Topic: Political Parties
Conservatives Betrayed A reflection on the absence of conservative principles in American politics.by Matthew Cole
(libertarian)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Watching the Republican presidential debates and hearing the candidates attempting to sell themselves to an increasingly frustrated electoral base, I see an empty vacuum that is not being filled in any meaningful way in Washington. Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney are all trying to convince the GOP base that each one is the "conservative" candidate. What we get is a few quarreling immature imposters trying to put on a facade that is slightly less ridiculous than the other guy. The product they sell is superficial. In the case of Giuliani, the product is constant 9/11 fearmongering and baseless attacks against the "weak on defense" As the GOP electoral base steadily shrinks, it should become obvious that the Republican Party has gone astray. Conservatives are clearly not satisfied with what they are getting, but they are forced to settle for less. Rather than voting for a candidate, they are now voting against another candidate. Conservatives have been betrayed by the Republican Party.
When the Department of Education was created during the Carter administration, GOP politicians pledged to dismantle it when they got into power. Now they have not only doubled the size of the department, but they have also passed the No Child Left Behind Act. Republicans also promised to reduce government spending and to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, but instead of doing what they had promised to do, they created the worst budget deficit in American history and wasted no time in spending as much as they could as fast as they could. They promised to reform welfare, but apparently their idea of reform is to expand the welfare state through "faith-based" programs and prescription drug entitlements. They criticized Clinton for NAFTA, but they saw no problem in pushing through DR-CAFTA once they were the ones in control. Their loyalty to the American middle class was quickly replaced by a convenient mass epiphany of the new possibilities that economic and political globalism brings. National sovereignty has also been deemed to be of lesser importance than it was when the Democrats were in power. According to the GOP, the UN is a worthless and ineffective organization that is a threat to American sovereignty, but apparently it is credible enough to use UN Security Council resolutions as an excuse to bypass our own constitution to start wars with third-world nations. The party that supposedly opposes big government has bought into the statism of the Bush administration. The GOP used to care about the rights and liberties of American citizens, but they now use scare tactics to silence these same people, so that they can push through unconstitutional and tyrannical legislation, such as the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. There is now no conservative party represented in Washington. The federal government is now run by big-government Democrats and big-government Republicans.
Given this betrayal of conservatives by their own party and president, why doesn't a greater portion of the GOP base wake up and see what is going on here? It is party loyalty that blinds them. Part of what Republicans campaigned on in 2000 was criticizing Clinton's interventionist aggressive wars, but only because Clinton was a Democrat. In Somolia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, Republicans were the first ones to criticize Clinton, but the reason they didn't take a strong stand against these wars is the same reason the Democrats won't do the same with Iraq. They wanted to "support our troops". Cliches such as this are designed to distract Americans from failed policies. It was the Clinton Democrats who began this escalation towards war against Iraq with the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998. If Iraq had been another "Clinton war", as it very well may have been if there were not a two-term limit, I guarantee that the Republicans would be calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq as the Democrats are doing now. The fact that these two parties behave the same way should be a clear indicator that perhaps there really is not much of a difference between them. Republicans are sticking by an incompetent and dishonest president out of party loyalty. That is the same reason that they accept substandard journalism from The Fox News Channel. Accepting propoganda has become preferable to accepting reality. As much as the GOP continues to betray its base, they will still maintain many loyal supporters who buy into the illusion of legitimacy. These people would vote for Hitler if he ran as a Republican and told people that he talks to Jesus, while waving a big American flag and scaring people with propoganda about terrorists and secularists who threaten our American way of life. Out of the presidential candidates currently seeking the Republican nomination, the only one who isn't a fake is Ron Paul. John McCain summed up the GOP's problem nicely in a debate in which he said that the Republicans "Came to change Washington, but Washington changed us." Ron Paul responded truthfully, "Washington didn't change me." His record in his ten terms in Congress confirm the truthfulness of that statement. I think it's time for Republicans to show some integrity and put these imposters out of a job, and elect honest people like Congressman Ron Paul.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Matthew Cole only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Matthew Cole is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-12-21 05:58:04
One of the main reasons I created the Nolan Chart website was to help clarify what the terms "conservative," "liberal," "libertarian," "centrist," and "statist" mean when applied to individuals. First, we have to acknowledge that no political label fits all...or even most. People will often disagree about what labels mean. That's fine...it's part of the debate.
I agree with Ron Paul on about 95% of the issues. One of the few disagreements I have with him is his claim that his brand of political philosophy is "true conservatism." I understand why he says this. It's smart politics. However, he is far more libertarian than he is conservative. The neo-cons are much more "true" conservatives than he is, which is also precisely what I find to be wrong with them.
It is true that conservatives and libertarians have some ideas in common. It is also true that liberals and libertarians have some ideas in common. In fact, even conservatives and liberals have a few attitudes in common, although they rarely translate as the same ideas. The area where their attitudes overlap the most is on the statist portion of the Nolan Chart. When their attitudes overlap, watch out! It means our liberties, our safety, and our prosperity are at risk.
I'm hoping that, among other things, the Paul campaign will help people understand that the labels they thought they understood actually have different meanings when applied by and to the population as a whole. This goal is 100% consonant with the purpose behind the Nolan Chart website.
Even when FDR began his New Deal spending, he consulted with economists to figure out how far he could put the nation into debt. These Borrow and Spenders have no shame.
Today's fiscal "conservatives" are silent on the debt. The war and national health care are both what I call "blank check" issues, which will bankrupt this country. We still don't have a budget for 2008. In 1998, the government shut down on the principal of a balanced budget. The Congress doesn't have the cahones to try it again. The president can't find his veto pen, and pretends to have line-item veto power in signing statements. Signing statements aren't in the Constitution. Someone needs to give this guy a Constitution Coloring Book for Christmas.
To those who wrap themselves in the "conservative" label, but can't resist the pork, I say "boo!", "hiss", "go home"! The peasants are revolting.
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