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Everything Must Go: The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008
Human Events ^ | 5/17/08 | D. R. Tucker

Posted on 05/17/2008 2:03:48 AM PDT by MartinaMisc

It was fun while it lasted.

The guaranteed election of a non-conservative President on November 4th represents the end of the conservative movement in America. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain stands for Reagan principles in any way, shape, manner or form—and after twenty years of non-conservative Presidents, it’s obvious that the Reagan era will never, ever return.

The conservative movement has been in the hospital for nearly two decades. Once George H. W. Bush—a good, moral man, but not a true conservative—entered the White House, conservative principles slowly but surely began to leave. Yes, he gave us a victory in the Gulf War and Clarence Thomas, but he also gave us a broken no-new-taxes promise and David Souter. Bush was more Rockefeller than Goldwater, during a time when America and the world needed more of the latter and less of the former.

Bill Clinton replaced Bush in 1993 and, during his eight years in office, stole certain conservative concepts (NAFTA, welfare reform) and destroyed others (judicial restraint, the rule of law). Clinton moved the country in a secular direction, helping to make the 1990s as culturally loose as the 1980s were culturally traditional. Clinton also seemed obsessed with, among other things, promoting the notion that the Reagan era was a fluke, and that (despite his famous 1996 claim) big government was a permanent reality.

(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bush; clinton; conservatives; mccain; obama
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To: spatso

Stem cell research, the conservative view, is that private companies should be funding it, not our tax dollars.


181 posted on 05/18/2008 10:13:52 AM PDT by DLfromthedesert (Michael Steele for VP)
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To: gitmo

But who’s Rush uniting - and are there enough of us to keep conservatives as influencers of government policy ?

I am conservative to my bones, but my biggest fear is that we get such a shellacking in November that the Rats get completely free reign to remake America.

Amnesty, creating 12m new Democrats;
2-3 liberal USSC justices;
2 senators for DC (ok, that’s a stretch, but perhaps it could happen ?).

We need to think - we’re dying in a ditch here - reach out - press the conservative buttons of latino’s, soccer moms, victims of outsourcing etc etc.


182 posted on 05/18/2008 10:15:42 AM PDT by fuzzy dunlop
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To: equaviator

183 posted on 05/18/2008 10:16:49 AM PDT by cartoonistx
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To: spatso

So are you saying that your argument rests on the assertion that Rush Limbaugh does not advocate conservative principles? The only way for this to be true is if we reestablish conservative principles.

Will you openly advocate such a redefining of conservatism, or will you attempt to redefine them through innuendo, doublespeak and falsification of traditional concepts?


184 posted on 05/18/2008 10:18:49 AM PDT by reasonisfaith (Of foolishness and evil intent only one can take the lead, and socialists have no other choices.)
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To: spatso

“Fine, but I would like to know how many other guys are staying in the bunker with you?”

You must have accidentally posted on the wrong thread.


185 posted on 05/18/2008 10:19:52 AM PDT by reasonisfaith (Of foolishness and evil intent only one can take the lead, and socialists have no other choices.)
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To: gost2

Funny, but, I think Limbaugh is hard wired to a large swath of the values and sentiment of everyday people in middle America. The entertainer in him revels in the passion of the disagreement and fight. He does not understand how fatigued people have become over the constant bickering. Many still enjoy the fight. Far more a tired of the division, they seek solutions and a better government.


186 posted on 05/18/2008 10:20:23 AM PDT by spatso
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To: angkor
First of all, I am a hillbilly and dang proud of it. They are hard working conservative people. Name calling is a poor substitute for debate.

Here is where Newt joined the Algore team:

GINGRICH: Let me stick with the one you just mentioned because it’s an important one. We have a section called The Platform of the American People, and these are all ideas, by the way, that have a majority Democrat, majority Republican, and majority of independent support. We say flatly, entrepreneurs are more likely to solve America’s energy environmental problems than bureaucrats. If we use technology, innovation, and incentives, we do not need to raise taxes to clean up our environment. We talk about the notion, for example, and I don’t know if you’d agree or not, but we support giving tax credits to companies that can cut carbon emissions as an incentive to cut pollution. We then go on to say that we ought to build more nuclear power plants; we go on to talk about the idea of developing more oil refineries in the United States, and we also say that we ought to look seriously at drilling for oil offshore and lay off the notion that it’s a little bit irrational for us to be relying on Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran and Russia while blocking ourselves from even knowing whether or not offshore we have enough oil and natural gas not to need to rely on these guys. If you look at the Platform of the American People in here, I’ll bet you will agree with 95% of it.

