The Rise of Conservatism

we'll be doing our best to make things better.

Interesting thoughts. I have been toying with writing a blog entry on all of the conservatism obituary notices I've been seeing.

For sure, too many people have betrayed conservatism for personal power and pet projects. It looks to me like businesspeople have given up trying to get the government out of their businesses and instead they simply try to get government programs and policies to favor them and disfavor their competition.

At this point, I'm not even sure "conservatism" is the right label anymore, because things have gotten to the point where there is less we are trying to conserve, and more we are trying to restore or change.

I woke up scared. I had realized NO ONE was running our country. Democrats had Bush tied in knots and with an election coming up it could only go downhill.

I never realized I was a Conservative until I took a hard look at my values this year. I never realized it until I talked to my two sons and it dawned on me that I raised 2 Conservatives. And I married one.

Mac was not my first choice but he'll get the job done. If we get the right mix of Republicans/Democrats elected it's a step in the right direction.

I read a LOT of great ideas on the BLOGS and if only we could channel them and shoot them at the right targets it's a beginning.

Let's get busy.

ideological investments
1. FAIR TAX
2. ENGLISH OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
3. CLOSE BORDERS
4. DEFEAT MUSLIM TERROR WAR
5. PUT GOD BACK IN OUR COUNTRY
6. DRILL,BUILD REFINERIES, USE COAL, NUCLEAR
7. GET OUT OF UN

EX DEMO FREED

Thank you for differentiating between conservatsim and being republican. As a conservative independent the world as become a scary place. I agree that change can come and we can restore our values but it will be a long and ever vigilant journey.
Let's hope we are not too late.

I was a young man, but I remember saying to myself and others that we were doomed as a philosophy when the Republican Party announced it would adopt the policy of Big Tent Republicanism. To make their foolish point, they went strait out and announced that they were going to seek the support of the Log Cabin Republicans.

From then on, members just got worse and worse and now many are either flat out liberals or they have their tails between their legs saying, "Nancy, you can't get rid of all of us. That's not fair. Please!"

And the remainder stand around talking with all the charisma of math teachers. "Well - now - there - seems - ah - to - ah - be - ah - some - miscalculation. We're - ah - going - ah - to - need - to - show - some - restraint - in - this."
Thinking - "big words, big words, big words that's what impresses people. They think we are really mature when we do this."

Even with Congress is at their lowest approval in history, the libs are still laughing their heads off. They are about to control congress, the white house, most federal judges, most governors, all the state houses and most towns and cities, and most of the media is still a giant socialist propaganda machine.

Wake up. They are going to crush conservatism in a fury of legal and police actions the moment they get into office. Remember Waco and what that was an attempt to do?

They are not playing badminton here. They are going to be playing hardball and their verbal machines are prepared to provide a million reinterpretations of the law to accomplish it.

The hope-without-action plan of winsome conservatives is the epitome of a pipe-dream.

Tanglelad
You are so right. The problem has been and still is that conservatives are all talk and no action.
Amazing how the liberals always stuff their ideologies down our throats and we just let them.
Action is what is needed. We all need to be more verbal,more seen and wiser with our choices.

Shannon. Exactly!

I'm so tired of conservatism finding its place in how the liberals define us. We don't want to be seen as extremists. We don't want to be labeled as hypocrites or hateful. I'm sorry for my color, I'm sorry Jesus offends you, I'm sorry I said "fat", I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

I'm tired of theser so-called conservatives scolding me for being true to my ideals. "You're going to make sure Obama wins if you don't vote McCain." That mentality is the very reason we don't have someone up there who is a real conservative. The Republican party used to rest on three legs. Now it's sixteen china plates spinning on little sticks and there's no one interested in keeping them all up.

The compromise mentality that has gotten us here today will have these political calculators saying in 8 years "You're going to make sure Stalin wins if you don't vote for Hillary."

Everyone who continues down this line has no idea what it means to have principles and to stand firm in the faith.

All I want to do is shout, "Shut up and sit down. You people make me sick to my stomach!"

Excellent Mr. Kleber. I believe you have hit the nail on the head. What you are describing of course, is a revolution that sweeps away the decaying carcasses of the politically dead but unburied. Republicanism is no longer on life support. It, and its brand of so called "conservativism" expired quietly in the night sometime between 2004 and 2006. The Democratic party is about to commit Hari Kari in Denver,and by November the body will give off a stench that even the brain dead party hard liners will not be able to ignore.

What next? I don't know, but it should be an "E" ticket ride.

