.

But in actuality most conservatives do not really represent these views. Conservatives complain when the government is using tax money to help the sick. But they never complain when the government is using the very same tax money to kill other people in forgein countries. Or when the government is increasing its ever so growing military empire.

It does not make any sense to me. If you are opposed to taxes being used to help the sick (which I am against) then how can you possibly support using those taxes to kill foreigners? Surly, killing people is way worse than a social program for the sick. If I had to choose between these two options I would choose welfare over war every single time.

These conservatives argue about the problems of government programs, and I agree, but they at the same time forget that war, police and military is nothing but a big giant government program itself.

This WikiLeaks situation that is going on right now is a good litmus test to see which conservatives really believe in limited government. If they think WikiLeaks should be shut down then good for them. If not then the chances are that they use limited-government rhetoric to have an excuse to gain your votes, if you happen to one of those Americans in favor of smaller government.