RUSH: I probably would, but the thing about dependence on foreign oil, there are a lot of myths about that. Our number one importer, we import most from Canada. Number two is Mexico. We’re not totally dependent on Venezuela or the Saudis. There’s so many myths about this, the carbon mess. Newt, this country is being sold down the river on a hoax! Carbon dioxide, you and I exhale it. There’s no way we can cut that back. It’s not a pollutant. This is a mechanism whereby liberals want to grow government and have people with less freedom, and I don’t hear freedom or inspiration being talked about in this campaign. That’s what Reaganism is to me, and it’s not being discussed. We have too many Republicans running away from it, as though they are afraid of it. He won two landslides. It led you to capturing the House of Representatives in a huge landslide, and everybody wants to abandon it and apply policy today based on the liberals setting the table. So we’re reacting to what liberals want to do. If they say we got an energy problem, okay, we have to admit that and come up with a better plan instead of telling the American people, “Look, oil is the engine of freedom. It is and always will be, we’re not running out of it, get used to it. The price of gas has gone up $2.80 in 40 years. Stop complaining.” Instead, we want to respond to all these complaints, because the liberals do. We’re trying to out-liberal liberals. We got candidates thinking they can win the presidency by picking off a couple liberals in New Hampshire, a couple liberals in Pennsylvania, California. That’s not the way Reagan did this. You go to the country and you tell the American people they’re the ones that make it work. You tell ‘em how great they can be, that they’re better than they even know they are. None of this is in our campaign right now, and it’s frustrating as hell.

Newt said we need to reduce carbon emissions. The myth that CO2 is a pollutant comes straight from the Algore Global Warming crowd and has no scientific merit.

He talks about "America's Energy Environmenta Problems". Our energy problems don't have to be solved by entrepreneurs. In fact, government is PREVENTING our existing entrepreneurs from getting us BACK on track. They forbid drilling. They forbid building refineries. They mandate different blends for every state, and in many cases they mandate it by county! They pile punitory taxes on petroleum. The problems are man-made: they are caused by the United States governments. But Newt wants tax credits to entrepreneurs to invent something new when the solution has been around for a century. But he goes along with the ones who put us in this mess to begin with.

Now, I've admitted I'm a hillbilly from the Appalachians. I also went to the source document to back up my statements. Your arguments are invalid.

187 posted on 05/18/2008 10:26:26 AM PDT by gitmo (From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.)
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To: DLfromthedesert
Stem cell research, the conservative view, is that private companies should be funding it, not our tax dollars.

And the Bible, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Reagan-view is that neither public nor private entities nor individuals have any right to destroy innocent human life, nor to allow its destruction.

Those who do so are destroyers of the very foundation stone of our liberty. Those who are elected to public office and empower the alienation of innocent human life are in violation of their sworn oath of office.

188 posted on 05/18/2008 10:26:56 AM PDT by EternalVigilance ("I have a clear record of working with Dems. I will appoint Dems to my administration." -Sen McCain)
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To: spatso

How could you think of portraying Rush as “divisive” while completely ignoring the truly divisive—those who butter their bread with division—the liberals?


189 posted on 05/18/2008 10:29:09 AM PDT by reasonisfaith (Of foolishness and evil intent only one can take the lead, and socialists have no other choices.)
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To: equaviator
If this turns out to be the case then how dead could the conservative movement be?

If the conservative movement was dead Rush wouldn't have twenty million listeners and counting every week.

During the Reagan years conservatives thought they had found a home in the GOP. Subsequent events have dispelled that notion. So the movement needs two things-- a home, and a leader who can rise above the feckless Bush-CountryClub-Republican drivel and mobilize the Nation once again.