That is exactly the point, sad as it is, the conservatives in this country need to stand up and be counted. There are more of us then even we know.
I'm not sure how we start but our founders had no problem standing up for themselves..we certainly should be able to pull something off.
Our government is not listening to the majority and are so entwined with special interests and giving away our money for votes they have gone deaf.
I'm there...maybe a million conservative march on Washington, a tax revolt, anything but sitting here waiting for them to take away life as we know and want it.

Conservatives have nothing to say. Are we all swallowing Obama. It will take a big drink of water

Amazing how the status quo is becoming the usurpation of the status quo. Gay marriage, abortion, fiscal responsibility, strong foreign policy, federalism...these are all reasons I have always voted Republican. Those, and a strong desire to avoid socialism. But many don't really get what's at stake here (check the polls), and if they do get it, they are certainly active in the undermining of our way of life and our status in the world.

Unfortunately, conservatism as a theory is being equated with individual actions and people (the "stolen election" in 2000, Falwell, Iraq, etc.) Only 33% of the population registers as Republican. The tide is rushing against us. But as G.K. Chesterton said in The Everlasting Man:

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

We need to be able to make good choices, instead of being satisfied with choosing the lesser evil.

Hopefully, Drexel is right and we can turn this thing around.

Some has said what I have been feeling for a few years now!!
Thank you!! and good comments from others in the same boat.
Nowadays when a poll asks me if I am a Republican or Democrat or Independent I want to say None of the above!!
I am going to post this address on my blog and spread the word.

After getting the address wrong twice I now have it straightened out! :-))

Drexel Just read yoiur post at the behest of emjayne (thanks, emjayne) I find your thesis compelling. I think I need to chew on it a while and come back for more but you may in fact be right on comservatism vs republicanism. At least I am open :) You have made me think and thats a good thing. I havent had this discussion yet on my own Blog.
Kevin

An apt analogy.


With the way things look now, I have a feeling I'll be the one changing Lil' Conservative's diapers.

Our Nation tends to believe what the media and the liberal politicians say, and as so, they believe the story that conservatives are dead. Well, conservatism is not dead, and I hesitate to say it, but I don't think that will ever die, as long as a few Americans have the guts to express our ideals.

I am alive and kicking. But consider this. We're discussing conservatism's problems and it's values and how we are all now ineffectually looking at the events that affect our lives and our world. And we are doing this from the outside. But as a conservative, I'm just a guy on a computer. Just what would I need type here to get people to sit up and listen to what I have to say?

I see huge lapses in conservative values from the big names on this site all the time. If I wrote the best piece that says it all, still only a handful of real conservatives are going to agree with me, while compromisers ridicule me for not chucking my values for some half losing strategy.

Even in the extreme, if I died in the struggle to give my children a more free future, someone might notice. But not enough with influence. The list of martyrs is long and forgotten. Just a simple few examples, Terry Shiavo, Ramos and Compion, Waco, Juanita Broaddrick, land owners with the preeble mouse, and on and on. These are liberal victories. And their power grows every day.

The system is now innately anti-values, anti-God, anti-family, anti-hero, anti-freedom, and pro-perversion, pro-injustice, pro-defenselessness, pro-poverty, and all of it is touted as fair, righteous and noble.

But if we had a John Hancock, someone with some credibility in this fight who truly is willing to lay it all on the line, then we might be able to get people to sit up and listen. That's how it always works. There were plenty of these in the Revolution, that and God are the main reasons it worked.

Tony Blankley is one conservative I know of and there are some others on Town Hall, but the voices of liberals are louder...they have most of the media, for one thing.
Those of us on here are preaching to the choir, as they say. You can see by the way liberals answer that you are not going to win any debates there.
I just had a small one ("debate") in comments on another blog and it immediately got to insults!
But back to the thread...I don't see a rise in conservatism in the near future and I won't be here for the far future. So I am not in a crusading mood...more like resigned while frustrated, I guess.

Sometimes a regrouping is what any party needs.
The Republicans should have stood by their conservative roots. Then with the loss of Congressional control, they could have still had their principles and not appear to have sold out. I sometimes feel it was like the 'liberal republicans' or 'country club' republicans tool control of the party. It was the same idea with Bush (I) and the no new tax pledge. It just makes you look like a hypocrite when you turn on your ideas and it gives the other party something to use against you.

The trouble is that conservatives need to learn to fight the communist dialectic that passes for liberal/Democrat debate these days. Truth is fiction, up is down, regression is progress. Nobody knows how to hold their feet to the fire and pin them down when they lie; and God help us when we get "conservatives" who agree with them. Arrrgh!