The coming conservative collapseby Vox Day
The turn of the century was supposed to be the triumph of the conservatives. From the dark era of the Democrat-dominated '60s and '70s, conservatives began their protracted march toward electoral power, culminating finally in the long-awaited capture of all three branches of the federal government. The Reagan Revolution was finally to be realized in earnest!
But just as most Republican Supreme Court nominees have turned out to be treacherous supporters of big government activist liberals in disguise their legislative- and executive-branch colleagues likewise revealed themselves to be every bit as unfaithful to conservative principles of small government and individual freedom. As is all too often the case, conservative success carried within it the seeds of its own demise.
President Bush's recent speech on his administration's planned long-term response to Hurricane Katrina marked an interesting point in the continued devolution of American conservatism. Whereas his first five years had previously been a strange combination of strategic Wilsonian foreign policy and tactical Keynesian domestic policy, the president managed to make it abundantly clear that in domestic terms, his presidential guiding light is Lyndon Baines Johnson, not Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Real conservatives now understand they have been betrayed badly by this fraudulent man. Compassionate conservatism, as it turns out, is simply another name for Great Society liberalism, and not even the Texas swagger is original. Genuinely conservative Republicans are dismayed by the president's unveiling of his core liberalism and rightly fear for the future of a party which has likely seen its high-water mark already.
But nothing dissuades the Three Monkeys from screeching and howling their enthusiasm for their Dear Leader's every action. They have redefined conservatism to be the actions of one known as a conservative, so the individual is no longer defined by his ideology, the ideology is defined by the individual.
Consider radio host and former WND columnist Hugh Hewitt's take on the president's speech:
Perfect pitch returned tonight, and the president's looks backward and forward were on target. As Chris Matthews observed, it sounded a little LBJ-FDR-like in its vows about the underclass of the recovery region, but that is exactly why it worked so well.
My acquaintances at the nation's leading "conservative" blog, Powerline, agreed:
The president was at his best tonight. Hugh Hewitt's take is on the money. And speaking of money, it's going to be pouring into the Gulf region to the tune of at least $200 billion, I imagine. You can call it FDR-LBJ liberalism, big-government conservatism, or compassionate conservatism. I call it American-style pragmatism.
Unfortunately, celebrating the realization of that which one opposes is the predictable end result of pragmatism, which is nothing more than a euphemism for the slow sacrifice of one's principles. Longtime readers may recall that I wrote the following in 2003:
The Bush administration is demonstrating this truth in real-time, as its compassionate big-government neo-conservatism expands the federal leviathan at a pace faster than anyone since FDR. Would President Gore have been worse? Perhaps but then there would be an opportunity to elect a man who actually opposed the rising tide of government in 2004 instead of surfing it like a cattle rancher gone beach-boy stoner.
As I feared, that tide has continued to rise under the aegis of a Republican House, Senate, presidency and Supreme Court. So, are there truly no conservatives left in the Republican Party today? Or is the determination to see, hear and speak no evil about the present gang of Republican charlatans in office based on a fear of giving aid and comfort to Hillary Clinton in 2008?
In either case, it is apparent that mainstream politics in America has been reduced to a Seinfeldian sport wherein voters are simply rooting for laundry.
Since the Republican Party has dedicated itself to racing its Democratic rivals in offering more bread and circuses to the underprivileged masses, there is no longer any reason for conservatives to support it. Disenchanted and dismayed Republicans will do well to remember these pragmatic betrayals of conservative principle when The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime rolls around again three years from now.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46398.
