Why do Conservatives hate Wikipedia?

July 6, 2010 | Posted by GrumpDaddy

Among the greatest resources that the Internet has enabled is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. In my opinion, through wonderful initial design and continued development, it has become the greatest compendium of Man’s knowledge ever assembled- and its content expands and improves every day. I was initially puzzled that Conservatives were wary of its validity until I realized that it represents a threat to their philosophy of life- personal liberty vs the collective. The power of Wikipedia comes from the sharing of information among all people. Although its content is dynamic, the mechanism that produces it is democracy in its purest form. A knowledgeable user can read not only the current content of a topic but also the background behind it by reviewing the associated Discussion page.

Similarly, I was surprised to find that the Right is very aggressive in establishing that the government of the United States is a representative republic, not a democracy. They also argue that the rights of the individual, not the society as a collective, are paramount in the design established by our Founders. In my opinion, these are selfish interpretations that they use to rationalize bad behavior. We are a nation of laws that over 200 years have established our societal values. Bad behavior required antitrust laws 100 years ago, a progressive income tax 90 years ago, Wall Street regulation 70 years ago and Civil Rights laws 50 years ago. Conservatives consistently oppose all these trends and since 1980 have too often successfully changed them, to the detriment of our society as a collective- but remember that’s not their concern.

Why has the plight of the average American worsened? Relaxation of governmental controls on the wealthiest citizens is clearly the answer. Once again, we have monopolies in virtually every business area. The tax system has been tilted to favor those with the highest income. Wall Street deregulation permitted the wealthy to gamble with societal wealth.

Once We, The People, recognize and energize the power of the Collective, our representatives will respond by returning to the controls that produced our best days in the 1950′s-1970′s. Get involved and make it happen!