For many months now, the leftist news media have tried their level best to train the masses to recoil at the word “conservative.” They’ve all but accused conservatives of being witches who deserve to be burned at the stake.

They’ve been, well, almost hyperventilating about everything from masks, to mandates, to climate change, to the pronouns men and women use. Their job is to race about like Chicken Little, screaming as loud as they can that the sky is falling, writing about how the world is doomed if we don’t address their latest boogeyman: global warming, wealth inequality, gender, racism, COVID-19. Here’s a paper bag, reporters and editors. Just breathe in and breathe out — slowly.

While these propagandists want you to be ashamed of conservative principles, we need to remind them, and ourselves, what conservatism is all about. It’s about defending the principles that made America great. It’s about reverence for our God-given, constitutional-protected rights. It’s about loving our friends, family and neighbors directly, caring about their wellbeing, helping them get ahead and stay ahead.

It’s also important to remember that conservatism has an opposite, and it isn’t liberalism, it’s socialism.

Socialists are perfectly content, and increasingly confident, about advancing their narrative. It’s a narrative that assumes that the people in government have all the answers to their often-manufactured problems.

Housing unaffordable? Government will fix it. Wages too low? Government will fix it. Not enough doctors? Government can fix that too. Don’t worry about anything ever again because government stops problems, solves problems and makes the world a better place.

If only.

They ignore the very real fact that government doesn’t solve problems; it creates them. In fact, each of the above issues are caused by government involvement. For example, why is housing unaffordable? Because government restricts private development. Because planning and zoning laws restrict private development. Because bigger government results in bigger property taxes bills. Because the federal government makes two-thirds of land unavailable for use.

Why aren’t there enough doctors? Because government restricts the flow of incoming medical practitioners. Because government regulates out of existence the independent medical practitioners who would offer alternative treatments or at a lower cost.

Why are wages low? Because government prevents young men and women from getting into jobs, denying them a lifetime of marketable skills. Because our government schools do a lousy job preparing people for the workplace.

Conservatives propose a better solution — free markets, limited government, private enterprise — the solutions that made America the greatest nation on earth, that made America the wellspring of opportunity and prosperity that has been the envy of the world since the 1700s.

Socialism always has one result: destruction, poverty, ambivalence, complacency and scarcity. There’s never been a country in the world that has thrived on socialism. There’s never been a society or a country that has been made better because of it.

Socialists are more than happy to “help” you and your family by taking away your money and your property and making you submit to their authority.

Socialists want you to believe that there’s no greater threat to all of humanity than those who would choose to defy government orders to keep businesses closed, or run about without a mask on, or refuse to follow Joe Biden or Brad Little on their quests of making sure everyone has been vaccinated against COVID-19.

In the minds of socialists, there could be no greater insult than to call someone a conservative. In my view, there’s no greater compliment. I choose conservatism, not its opposite, the horrible, reliably destructive and purely evil socialism.

Doyle Beck serves as the state committeeman on the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee.