Conservatism

Conservatism as it stands in many minds today has different labels you've all heard them Compassionate-Conservative, Neo-Conservative, Fiscal-Conservative, Social Conservative, and Conservative-Libertarian... the list goes on. We not only let the left label us with tags like neo-con but we divide ourselves with all of these labels. Yet when defining liberals have we called the various strains what they are a Liberal-Communist, Socialist-Liberal, Liberal-Fascist, Regressive Liberal, or the Liberal-Elitist.

The reason we are regressing as Republicans is not that conservatism is dead but that we let it be redefined by those who didn't really know the basic tenet's of Conservatism. Conservatism is by nature compassionate not because the government will make programs to take care of the poor, but because when less people are on welfare and have been put back to work then more of that money can go back into the free-market system and provide more jobs. It also allows the average American to show his compassionate side not by allowing the government to provide for individuals but now maintaining that a charitable organization that knows better how to take care of those truly in need to have more money available to fulfill their mission.

With some politicians advocating that we take oil company profits and even threatening the complete takeover of energy and health care why not call it what it is Liberal-Socialism or Liberal-Communism wouldn't that cause a little bit of a stir. Liberalism can easily be defined along those lines... but conservatism 101 tells us less government, more freedom, traditional morality, and adherence to the Constitution which should all go hand in hand.

In George Washinton's Farewell Address "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. . . . The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them."

RR

The Washington Post has a report that exposes the Ron Paul campaign's questionable financial practices.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has built a national following largely by preaching an isolationist foreign policy. Stick with your own kind, says the maverick presidential candidate.

And that's more or less what he has been doing over the past few months, putting relatives in a slew of key positions and paying them a total of $169,063, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Paul's granddaughter Valori Pyeatt helps organize fundraising receptions and has been paid $17,157. Another granddaughter, Laura Paul ($2,724), handles orders for Ron Paul merchandise. Grandson Matthew Pyeatt ($3,251) manages Paul's MySpace profile. Daughter Peggy Paul ($2,224) helps with campaign logistics. The candidate's sons Randall and Robert and his daughter Joy Paul LeBlanc have all been paid for campaign travel and for appearing as surrogates at political events.

Who keeps track of all these finances? Paul's brother and daughter, naturally, who have been paid a combined $62,740 to handle the campaign's accounting.

Campaign aides said they discussed the possibility that involving so many family members could create the impression that nepotism was driving hiring decisions, but ultimately they saw no problem with the practice.

"You always think about those kinds of things," said Jesse Benton, Paul's spokesman and, it just so happens, the fiance of one of the candidate's granddaughters (he has been paid $54,573). "But his family is very important to him. There is something important about having a family element involved in a campaign. Having people around you that you can unconditionally trust."

The practice of Ron Paul being generious to friends and family has precident as pointed out by Doug Mataconis of Below the Beltway.

While the practice itself is perfectly legal, it does raise questions about how much of the campaign is being used to provide jobs for family members and it’s remarkably similar to the way the company that published those controversial newsletters back in the 80’s was run:

Mataconis goes on cite the following from a Reason Magazine article about the racist newsletters:

Besides Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, the officers of Ron Paul & Associates included Paul’s wife Carol, Paul’s daughter Lori Pyeatt, Paul staffer Penny Langford-Freeman, and longtime campaign manager Mark Elam (who has managed every Paul congressional campaign since 1996 and is currently the Texas coordinator for the presidential run), according to tax records from 1993 and 2001. Langford-Freeman did not respond to interview requests as of press time. Elam, president of M&M Graphics and Advertising, confirmed to reason that his company printed the newsletters, but said that the texts reached him as finished products.

In light of the apparent nepotism of the Ron Paul campaign, the racist newsletters, the isolationist foreign policy, trade protectionism, the conspiracy mongering, tolerance for pork barrel spending, demonization of critics, and the obession with the Federal Reserve; it's clear that Ron Paul will not be the solution to what ails the Republican Party, the conservative movement, or even the country as a whole. In fact you can make the arguement, in light of today's report, that the whole purpose to the Ron Paul campaign was for Paul to use his half-baked ideas get as much of those Federal Reserve Notes he hates so much in his pocket and bank accounts, much like a cult leader.

Now whether or not Ron Paul's followers can be harnessed into a productive force for conservatism remains to be seen.....

Full disclosure: Doug Mataconis and I are co-bloggers at The Liberty Papers, a classical liberal group blog.

Maybe I need to take a break from reading the news for a few weeks.  Take some time to get caught up on cartoons, build a birdhouse, or get those rock hard abs I see advertised on television.  It seems there is so much going on in the world, that a simple mind such as my own, can barely make sense of the deluge of doom, gloom and socialist(D) rhetoric.

Here's what is bothering me folks.

I see middle school kid's given birth control, children on murderous rampages in school halls and terrorist lecturing at Universities.

I see our military banned from entire city's, high-school kids re-writing the pledge of allegiance and G-D completely taken out of all public life.

Social workers and physicians asking children questions about their parents drinking habits and other forms of interrogation, all without the parents knowledge or consent.

I see a criminally dis-honest Socialist(D) hailing the end of the world and only he can save it, if you buy his carbon credits.

I see men marrying men and women marrying women, foreign governments purchasing huge swaths of our country and illegal intruders enjoying the same rights as lawful citizens

Children killed before they are born.

I see hate groups funded by tax payer money, hate groups defended in our courts, unless of course they are Caucasian.

So many things, with the solutions ignored in favor of self destruction.

To be honest, it's depressing.

Being born in 1969, I remember seeing the hippies protesting a war I didn't quite understand, maybe I still don't.

I remember the message of anti-establishment, anti-government, down with oppression!  Fight the man!

I remember seeing the long hair, hearing the great music (the only thing I am thankful to the 60's for), and really thinking that, if we just "gave peace a chance", maybe we could change the world!  Maybe we could all just get along!  Maybe our government is "bad"!

But there will always be those wishing you harm, your destruction.

Its easy for a young mind to be overcome with all of the rhetoric espousing governmental conspiracy's and oppression.

But then I grew up.

Now those hippies are grown up as well.

They went to college, they cut their hair, and they traded LSD and marijuana for xanax and vicodin.  They are now judges, politicians, lawyers, consultants, lobbyist and Presidential candidates.  Most of their minds were infected with Maoist, Stalinist, Socialist, Communist, Marxist ideas.

Nice huh?

Unfortunately, they are now in positions to attempt turning those ideas into reality.  They make sure that every generation is also infected with the sickness that is communism/socialism.  Our children are indoctrinated from the moment they step into a government run school.  There is little you can do about it.  If the schools don't get them the media, via print, television and Al Gore's invention, the Internet will.

Being "anti-America" is "cool" again.  Being an activist for some cause or another is back in style.  Problem is that none of the "causes" are noble, honorable or American.  They are all despicable, treasonous and/or a down right lie.

Being patriotic on the other hand, is not popular.  Not "cool".  Believing in what made America great and striving to continue those same great ideals now makes you a fascist, or Nazi.

To be willing to fight for your country, when your country is threatened, now makes you a murderer or oil mercenary.  

I for one would rather do what is now unpopular and know in my gut to be right.  Patriotic, conservatives are now the counter culture, we are now the minority.

Unlike Michelle Obama, I'm proud of my country, only disappointed in it's direction.

Vote the bums out!

I found two sites. One that asked for John McCain's stances in 2004 and the 2008 Campaign website.

2004:

 

In 2004 The National Political Awareness Test (NPAT) asked candidates which items they would support if elected. Items included economic and policy issues, both domestic and foreign. Here are the highlights of John McCain's responses to the questions. John McCain on Abortion * Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape, when the life of the woman is endangered. * The "partial-birth" abortion should not be permitted. * Organizations that advocate or perform abortions should not be publicly funded

 2008:

 

Overturning Roe v. Wade John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat. However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."

So we see McCain is now (as opposed to 2000) committed to ending Roe V Wade but in reality we don't see John McCain as a Strong Candidate on the Pro-Life issue because he isn't.

On Gay Marriage we see a similar thing

2008:

 

Protecting Marriage As president, John McCain would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to Constitutional balance is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the traditional family, the Courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the Constitutional right of the people to decide this question. The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation. As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America's families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress.

And now 2004:

John McCain on Same Sex Marriages

• Same-sex couples should be allowed to form civil unions. Marriage should be restricted to a union only between a man and a woman.

While he focuses on the core issues of politically popular irritation in the Judges we don't see at the core what John McCain thinks. We see a whole lot of platitudes. Now me personally I consider a lot of issues more important then Abortion, and I view Gay Marriage as an assault against traditional marriage and one where the end of that pardigm shift and how it would change our society is unknown. But I look at this and I don't see John McCain as a conservative like me, nor do I see him as a person who is even like me. Whereas he is running against a canidate who makes people feel rightly or wrongly like he is one of us (the Us depending on who he reaches out to). John McCain can't win if he doesn't open up and show us who he really is

One of the major problems Republicans have over Democrats is the fact we as Republicans have been united behind ideas we call “Conservative” and Democrats over ideas we call “Liberal”. If you spend time studying political science you learn that the truth is something very much different. Wikipedia provides us with some good starting points for discussion

 

Liberal conservatism is a political philosophy which generally means combining elements of "conservatism" with elements of "liberalism". As these latter two terms have had different meanings over time and across countries, liberal conservatism also has a wide variety of meanings. Historically, it often referred to the combination of economic liberalism, which champions laissez-faire markets, with the classical conservative concern for established tradition, respect for authority and religious values. In this way it contrasted itself with classical liberalism, which supported freedom for the individual in both the economic and social spheres. Over time, the general conservative ideology in many countries adopted economic liberal arguments and this sense of the term "liberal conservatism" fell out of use, and "conservatism" was simply used instead. This is also the case in countries where liberal economic ideas have been the tradition, such as the United States, and are thus considered "conservative". In other countries where liberal conservative movements have entered the political mainstream, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" may become synonymous (as in Australia, in Italy and in Spain). The liberal conservative tradition in the United States combines the economic individualism of the classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism (which has also become part of the American conservative tradition, for example in the writings of Russell Kirk).

And this is also important

Conservative liberals differ from social liberals for some main reasons: * First, they are more concerned with economic liberalism, adopting libertarian or neo-liberal policies, while the second ones tend to be more keen on Keynesian solutions and on higher taxes, though still supporting individual liberty as well as decentralization. Conservative liberals, in contrast, are staunch supporters of the free-market, small government, less bureaucracy, deregulation, privatizations and the lowering of taxes, often proposing the flat tax or the fair tax. * Second, they are usually socially liberal on such social issues as same-sex marriage, abortion, and euthanasia but may place less emphasis on them than do most social liberals. * Third, they are mostly strong supporters of economic globalization and tend to be more skeptical about international organizations like the United Nations or European Union[citation needed]. Most conservative liberals support the foreign policy of the United States and, in NATO-member states support that political alliance[citation needed]. * Fourth, conservative liberals are often in favor of stricter punishment of illegal immigrants and are usually tolerant but not enthusiastic about multiculturalism, of which social liberals are strong supporters. Conservative liberals often identify as law and order-parties, which are tougher on crime and support higher levels of punishment and are more committed to fighting terrorism, while social liberals tend to emphasize prevention and are more committed to civil rights. * Fifth, historically, conservative liberals tended to be more skeptical about universal suffrage than social or classical liberals[citation needed]. One should not confuse conservative liberalism with liberal conservatism; indeed, the latter is a variant of conservatism. Liberal conservatives tend to be more committed to authority, tradition and established religion, while conservative liberals are supporters of the separation between church and state. However it is possible to classify some parties as both conservative-liberal and liberal-conservative. Conservative liberalism differs from libertarianism in several ways. First it is far less radical in its economic program. Second it is supportive of an active defense policy and military interventions in contrast to the libertarian non-interventionist policy. Most conservative liberals supported the American-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan[citation needed]. Second conservative liberals are tough on crime and are more willing to sacrifice civil liberties to fight terrorism and crime[citation needed].

If we were to examine American Conservatism we see a fusion of both Conservative Liberals and Liberal Conservatives within the tradition of American Conservatism. As the two wikipedia articles point out while their are clear differences in both of these schools of thought they do bare a great deal of similarities. Which is why Individuals like Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich were very good at leading American Conservatism forward. However in approaching Liberal Conservatism we also have a third group that is Conservative on Social issues and how the government intersects with Society. This group on the surface one could (and some are arguing this point) has no connection to the other two. But this Social Conservative group comes from an age of our culture where Christianity (their religion of choice) and Protestant Christianity (their particular Christianity of choice) is driven not around the community but around the individual. While Individuals in this Christian tradition do come togther to work on projects, they don't focus on a larger collective identity. Only with Catholicsm (where we see competition with the Democratic party) does the communal side of Christianity grow in Strength. So Individualism united all three wings of American Conservatism. Respect for the family and their ability to act unites all three wings. Though when we get into strengthening the family in areas like gay marriage some aspects of American Conservatism grow weaker. Smaller government unites two outside of the box but when linked with smaller taxes and respect for the family American Conservatism is again united.Respect for the rule of law unites two wings of the party out of the box again, and with some tweaking Conservative Liberals come to the table as they may have issues when Law and Order politics is played with what they deem unjust laws. A Foriegn policy driven on American Exceptionalism unites the Liberal Conservatices and the Conservative Liberals and depending on the mission can unite all of the wings of American Conservatism.

