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 ...
TR, a great foreign policy president and tremendous national motivator, was the most anti-business president we had until the New Deal; Grover Cleveland, a Dem and weak on foreign policy, was a fantastic "stick-to-the-constitution" president domestically.
A lot of things have become permanently more "conservative" or liberty-oriented since 1932. Gun laws, for example, are far more in line with the Constitution than they were 30 years ago. Personal liberty laws are too. Property laws are worse.
What we are seeing, in fact, is a generational realignment of the parties. In the 1850s, neither party would deal with the problem of the day: slavery. So one eroded (the Whigs) and another version of it rose up without the pro-slavery wing. In the late 1900s, the Dems got on a pro-silver, inflation kick. It forced a realignment and drove the sound money people out of the party.
McGovern in 1972 drove many foreign-policy Dems out of the party.
Things like this shake out after a while. There are too many conservative Dems and hard-core conservative Republicans not to have a successful party, but until a leader captures the imagination and gets people to say, "Yeah! THAT'S what I believe in," you will get "personalities" like Obama and back-room pols like McCain running the show.
The problem is, if we don’t become a socially conservative nation again, you can kiss all other aspects of conservatism (fiscal, military...) goodbye.
History has shown us (Whigs, for ex) that the nation WANTS political differences, and the less "pure" party will always winnow away and be replaced by a newer, "purer" party---which over time tends to be watered down by marginal voters joining its ranks until it loses elections.
There has never, ever been a long historical period in U.S. history where EITHER "liberals" (bad term for the 1800s) or "conservatives" have been "frozen out." The winners tend to get arrogant, make mistakes, and as we saw with 1994, can rapidly lose their edge.
Rush has this exactly right. The GOP stopped fighting after the 1995 budget; more important, they stopped making good arguments, attempting to legislate without confronting and educating.
Finally, someone with SOME historical perspective. Neither liberalism nor conservatism “go away.” They ebb and flow, and it does appear to be tied to generational cycles, as Strauss and Howe say in their book, “Generations.”
It is impossible to "become socially conservative" from the top down.
"Becoming socially conservative" has nothing to do with electoral politics. Nothing.
Why do you suppose the RNC, and the House members, and especially the senators (who have to run statewide), and the nominee, have become so phobic about socons?
You can't pass laws, or issue regulations, that 85% of the people oppose.
You want the government to change the culture. They couldn't even do that in the USSR.
“What is the gun ownership situation like in Slovakia?”
I have no idea, as I am not a hunter and have no interest or need for a gun.
“He doesn’t give them near enough of the credit they deserve for killing the conservative movement.”
Was it the pro-abortion stance Bush took that did it for you? Or was it the pro-gay marriage stance he took? Or maybe it was his position that Terri Shiavo should die instead of being kept alive because that was the Christian thing to do. Or maybe it was his freeing of 50 million people from bondage that did it. Could have been putting Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.
Or maybe it was a Republican led congress that forgot the principles of 1994 and became Democrats and spent money like drunken sailors. Or maybe it was the same congress who pandered and took the money from lobbyists so they can be reelected.
The President didn’t let down conservatives. Congress let down the President and gave him no choice. However, I do give credit to a few members of Congress who stood up to the President and said no to Harriet Meirs, no to Dubai and fought tooth and nail to get a fence built despite congresses efforts to defund the fence.
Where were these politicians when we needed a Presidential candidate? Where were our “Conservative talk show hosts” to promote these candidates?
Without our own political party, Conservatives politically will be relegated to the trashheap of history. Republicans are now Democrats. Democrats are now Socialists. Only Conservatives remain the same.
Politically we are now a European system of Conservatives, Moderates and Socialists. We just haven’t woken up to that fact yet. The name Democrat & Repulican are just labels which the Democrats will gladly keep. We cannot afford to keep them. We have to speak up before it is too late.
That’s why I say conservatives can not resurrect the movement through the Republican party. We have to take a harder road and move the culture in our direction. If the culture moves incrementally more conservative, both parties will follow.
“Baloney. This kind of talk shows no sense of history whatsoever.”
Well, maybe so. I am only 63, so what do I know?
I see only from my view as having grown up in the south,
and what I see now is not pretty.
