Conservitism has Become As Bad as Communism

Very good seed, killfile - very well written. I clipped it as well.

Outstanding essay and one well worth clipping. I agree every word was worth saving but here's my favorite point.

You truly love liberty and hate the state and all its works? Good. Bail out of conservatism. Call yourself a libertarian, a liberal, an anarchist, an independent, a revolutionary, a Jeffersonian radical. Or make up your own name. But please, wake up and smell the massivo espresso: when it comes to mindless party loyalty, conservatism today is as bad as communism ever was.

So we'll be seeing a flurry of Newsvine regulars who demand that we stop posting opinions that generalize and denigrate our political views, right? Or does this just apply to those with which we disagree (i.e. criticisms of liberals).

Just wondering - I won't do that myself, so...

I have been saying this for a long time. "Conservative" as a tag attached to Republicans who want to bomb the world to shape, who believe in radical change, is a misnomer. There is no political philosophy more lacking in internal consistency and true meaning than American Conservatism.

It is a movement that worships power first above all things and then uses all kinds of tactics to dress this. It is a movement heading very loudly in the wrong direction but constantly reconstructing the roads to make the direction correct.

I hear a lot of "Conservatives" ask why the left is so "angry". The Conservatives have shredded every rule that anyone ever held sacred and there are just too many men for whom principles have come to mean no more than loyalty to one's position.

This is sadly the case it seems. I consider myself a conservative person (the old school way that is.) I believe in small government that serves the people and not its own ends. I believe in freedom and liberty and the equal rights of every citizen, regardless of race, age, gender, religion or sexual orientation. As a Christian I may not agree with others religion or sexual practices, but I respect them as individuals and respect their American right to live their lives that way. I'm also more of an isolationist, and while I do believe we need to be involved in world politics and keep tyranny at bay, I do not agree with our present situation of having a vast majority of our armed forces bogged down in foreign wars. The problem I see is that the balance of power in American government has shifted, away from the people and into the hands of the politicians. Everyone pretty much knows that our electorate process today is just a ritual (a going through the motions if you will) and that regardless of the political party in power its the same power hungry politicials who reign supreme. We need to reinstate a government of the people. Here are a few suggestions to fix the political problem:

1. Repair the system of checks and balances that our forefathers devised. Currently the Executive branch holds far too much sway.

2. All of the public service positions in Washington should have a base salary that is determined by someone other than themselves.

3. Anyone wishing to enter the realm of politics and serve as a Congressman or Senator or President or VP etc.. must cut off all corporate ties for the duration of their service, thus preventing the conflict of interests that often arise from those situations.

I am not a conservative- my beliefs are that corporate power is just as much of a threat as governmental power and they need to be balanced off one another, but I have always wondered why the so-called libertarians had not called the current administration on their behaviour which is egregious. All they do is complain a bit and never flex their political power.

We have a similar phenomenon occuring in Australia: The conservative coalition (whose senior partner is ironically called the Liberal Party) have abandoned their founding principles and appear intent on overturning the rights and freedoms that have painstakingly been established over the last century or so.

The rule of law, separation of church and state and the principle of small government has been replaced by a de facto ideology that resembles more the policies of the fascists than those of liberal democratic parties.

While this is occurring they are in the process of purging their party of all but those with the same extemist intent.

And all the while it is cloaked in the apparent respectability of 'conservatism'.

What has occurred at the same time, however, is that all mainstream political parties have shifted to the right.

The Australian Labor Party (which had its origins as a democratic socialist party) now espouses the policies that once would have had a home with the conservatives.

In many ways, today's conservatives are party men and women not unlike those we saw in totalitarian countries, people who spout the line and slay the enemy without a thought as to the principles involved. Yes, they hate the Left. But only because the Left is the "other."

This is the best point that jumped out in my opinion.

