Conservatism Parody of Former Self

Senator Robert A. Taft said:

When I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as “free enterprise.” I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing.

To quote the same conservative from the first quote:

This revolution, though, is not altogether new. It is a peaceful continuation of the American Revolution and the principles of our Founding Fathers: liberty, self-government, the Constitution, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. That is what they taught us, and that is what we now defend.

The “conservatism” of today, sadly, is nothing like the conservatism of 50 years ago. We live in the era of Big Government Conservatism where instead of flying the banner of small government and resisting its growth at every turn, “conservatives” merely offer to grow the government a little more slowly than liberals. Many of us have the sinking feeling that no matter which party is in power, the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Glenn Beck illustrates this point well by presenting the political spectrum of left and right as Fascism/Socialism on the far left and anarchy on the far right. Although in the clip below he does not do so, he currently presents Democrats and Republicans on the same vertical poll which is moving ever closer toward the Fascist/Socialist end of the spectrum.

Liberty and free enterprise have been trampled by so-called conservatives.

After all, what could be more “conservative” than Cap and Trade? It is worse than taxing the air we breathe – it is regulating the air we breathe.

If Cap and Trade wasn’t “conservative” enough for you, then we can always start nationalizing.

Government now permeates virtually every aspect of our lives. The current economic crisis has given Congress and the current political administration an excuse, as if they needed any, to intrude even more in our daily lives. Economic liberty is being destroyed by a government battering ram. The TARP, the FED, the Treasury, the FDIC and more have stripped away any illusion that we are free to run our business – either successfully or unsuccessfully.

Nascent movements are afoot to oppose Big Government. Montana’s legislature passed, and its governor signed into law, a bill that directly confronts the federal government’s use of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution to regulate a myriad of activities that Montana believes it, rather than the federal government, has the right to decide.

Ronald Reagan had the following to say about conservatism:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.

Of course, some modern-day, big tent conservatives would disagree.

Wise leaders in the past feared where our immense investment in the military, or military-industrial complex, would lead us.

President Eisenhower, in his Farewell Address said:

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Later, in the same address he said:

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Audio of President Eisenhower's Farewell Address:

The “conservatives” of today certainly have not heeded the wise counsel of President Eisenhower. Our government has ceded power to the military-industrial complex and a vast web of interests that have plundered the public treasury. We are in real danger of becoming “the insolvent phantom of tomorrow” spoken of by President Eisenhower.

So, you may be curious, if you don’t know already, who is the as yet unnamed conservative quoted in this post? His name – Dr. Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas. The same Ron Paul who correctly predicted the housing bubble, and who is currently fighting to open up the Federal Reserve’s (FED) books to the light of public scrutiny through his bill H.R. 1207. While some, like Senator Lindsey Graham prefer to throw in with Senator McCain, I think their time has passed. Not only have the results of their policies proven disastrous, but their philosophy takes us down the same road to total government control that President Obama and the Democrats tread. We don’t need “conservative” parody. We need true conservatism that takes us back to our founding principles of limited government, liberty, the Constitution, self-government, the Constitution, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. That is Dr. Paul’s conservatism. I’ll take that over the so-called conservatism espoused by Sr. Graham any day.

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