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most conservatives and many other Americans would agree that a return to the values and ideas of the Founding Fathers of our Republic would be desirable.

Going no further than the first sentence I disagree strongly. The concept State's rights is dead to conservatives though they occassionally mouth support for it. Their loyalty is to the concept of nation and not to the ideals of liberty. The founders concept of free trade with all and entangling alliances with none is greeted with total contempt by today's conservatives. They wish to conserve the global power built since 1898 and have no use for the founders ideals on foriegn policy matters.

I will skip over the religious beliefs or non beliefs discussed here and focus on this - A conservative honors the past and seeks to learn from it. - Again I disagree. Conservatives only selectively honor the past and we learn nothing from experience. Just wave some flags, cite God in a few lines and put an (R) in front of a name and all is well.

The people you describe are not conservatives. They may wear the mantle of a conservative, or call themselves "neo-cons" (oh man, that term makes me want to barf!), but they are nothing of the sort. A far too common mistake is for people to think that if one is a Pubbie, then he's conservative as well. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I point to the likes of McCain, Specter, Snowe, Collins, Chaffee, et al, as examples.

As an independant conservative, I for one, think we'd do well to return to the philosophies of the Founding Fathers.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

The concept State's rights is dead to conservatives though they occassionally mouth support for it.

"Conservatives" on this site regularly support all manner of things that the founders found repugnant.

On this site today, I see some embracing the Income tax, some embracing the minimum wage, smoking bans on private property, prohibition, and the list goes on.