Posted on 06/12/2002 3:43:36 PM PDT by BillofRights
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
There used to be two highly vocal political movements in America – the conservatives and the liberals.
Although there were subtle variations, the basic difference between them was this:
Liberals were impatient with society as it was and wanted to use the force of government to change it.
Conservatives were skeptical of change, and were reluctant to use government to force changes on society. Today, however, it's almost impossible to tell the two groups apart.
Liberals
The modus operandi of liberals has always been:
Cite a social problem.
Assume that this represents a failure of freedom that only the federal government can repair.
Propose a big-government program.
When someone objects, accuse him of ignoring the poor folks who are suffering.
When the new program fails to solve the problem (and instead makes it much worse), throw more money at it, pass more laws, make the penalties more oppressive, and then ignore the situation (until it's time to cite the failure as a reason to expand the program again). In this way they've turned education into a federal responsibility – leading to unsafe schools and far too many illiterate students.
They've ruined what was once the best health-care system in history – making it terribly expensive, cruelly insensitive, and totally out of the reach of many people.
They've created a permanent underclass of welfare clients, made America's farmers dependent on the federal government, and polluted the environment by putting too much land in the care of irresponsible bureaucrats.
No matter how much and how often and how harmfully government fails at what it does, no matter how many problems it causes, liberals still ask government to bring about whatever they want.
Conservatives
Conservatives used to oppose these government programs – fighting them with economic arguments, pointing to unintended consequences, and citing the unconstitutionality of the proposals.
But no longer.
Conservatives have used the federal government to wage a horrendous Drug War. The result has been drug-dealing gangs in the streets, children killed in drive-by shootings, crack babies, increased drug use, and a trashing of the Bill of Rights.
And how do they propose to deal with this enormous failure?
Throw more money at it, make the prison terms more oppressive, take away more of our civil liberties, trash the Constitution even further. In other words, do more of the things that created the problems.
If someone objects, accuse him of ignoring the crack babies and the families hurt by drugs.
If government schools are a mess, cite uneducated children as a reason for a government program to subsidize private schools – which will surely turn those schools into clones of the government schools (as happened with private colleges).
If federal welfare is a tragedy, propose putting religious charities on the federal dole – so that they, too, can become beggars at the government trough, doing the bureaucrats' bidding in order to keep the subsidies coming.
If it's revealed that our military, the FBI, or the CIA hasn't perform its mission properly, throw more money at it, expand whatever program has failed, give more power to the bureaucrats. And if anyone objects, if anyone cites the Constitution, just accuse him of ignoring the victims of 9-11.
No matter how much, and how often, and how harmfully government fails at what it does – no matter how many problems it causes – conservatives still ask government to bring about whatever they want.
No difference
In other words, conservatives now sound exactly like liberals.
Cite social problems as justification for expanding the federal government.
If anyone opposes the proposal, accuse him of being heartless or anti-American.
Ignore the Constitution if it conflicts with one's pet crusade.
And no matter how bad a program gets, the answer always is to make it bigger, more expensive, and more powerful. What did you get for your vote?
Conservative writers and commentators oppose big-government programs only if they're proposed by Bill Clinton or some other Democratic president. Then they're constitutionalists – sounding the alarm against big government.
At least with Clinton, there was an opposition party. But with a Republican in the White House, there's no opposition. Thus government grew more rapidly under Nixon, Reagan, Ford or Bush than it did under Clinton.
In 2000, many people said they were voting for George Bush because he was the lesser of two evils.
But it turns out that Bush is doing all the things Gore would have done – only now, there's no opposition.
So it appears that those people who chose Bush actually voted for the greater of two evils – big government and no opposition.
The better question is, where has the Republican Party gone? We REAL conservatives are right where we've always been. We're looking for what used to be the conservative party.
And I got another King George.
He's a blame-America-firster whose first and primary issue is the legalization of drugs.
His shameful and despicable columns after 9/11 ought to disqualify him from being taken seriously on any subject, ever again.
Hey there we go agreeing again. Harry Brown is a stupid dick.
When 'Conservatives' started using the Public Burden argument a la liberals, the two started becoming happy bedfellows. EVERYTHING is a Public Burden, which gives free reign to any conservative OR liberal to propose (and get passed) newer, bigger government. Gum chewing is a Public Burden. There ought to be a law!
There are a few of us left. Where the others went, I haven't a clue.
There was a brief period in the early 1980s when, after the Reagan election, most Americans identified themselves as Conservatives. But that caused many political opportunists to begin to so label themselves also, without actually changing their agendas. Thus we have a lot of new "Conservatives," where simply all we really have is those opportunists trying to ride the momentum generated by the real entity.
We need new leadership, who will not be diverted from the real issues, to regain the initiative that is now lost in silly word games, where terms no longer have real meaning, and pretense becomes a norm.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Maybe the answer is to not allow such power?
I think they tried to do that back around 1776, but the power freaks got in the tent.
Explode the budget, embrace federal education spending, crank up the tariffs, bloat the bloated Farm Bill, make that look like a bargain with a federally funded prescription drug program... and we'll get plenty of Republicans to sign off and co-sign each and every one of these things. You know, 'so we can control Congress'. Great.
And Harry's 'blame America first' attitude is more of a suggestion that isolationism might have helped us avoid the enmity we enjoy today around the world.
And, like it or not, Harry IS a conservative. Would you suggest that William F. Buckley is no conservative because he harps on drug legalization? Well, you might, but you'd be wrong.
That's easy: the Republicans tried to become a bigger pack of whores than the Democrats already were.
I tend to agree. As time goes on, more and more people will begin to understand this. The first candidate that puts America, and American's first, all the time, will get my vote.
At least with Clinton, there was an opposition party. But with a Republican in the White House, there's no opposition. Thus government grew more rapidly under Nixon, Reagan, Ford or Bush than it did under Clinton.
--------------------------------
True words. Can you rebut them?
I think that Republicans just don't recognize what kind of entity it is when someone is so far to the right of them; and when when that someone is not an authoritarian, asking the government to compel performance from other citizens.
LOL! What did Pat Buchanan do for you to label him a nazistic psychopath? Could be specific?
What is a Democrat?
A lying socialist.
What is a Republican?
A lying socialist.
There is no difference.
I think most of these fall into the category we tend to describe as "neocons". Political sociopaths who can assume the label, even convince themselves that they really are "conservatives", while advancing an agenda that is anything but. This web site was founded in opposition to Bill Clinton and his corrupt administration, and attracted conservatives from all over the world to that end. After GW won the election, there was suddenly an influx of new members. Where did they come from, and where had they been for the last eight years? Why the sudden interest in conservative political activism after Clinton and Gore have been booted out, and GW is on his way in?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.