So the key ideas at the largest level which make the American Conservatism we know and love all still sell well today when you start to examine what American Conservatism really is, and where its ideas come from. You see big ideas which the Republican Party isn't running on and you see the Republican party being rejected by conservatives who don't vote for a Obamamination offering Free Healthcare, Free Job Training, and a Free Pony they just stay home. And instead of saying "why are we losing Republicans" we see a Republican party say "why are we losing Americans" When the ideas which made the Republican party great in 1980 and 1994 are still relevant and potent to Americans if we would simply have a party that applies them. The Libertarian Party will peal off some of the Conservative Liberals and the Liberal Conservatives in this election if the Republican party does not get on the Stage at the National Convention and be a American Conservative party.

As of Saturday, Bob Barr is now the official Libertarian party nominee for President of the United States.  Some conservatives, dissatisfied with John McCain as the GOP's standard bearer, seem to think that here is a candidate ripe to receive the protest votes of thousands of movement conservatives dissatisfied with the direction that McCain is taking our party.

I wasn't shocked that the libertarian party picked Barr - they are desperate for a candidate who more than a tiny fraction of the country has actually heard of.  He's a compelling speaker and will gain publicity for the party.  But I'm surprised at how willing they are to ignore much of Barr's history in doing so.

Certainly, it seems ironic that the man who was once congress's greatest champion of the "War on Drugs" is now the leader of a fringe party devoted to opposing it.  A man who rails against overspending in Washington himself voted for No Child Left Behind, which libertarians hate.  A man who was one of the main movers and shakers in the impeachment trial of President Clinton, which most libertarians opposed.  A man who voted for the Patriot Act, but has now spent the last five years speaking out against it.

The bottom line is that when he was in congress, Barr was a loyal Republican footsoldier, not a movement conservative or libertarian who just happened to have an R next to his name.

His criticism of big government Republicanism, and then his movement toward the libertarian party and his rejection of Republicans altogether only occurred after Republicans rejected him - tossing him out of his congressional district in a 2002 primary, and failing to support an attempted return to congress the following year. 

When Bob Barr was in congress, when he had the opportunity to stand up for the principles he now claims to champion, he didn't.  He is not the principled leader he claims to be.  And conservatives and libertarians alike looking to cast a protest vote should look past him.

 Crossposted at http://alexbrunk.wordpress.com/

(Promoted from user blogs. -Patrick)

In the Marxist political narrative, capitalism collapses in on itself and gives way to a dictatorship of the proletariat. This temporary form of government would oversee the initial implementation of communism, but would then wither away as it is no longer needed.

Of course, a middle schooler could see the problem with this scenario. Who decides when 'true' communism has been accomplished? And who will make sure those running this dictatorship peacefully give up their power? To their credit, even self-professed Marxists could recognize the challenge, especially after a few years of the Soviet Union.

Curiously enough, libertarians, and to a lesser extent conservatives, have a similar theoretical challenge. That is, our philosophy is based on the assumption that government is inclined to serve its own interests and therefore should not be entrusted with more power than is absolutely necessary. 

I could hardly imagine a more appropriate day for this WSJ op-ed by Tom Coburn to come out than on The Next Right's launch day. Sen. Coburn encapsulates what many here already believe: the Right needs to help itself before we can start winning again: 

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.

Read the whole thing.

There's been a great deal of discussion over the past few weeks over the miserable state of the the Right, the Republican Party, and conservatism (a Venn diagram is probably in order here to show the relationships and intersections of those three groups). See George Packer, Fred Thompson, James Joyner, Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, Stephen Bainbridge, Arnold Kling and Megan McArdle (twice). 

I'm sure I'll have a great deal more to say on this subject at The Next Right.   In the meantime, while I cannot identify a specific point of failure, I can pretty easily summarize the journey to failure in just two quotes.

From Ronald Reagan:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. ... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

To Rick Santorum:

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. ... This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

~Snooper~

In some way, some one has decided that Conservatism is dead in the water. There are articles and blog posts decrying the myth that Conservatism is dead. How they come to such a conclusion is beyond me but there are folks that seem to think that is the case. Apparently, they live in their own version of Upside Down Land.

I ran across this article earlier today entitled, The Fall of Conservatism: Have the Republicans run out of ideas? Naturally, the title was an attention snatcher and knowing The New Yorker, having been one of those many moons ago, I was curious what the rag had to say. We at A Newt One have already addressed this upon many occasions so, although we have beat this issue like a dead mule, we will continue to thrash Moonbatitis as long as it takes to vanquish the Mental Disorder of Liberalism.