I couldn't agree more. The Republican party is borderline schizophrenic these days. I can remember a time in the early 90's where I actually supported the Republicans on many issues. I wrote an essay in High School about the 94 Republican Revolution being a positive thing for the country. Those days seem so long gone now. I cant believe the Republican party of today is the same party that took over in 94. Ideologically they're light years apart.

......But their real heroes are talk-radio blabsters, television entertainers, and sexpot pundit quipsters. They have little intellectual curiosity at all.

Can't seem to go a whole day anymore without running into an Ann Coulter reference.......

I think Rockwell is dead on. The conservatives I know worry far more about "the party" than they do about anything else. Everything is spoon fed. No need to actually think for yourself, Rush or Ann or Bill will tell you everything you need to know. If they say it's so, then by God it is....
Conservatives deride liberals in general and democrats specifically, calling them the "party of no ideas." What most of them fail to realize is that not marching in lockstep with the leaders and pundits doesn't automatically mean we're bereft of ideas, it just means that we don't act like a bunch of dittoheads, agreeing with everything and questioning nothing...

Politics, religion, and corporate interests are a dangerous combination...... but, on the bright side.... nothing lasts forever. Pendulums reach their apex, and change directions. And I think we're almost at the zenith.....

There's a couple words that scare me in the post, astonishing left to sit as is all day:

"Conservitism" in your title and repeated in your little additional blurb.

"psudo"

"sperated" I'll credit as typing skill.

And somehow you expect me to take you seriously when you suggest elsewhere that you'll use smaller words when addressing me? Please.

Do you protest? Have I misstated your own political views?

Yep.

Great seed, Killfile.

Great seed, Killfile. This is something that's been bugging me for quite some time now, because there are elements of conservative thinking that I actually agree with, but never see them represented in Washington.

It almost seems like a game. They hold on to those core "conservative values" during elections and use them to slam democrats, but then abandon them and do the complete opposite of what they promised.

I think this is a big reason as to why the libertarian ideology is catching on like wildfire - it's not a perfect ideology, but it seems a lot closer to true conservative thinking than the Republican ideology.

Not that democrats don't do this as well, I don't feel that the Democrats in Washington are representing liberals very well either, and they too are still trying to claim they reflect the values.

I'd like to just weed out the whole damn congress.

Have we heard this before? Comparing the rhetoric and spin of Micheal Barone with F. Chernov

"Secular Transanational Professional" boogeyman is a lot like "Rootless Cosmopolitan"

The Connecticut primary reveals that the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved . . . to the secular transnational professional class that was the dominant constituency in the 2004 presidential cycle.
Michael Barone
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
August 10, 2006

Consisting in part of cringing before foreign things and servility before bourgeois culture, rootless cosmopolitanism produces special dangers, because cosmopolitanism is the ideological banner of militant international reaction, the ideal weapon in its hands for the struggle against socialism and democracy.
F. Chernov
Bolshevik Magazine Op-Ed
March 1949

Through most of the 20th century, American exceptionalism has been the creed of both of our major parties . . . Among voters, transnational attitudes were espoused by only a very few, in the odd corners of university faculty clubs, investment-banking firm dining rooms and the councils of shop floor socialist intellectuals.
Michael Barone
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
August 10, 2006

National nihilism with its attitude towards the Great Russian people and the other peoples of our nation, time and again was linked in the minds of rootless cosmopolitans with bourgeois nationalism, which today is inseparably tied with the cosmopolitan ideology of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
F. Chernov
Bolshevik Magazine Op-Ed
March 1949

The professional class Democrats of today . . . feel free to imagine that America cannot be threatened by implacable enemies. They can vote to validate their lifestyle choices and their transnational attitudes.
Michael Barone
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
August 10, 2006

National nihilism is a manifestation of the antipatriotic ideology of bourgeois cosmopolitanism . . . Comrade Stalin said: "National nihilism only injures the cause of socialism, acting as a tool for bourgeois nationalists."
F. Chernov
Bolshevik Magazine Op-Ed
March 1949

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