Well, we may be in a death spiral now due to feminism, the “gay rights” movement, fashionable secularism etc. Europe almost certainly is, and they’ll likely be washed away by Muslims.
It’s not a matter of using the government to change the culture, but one of using it to protect it. The government basically declared war on our culture forty or so years ago. We’re now told that to resist this is to start a “culture war”. The ultimate expression of this backward view of things is when pro-lifers are accused of making abortion a federal issue, when all they did was respond to a leftist judicial fiat which stripped the states of their authority in the matter.
Likewise, the left is currently engineering a situation where unelected federal judges will eventually impose the same-sex “marriage” agenda on us, but people who resist are the ones accused of “starting a culture war” and of “trying to use government to change the culture”. When someone like Goldwater pops up and accuses people who are merely trying to defend their culture of being Ayatollahs, then we have a problem here. That’s particularly true when they’re trying to defend it from aggressive, unaccountable federal judges who with the stroke of a pen mowed down centuries of tradition and ordered everyone to obey their “diktat”.
Yeah, agree with your thesis that “things will have to get much worse before they ever get better”. Also agree with your Statement about McCain's likelihood of picking a a conservative VP, etc. My scenario for the eventual redemption of the Republican party is for Obamo to win and allow him to tank, the economy, screw up Iraq and the Middle East in general, raise taxes, and cause gasoline to go to $10/gallon. Then, “perhaps” our Great Unwashed will get their heads out of their butts and elect some real conservatives who will have the integrity and self discipline to fix the things that Obamo broke. My two bits for whatever two bits is worth...
God is alive, but true Conservatism is dead...and people like Limbaugh killed it!
I have always thought, and still think, that the courts are our strongest issue.
The 2004 and 2006 senatorial elections (and it is those elections which determine the composition of the Federal courts) neglected this issue to a shameful degree.
However, I disagree with the socon approach to this problem.
Look at the 700+ posts on the atrocious California marriage decision. 90% of those posts have to do with the malign consequences of homosexuality.
Not enough people care about that to amend the California or the Federal Constitution. Raving at those people about gay bowel syndrome does nothing (or less than nothing) to reverse the decision, and it does not address the real issue, which is preserving the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
There are many, may more people who care about Liberty, including the liberty of the People to legislate for themselves, than care about anorectal pathology.
When the discussion about marriage in California turns to the issue of usurpation of the people's rights, and away from people's nastybits, we can begin to make progress.
“Over!? Was it over when the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor?”
______________________
Can’t help but wonder what turnip truck you rode in on and fell off of.... “...the Nazis bomber PH”....
“Over!? Was it over when the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor?”
______________________
Can’t help but wonder what turnip truck you rode in on and fell off of.... “...the Nazis bomber PH”....
You are wrong in naming abortion a religious issue. If you were born since 1973, it’s a wonder you’re not dead wrong.
The high handed manner of the Supreme Court in overturning the State laws of Texas and all other States restricting abortion killed local control -— and led to the risk of all other actual rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. When the Court deemed a “penumbra” of a right to privacy paramount to the right not to be killed, they also denied that human beings were or are human beings in all cases. When the Court can declare some of our children “persons” and others not, what protections are there for the right to liberty and property?
You’re not from around here, are ya?
Will be rather difficult, when greater than 50% of those who vote either work for that govt or are getting goodies from them.
If only 50% of the general population are registered to vote, and only 50% of registered voters actually vote, it will never happen.
Those that are relatively comfortable and do not participate, need to get involved, as currently it is weighed heavily against your wish.
“However, I disagree with the socon approach to this problem.”
In direct opposition of the risk of rogue judges overturning our current laws on marriage, we voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and then a Constitutional Amendment (passed with 72% of the vote) here in Texas. Where will this be contested? On the Federal level, of course. So much for small government.
Small government will never include a Federal government that over-rules the State’s right to regulate medicine (yes, even in the case of Oregon’s assisted suicide as well as abortion) and define marriage.
As others have said, the people who support abortion, euthanasia and social experimentation in the form of “alternative lifestyles” will demand more and more in the form of Federal support for their practices and the “right” to carry on their preferences across State lines.
Right on the money!
A court with the power to issue Roe v. Wade is a court with no limit on its power.
THAT'S the issue that can win the day.
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