First off, here are MUST READS:

I chose these four because this is the article that I am writing. We have scores more here at A Newt One that I would put up against the articles found at National Review, The Weekly Standard and The American Thinker. (We haven't grown as fast as we have because we suck.)

The article at The New Yorker opens up thusly:

The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. [...]

It must be sad to live in such doom and gloom. George Packer is a good writer and author. But, then again.........

Too many people think that Conservatism is specific to politicians and this is representative of a shallow minded and short-term induced conundrum brought about by not looking beyond one's preconceived suppositions. Whereas I can relate to the premise of the Conservative Movement as being dead, I cannot accept it because it certainly isn't true.

Conservatism lives within the American People. Much to the chagrin of the Leftinistra, the armies of the socialist liberal, the United States is a right leaning nation. We are constantly being asked by moonbats "what is a conservative?" I return the question, "what is a socialist liberal?" We can explain to the socialist liberal what a Conservative is until the cows drop dead (due to the Global Warming Myth) but they really don't want to know...they are seeking to distract and make fools of themselves. And, no, I didn't say that George Packer was a fool. One can read his writings and see for themselves that he isn't.

Having said all of the above, I will now say this by using a quote from a member of A Newt One:

[...] Those same moonbats who claim that Conservatism is dead watched the Conservative "The Corner" knock The Daily Kos from the #1 spot in bloggingdom. They have also watched every Conservative blog from Atlas (Shrugs) to (Weasel nut) Zippers rise meteorically.

Conservatism dead? Explain how we killed the Amnesty bill. Conservatism Dead? Explain how the Eagles took back the streets. Conservatism dead? Explain why every Democrat running for congress or the PTA can't run fast enough to get in a pickup truck and fire a gun.

Is Conservatism dead in America? Far from it. Conservatism in America is stronger than ever. Fully 2/3 of Americans say raising taxes hurts economic growth. 3/4 of Americans want the damn wall built on our southern border. No Amnesty for illegals, no mercy for child predators, finish the job in Iraq- the surge is working. 4% of Americans think "Climate Change" is one of the top pressing issues in 2008.

4%?!

Conservatism isn't dead anywhere in America. It is far from dead in most of America. However, there is one place where it is on life support........

The Republican party. [...]

Perhaps using this analogy, the opening of Mr Packer's article makes sense. Conservatism IS DOA within the GOP. The recent losses in special elections reveal this because CONSERVATIVE Democrats won elections running against LIBERAL Republicans. In another quote from one of our own at A Newt One goes like this: "when a conservative has to look to the left to look right, they simply stay home." Bingo.

The political arena within the United States is pretty much an international laughing stock. As the Democrat Party went more and more to the left, gaining the label of Liberal, they went further and further left, relabeling themselves as progressive. As they became more progressive, they became more and more socialist. As they became more and more socialist, they have become left of Stalin in many respects. As the Democrat Party plunged further and further left, so has the Republican Party and it is readily apparent that the two Parties are trying to out liberal themselves. In the current election cycle of 2008, there is only ONE liberal running and that is John McCain. The other two are flat out communists...compare their words and the rhetoric of Hope and Change to The Little Red Book for the verification...Stalin would be proud. So would Karl Marx.

The Modern Day GOP is the Liberal of 20 years ago, plainly stated. With the help and influence of the communist founded ACLU, the Modern Democrat Party is the Democratic Socialists or the Social Democrats. Further evidence of this is transparent for all to see if they are willing to see it...look no further than the Peace Thugs that fly Che flags at the alleged peace rallies. These same anti-Americanists burn the American Flag. No true American Patriot would do such a thing.

What we are seeing is this: both parties invoke the names of JFK and RWR and neither are close to either. As The Left ushers in the views of Norm Chomsky, The Right seems to be ushering in the views of Saul Alinsky. The remaining Conservatives within the political parties are deafly silent and have been silenced by threat of "media exposure". They are WORSE than those openly plunging the nation over the precipice of communism while the Conservative People, for the most part, just sit and watch it happen. These are fools. They need to get up off their butts and get involved like they did during the Shamnesty Wars with another right around the corner.

No Conservatism isn't dead. It just smells that way.

However, we can reclaim it and revive Conservatism.  Reagan Era Conservatism saw this nation grow in all respects and, as then, we now need to revive that tenet of American Traditionalism.