What's Left of Conservative Values?

[Donutboy 0]

Conservatives take great pride in their label and in angrily attacking those who don't share their beliefs. Thus was I taken aback to see the self-described conservative commentator and New York Times columnist David Brooks defend the idea of gay marriage.....

.....But conservatives exult in their label as though it carried the distinction of something high and mighty, like Mensa membership. Wearing the label normally means accepting the baggage that comes with it, some of which Brooks is trying to unload......

.....Hypocrisy won't exclude you from the club. The most angry of the Clinton-haters had their own bimbo problems, and the most righteous of the moral majority have tripped up over the usual sins.

Rush Limbaugh, a radio conservative, claimed the solution to drug use was "to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river." Then Limbaugh became a drug addict and changed his mind about prison time.....

....The problem is that economic conservatism died under Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush has now broken all Reagan's budget deficit records. With our all-conservative government wallowing in debt, it's hard to find a practicing economic conservative

Libertarians and liberals are the economic conservatives today. Libertarians, the people with the Adam Smith ties, are the true defenders of small government, while liberals have rallied to balanced budgets. One of the great political switches of our time – right up there with the South's going Republican in the 1970s – has been liberals replacing conservatives as the champions of fiscal responsibility

Deprived of economic credibility, conservatives threw themselves into their social agenda. They turned on social enemies with an anger rarely seen in politics. In Bill Clinton, they had their devil, and with impeachment reached their apogee of hatred.

That's what makes Brooks' defense of gay marriage so damaging for them. If they lose their social issues, what's left? Robbed of grand modifiers like "social" and "economic," the club is reduced to mere lobbyist status, like the NRA and AARP. The risk is that conservatism ceases to be a credible club at all, as in Canada and Britain.......

.....Our distillation of conservatism leaves the vat almost empty. Economic conservatism is gone, and social conservatism under attack. What's left to bind together the fraying brotherhood, to keep government halls filled with dyspeptic fulminators and the airwaves with angry ranters?

Even robbed of doctrine, conservatives have a unique glue to bind them together. It is the thing that identifies them in every setting and separates them from others. It is the one thing left in the vat when all else is boiled away, disappeared into the ether.

It is their anger, anger at a world that doesn't fit their ideas of it, that will evolve as it sees fit.

What's Left of Conservative Values?

[Tiger Al 0]

This is why we need Howard Dean in the White House. He knows how to balance a budget.

[Donutboy 0]

This is why we need Howard Dean in the White House. He knows how to balance a budget.

And the "fiscal conservatives" on the board ask, "Huh" What's a budget?"

[TitanTiger 20,519]

Actually, the fiscal conservatives just did a synchronized eyeroll. :roll:

[Donutboy 0]

Actually, the fiscal conservatives just did a synchronized eyeroll. :roll:

I know!! My monitor just leaned heavily to the right!!

[DKW 86 7,447]

It looked like this...

[CarolinaTiger 0]

i'm all for balancing a budget...

will everyone agree w/ my suggestions for spending money??

[TitanTiger 20,519]

Ahh, but that's the rub isn't it? No spending ever really gets cut because each party has pet projects it keeps a death grip on...then accuses the other party of refusing to do what's necessary to balance the budget and make good use of the taxpayers' money. And they're both right.

Ain't politics grand?

[Streyeder 0]

I guess it would be more difficult to write an article like this about liberals, you need values first.

[Tiger Al 0]

I guess it would be more difficult to write an article like this about liberals, you need values first.

Very insightful and well thought out. Thanks.

[DKW 86 7,447]

I guess it would be more difficult to write an article like this about liberals, you need values first.

Liberals certainly have one value, wining elections.

I couldn't name another one but they do have the one. "Win at all costs."

[aucorner 0]

I guess it would be more difficult to write an article like this about liberals, you need values first.

Liberals certainly have one value, wining elections.

I couldn't name another one but they do have the one. "Win at all costs."

don't forget that the left taught us the value of the word 'IS'..............