Posted on 05/17/2005 6:15:46 AM PDT by sawdust
Pat Buchanan speaks of American conservatism in the past tense. "The conservative movement has passed into history," says the one-time White House aide, three-time presidential candidate, commentator and magazine publisher. "It doesn't exist anymore as a unifying force," he says in an interview with The Washington Times. "There are still a lot of people who are conservative, but the movement is now broken up, crumbled, dismantled." Mr. Buchanan, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, says conservatism "is at war with itself over foreign policy, over deficit hawks versus supply-siders." Unnamed phonies, he suggests, have infiltrated the movement. There are "a lot of people who call themselves conservative but who, on many issues, I just don't consider as conservative. They are big-government people."
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Social conservatism will be the death of the GOP because it is such a turn off to most of the voting population. If the GOP ever ran on a purely social conservative platform (see Alan Keyes), they would start getting about 25% of the vote.
The current GOP politicians run as conservative in both fiscal and social matters but then govern as fiscal liberal/social conservatives. They get away with it because the democrats run as fiscal moderate/social liberals but then govern as full blown socialists.
If the only difference between Kerry and Bush had been that Bush was a social conservative and Kerry was a social liberal, Bush would have lost in a landslide. Tax cuts and national defense are powering the GOP right now.
The GOP is about to lose out on both issues as the president's policy on immigration is destroying his national defense credibility and his fiscal liberal tendencies are destroying any economic benefits of the tax cut.
Unless the GOP starts governing as fiscal conservatives, it will lose at least the senate in 2006 and the white house in 2008.
...Do I have to say it? Are you assuming that the ONLY people who didn't vote were Buchanan supporters?...
You didn't have to say it since I never implied anything of the sort.
A silly riposte ... not worthy of you.
Just get up from a nap?
Wasn't Pat part of the isolationist movement in the early 90s.
No, I did not; what's your excuse, other than finding yet another way to trash the sitting president of the United States?
I did, in fact, read that and I must inform you of something you should already know. No objective assessment of historical fact is ever going favor the present time political dogma. You seem to believe that everyones assessment of historical fact is indicative of their present political beliefs.
I believe that was my question to you.
Respectfully, what more outraged "manifestation of public opinion" could there be than that related to the Mexican border fiasco?
And where is the public policy response?
What difference does "public opinion" make in today's politics?
Politics has become the art of nailing down the "lesser of two evils" mantle.
It gave us Bill Clinton in 1992, and if the DIMocrats have the good sense to nominate a southern moderate/conservative in 2008, it will happen again.
"I believe that was my question to you."
Huh? You didn't ask me a question. I said that Buchanan doesn't recognize the fundamental differences between conservatism and fascism, and you said my thinking was flawed.
That term used to be applied to "blacks".
I take it it now means conservatives.
Someone I know recently told me that it would not be long now that the neo-con tripe infesting our political peocesses will be driven to the ocean and told to swim regardless of the big money that installed them and keeps them there. I'm beginning to hope she was correct.
And, you should have followed up with an explanation for what I deemed a stupid statement.
"you should have followed up with an explanation for what I deemed a stupid statement."
Well there's his constant World War 2 revisionism and Holocaust denial. Also his isolationist and protectionist dogma. With a dab of Jingoism into the mix.
Ah and I almost forgot. His anti-Israel venom and rampant opposition to any Jew who has ever attained office under either Party.
It's beyond my competence to truly characterize the pitiful performance of this lifetime incompetent.
And don't give me any that "respect for the office" BS, I'm an American.
I also find his hatred for Churchill suspicious considering he's bashing other people for not being real "conservatives"
Perhaps your "competence," or lack there of, is the very fact that keeps you from facing reality.
"That's the part that people like Pat and Alan Keyes just don't seem to like or understand; it's not what they SAY, it's THEM."
You are right (no pun intended)! Although Pat misses the mark with his isolationist views.
Ah and I almost forgot. His anti-Israel venom and rampant opposition to any Jew who has ever attained office under either Party.
Your statements are becoming filled with more emotional tripe and have not yet offered an explanation for the "Fascism" nonsense you started with.
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