Reagan is gone and won't be back, but the next charismatic conservative leader is lurking out there somewhere, even as we speak.

190 posted on 05/18/2008 10:29:41 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: MartinaMisc
"Everything Must Go: The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008"


191 posted on 05/18/2008 10:30:32 AM PDT by avacado
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To: DLfromthedesert
So 85% want “gay marriage”? Is that why it was voted down in so many states?

What does that have to do with anything I've said?

192 posted on 05/18/2008 10:33:14 AM PDT by Jim Noble (May 17 was my Tenth Anniversary on FR)
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To: thegreatestgeneration

Rush is racist because he is against illegal immigration and the employment practices of those who hire them?

I live in a border state, and I’ve seen the destruction of massive illegals, coyotes, closing of ERs, schools not having enough funds, etc. etc.

We need to have a rational discussion about the problem without shouting “Racism” at people who dare to speak the truth.


193 posted on 05/18/2008 10:33:36 AM PDT by DLfromthedesert (Michael Steele for VP)
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To: freedomfiter2
Meanwhile, the Dems are running conservative candidates where they have to

Quite right. If the 'rats can win by running as conservatives, what the hell is the matter with the GOP? The Conservative movement is not dead but the Republican Party just might be approaching the critical list.

194 posted on 05/18/2008 10:38:28 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: angkor

We probably will form our own party. Forty million voters. Deal with that fringer.


195 posted on 05/18/2008 10:39:54 AM PDT by gost2
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To: reasonisfaith

sorry


196 posted on 05/18/2008 10:42:09 AM PDT by spatso
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To: fuzzy dunlop

>>>>>You didn’t respond to my posts yesterday that Newt’s goose is cooked - do you really think Newt’s the guy to carry the conservative message in 2008 ?

I think you grossly underestimate Newt’s ability to sway a crowd to his thinking, which is called leadership. I’ve seen him do it repeatedly in televised speeches before hostile audiences.

One thing missed by Newt-hating FR Neanderthals after the Kerry/Newt “global warming smackdown” debate (most of those FR brain-surgeons predictably didn’t even watch the debate let alone understand it), was that Newt had the mostly liberal New York City audience eating from his hand by its conclusion.

Kerry was totally baffled that “his” audience was applauding Newt’s market-based solutions to “global warming” and environmental issues. By the end Newt had completely swung the audience to confronting the “solutions” along the scale of coercion versus incentives, and they clearly chose the latter.

In other words Newt swung nearly the entire audience to conservative solutions in less than 90 minutes. It was a remarkable performance of jiu jitsu and I’m sure many in the that audience were asking how they could agree with anything said by the awful Newt Gingrich. But after 90 minutes, they did.

I’ve seen him do it on many other speeches run on C-SPAN before initially hostile college crowds.

Yeah, that’s the kind of guy I want out there. A genuine conservative thinker who can convince others of his ideas.


197 posted on 05/18/2008 10:44:57 AM PDT by angkor
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To: spatso

It’s okay, don’t worry about it.

Just go ahead and make sure you get it posted on the other website, the one where you were having a friendly conversation with a bunch of guys in a bunker.


198 posted on 05/18/2008 10:45:18 AM PDT by reasonisfaith (Of foolishness and evil intent only one can take the lead, and socialists have no other choices.)
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To: DLfromthedesert

My comment is less about the merit of who funds stem cell research, rather my irritation was the bonehead move by Limbaugh to get involved in a public dispute with MIchael J Fox. It was never about the issues, the dispute was about personalities and Limbaugh left the image of conservatives as indifferent and arrogant. It was never about him, but as he does so often, he hijacked the agenda to make it about him.


199 posted on 05/18/2008 10:46:44 AM PDT by spatso
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To: Jim Noble

You stated that 85% of Americans disagree with the values put forth by the “Values Coalition”, which are the values that have formed this country; family, and thankfulness to the Creator for the blessings He has bestowed on this country; the values of hard wor, and personal responsibility.

I believe most Americans are in agreement with these values; it’s the caricatures put forth by the liberals that are spurned.


200 posted on 05/18/2008 10:47:58 AM PDT by DLfromthedesert (Michael Steele for VP)
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