Conservatism Is Dead

More telling than Barack Obama's victory is the consensus, steadily building since Election Day, that the nation has sunk -- or been plunged -- into its darkest economic passage since the Great Depression. And, as Obama pushes boldly ahead, apparently with public support, the right is struggling to reclaim its authority as the voice of opposition. The contrast with 1993, when the last Democratic president took office, is instructive. Like Obama, Bill Clinton was elected in hard economic times and, like him, promised a stimulus program, only to see his modest proposal ($19.5 billion) stripped almost bare by the Senate minority leader, Bob Dole, even though Democrats had handily won the White House and Senate Republicans formed nearly as small a minority as they do today. The difference was that the Republicans -- disciplined, committed, self-assured -- held the ideological advantage, which Dole leveraged through repeated use of the filibuster. Today, such a stratagem seems unthinkable. There is instead almost universal agreement -- reinforced by the penitential testimony of Alan Greenspan and, more recently, by grudgingly conciliatory Republicans -- that the most plausible economic rescue will involve massive government intervention, quite possibly on the scale of the New Deal/Fair Deal of the 1930s and '40s and perhaps even the New Frontier/Great Society of the 1960s. All this suggests that movement doctrine has not only been defeated but discredited.

Conservatism is not dead! Conservatives do not need to fall into that trap - whoa America is in its death throes. Let’s face it Obama plan for a transformed America will fail. Remember another dictator whom promised the 1000 year reign, the rise of a superior race and a united world, 1933 - 1945. What happened to that little weasel?

Obama is just another weasel whom has the desires to have a transformed America to actually how he wants the whole world - bankrupt, chaotic and unending conflicts that further disruption. What do expect from a Community Organizer whom was a failure in that ‘job’ too?

Right.

“Conservatism” may be a misnomer. Conserving what status quo?

The Eisenhower era? The Nixon, Reagan, Bush eras?

Let’s go back a little farther.

Conservatism may be dead, but Conservatives aren’t.
If Conservatism *is* dead, opposition to Liberalism sure as hell isn’t.

Conservatism won’t die. Liberalism will see to it.
Why? Because they can’t help but to push their
garbage too far. I will admit that I am surprised
that they have been able to get away with as much as
they have so far. But sooner or later that will
change. It may take a war. One thing for sure,
only a fool who believes in the credibility of
The New Republic would believe that FDR’s New Deal
had anything to do with ending the Great Depression
of the 1930s.

As someone who was liberal in his teens but is now in his sixties a raging conservative thanks in large part to people like Tanenhaus, I'd have to say he's as incredibly ignorant of conservatism. He doesn't have a clue. Simply put, Tanenhaus doesn't understand the country he lives in. I've seen the incredible failures of liberalism...it's why I'm a conservative now. Liberalism/leftism does not work.

He's only right in that he has plenty of other ignoramuses/thieves who think life is for taking from what others have produced, and right now they outnumber conservatives. But his idea that conservatism is dead is moronic. As I recall, King Barack only won election by about three percentage points. Hardly a resounding affirmation of liberalism i.e. theft.

Sam Tanenhaus, the gifted writer that he is, says that we are too “revanchist” and we need need to compromise more. He also states that big government is here to stay. My simplified take on his essay. I don’t doubt that compromise is essential to our political process, but I reject his notion that we can never reduce the size of government again. What is the point of trying to conserve our traditions, our culture, and our Constitution if we don’t ever to try to put policies into effect which support them? I don’t see the lack of compromise as our main problem, it’s the abandonment of our principles and our inability to articulate these beliefs to the American public in a persuasive way. To help conservatism achieve political success, I think we need to keep our platform simple and concentrate on just a few things:

1. Reducing the size of the Federal government — returning more of its current functions to the state, local authorities, and, more importantly, to the individual. Think the 10th Amendment. More government means less personal freedom.

2. Reducing the level of taxation — Making progress on item 1 will permit progress on item 2. More taxation means less business and personal money and less freedom.

3. Strong defense and border security — While we attempt to return some of the functions of Federal government to local governance, we recognize the need for a strong and vibrant military. We also believe that border security, is an essential role of the Federal Government. The protection of the U.S. is the number one purpose of the Federal Government.

So, if we focus on things essential to our core principles and we use the new media effectively, we will achieve electoral success again in the near future. Compromise is essential in the political process, but the belief that we can never achieve a smaller and more Constitutionally-compliant Federal Government is giving up the battle before even fighting it. We have to be more intelligent while pursuing change in the political process and recognize some of the practical limitations that therein exist, but we don’t have to surrender to it.

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