A reminder to supporters of President Trump

The main reason he, and the GOP and pretty much anyone challenging the establishment in 2024, was swept into office was because things were falling apart.  And those who voted for President Trump want them fixed.

Right now we've seen a hurricane of activity from the White House, and some of it appears to be addressing some of those problems.  The chaos along the border, handling international crises, just giving the impression he's doing something as opposed to nothing.  In the wake of the Biden White House, just mailing a letter could be seen as a leap forward in personal accomplishment.

But we're going to have to see more.  The economy is not improving on any noticeable level for most people I know.  I just paid .70 a gallon more for gas than a month ago.  Prices aren't lowering, and now I'm sad to say, I'm seeing some go up.  I fear part of it is that the press has 'Covided' tariffs.  Remember how during the Covid panic and shortages that companies raised their prices, sometimes significantly and overnight?  Remember how they blamed Covid and the supply shortages?   Notice in most cases, those prices haven't gone down despite the Covid pandemic and shortages being over with?

I fear companies will do it again, this time using tariffs - and all with the media's blessings.  If that happens, and if people don't see some radical improvements to the staggering economic problems of the Biden years, it is going to go badly for the GOP.  And if it doesn't turn around, Republicans can give up on their dreams of a Vance presidency.

Oh, and for heaven's sake don't make the mistake that the Democrats/Press/Left made going into 2024.  Don't deny the obvious.  I saw a discussion about this on another site, and there were people saying things are great!  Prices are going down, salaries taking off, jobs, jobs everywhere!  Well, I'm glad they live somewhere those things are happening.  Because they aren't here, and aren't where most people I know are living in different cities and states.  And at the end of the day, that is what will matter. 

Sometimes conservatives are their own worst enemies

 I'm not a fan:

I've seen this on several conservative pages over the last week or so.  But I don't like it, for a simple reason.  Because I don't think going up to a lion and punching it in the nose has ever been a good idea.

At the end of the day, conservatives have made it clear they not only have contempt for those who work within the government, and associated institutions like education, but they also proudly boast that the first thing they will do when they have a chance is take a scythe to those jobs and positions and entire industries. So would you believe it? Turns out the majority of people who work in the government, education, and other associated institutions overwhelmingly tack left, support Democrats, espouse leftwing activism and openly hinder where they can anything to do with conservatism.

Going way back to the 90s, when Rush Limbaugh was a big voice for the contempt dumped on our schools and educators, I just shook my head.  If I want to make enemies with a group of people, it's not going to be the ones who get to educate and train the next generations coming our way.  If I do, then I shouldn't be shocked that those generations will be taught to see me and what I hold dear as the enemy.  

Just because I like strategy games doesn't mean I'm fit to lead the 4th Armored Division.  With that said, you still can't help but pick up on a couple basic, common sense strategies. And one is don't make enemies of the ones who can do you the most harm.  

Yet for reasons I can't fathom, conservatives have never tried to assert themselves into these areas, assuring the workers they respect them, espousing the importance of education and respect for those who make our government run.  They never appear eager to go in and point out the excesses they see, while assuring those in the trenches that they are not the enemies and if they simply understand where conservatives are coming from, they'll see why what is happening is happening and may actually begin supporting the cause.  Or let government workers know there are philosophical reasons that a bloated government is no good, but anyone making an honest living and trying to do good by their families is a good guy in our book. Heck no.     

Oh I know, right now President Trump and his team are going about with their winnowing forks and clearing the threshing floor.  But it won't last forever.  And when the inevitable shift occurs, assuming the entire political Left hasn't gone off into the sunset, then it will be a bit like the proverbial spirit having been banished into the outer wilderness for a season, but then returning sevenfold to work even worse harm to the cause than before.  And conservatives will have themselves to thank for making enemies of everyone who works the trenches of the institutions that pave the future of a country and its up and coming generations. 

After all, making enemies of anything government has been a major selling point of conservatives for decades now.  And consider where we have gone as a society.  Think of those photos of the New York skyline displaying three crosses at Easter in the late 1950s, and think of our nation now.  Think of where almost everything in our society has gone that conservatives have been resisting with this basic approach.  I mean, there comes a time when you look at results and just have to question the strategies and tactics involved.  Another thing I've picked up from watching sports or playing strategy games.  If the thing you keep doing causes you to keep losing, even if you have an occasional win here and there, it might be time to try a different approach. 

Fact

I have said before that a big - and I mean BIG - reason liberalism wins is that those who resist it are often all talk.  I know, we hear 'but conservatives have day jobs' or 'but conservatives are the adults in the room' or 'liberals have unfair advantages because the news media' and such.  

But as often as not, conservatives are big on talk, itty-bitty on actions.  Oh, they may rush out and make a fuss for a day or two.  But at the end of the day, it will be business as usual.  Thus:

Yep.  And that's just one.  Consider the ever present mantra that 'middle America won't sit still for this.'  Sit still for what?  Our FBI has been caught read handed spying on Churches to see what their religious practices and beliefs are.  They are pushing to mutilate the bodes of youth at the hands of state operatives while boldly declaring their aim of blocking parents from stopping them.  They are erasing our heritage and destroying the memorials to those who built our nation. They are openly advocating racial discrimination based on group and ethnic identity.  What exactly is it 'those right wing American rednecks' won't sit still for?   

Whatever it is, apparently it doesn't include ditching a beer brand to make a point.  When you have that lack of conviction and passion, don't expect to win against those who have both. 

How great was the Arnold

Thanks suckers folks!

I recall back in 2004, Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the darlings of conservative Republicans.  They couldn't get enough of the guy.  I took my kids to see President GW Bush when he came to Columbus that year.  I've long tried to see presidents if they are in the area.  I think it's a good experience, and I wanted my sons to see the current president in person.  Bush got applause to be sure.  FWIW, former governor Taft, a Republican in an arena filled with Republicans, got overwhelmingly booed.  But nothing compared to the rave screams of adoration that came when Arnold took the stage to introduce Bush.

Arnold has a long connection to Columbus.  His Arnold Sportsfest is one of the big events of the year in Central Ohio.  Part of the cheers could be due to that.  But overall, the praise and adulation he received here in the Buckeye State was repeated across conservative media, conservative talk shows, conservative punditry and even conservative churches.  Heck, I remember some conservatives wanting to change the Constitution so Arnold could run for president!

Why?  The guy has virtually nothing in common with any conservatives I know, religious or otherwise.  His rather explicit interview here, in which he dumps on religion and the afterlife, certainly explains his lack of moral connection to religious conservatives.  Schwarzenegger has long stood as an example for those coming from the far corners of the world to indulge in all the porn-orgy culture America has to offer.

Many of his policies are nothing close to what Conservatives endorse.  As often as not he would get along just fine with the good folks on The View.  Heck, even libertarians should shrink from him.  I recall him joining people like Chris Christie and stomping on the idea that gays are anything but forced to be gay by birth.  Therefore, all attempts to help them be anything other than flaming homosexuals must be crushed.  That's not libertarian.  It's hell and gone from conservative views.  

So what was it about him?  That he put an 'R' in front of his name?  I've often said I was ahead of the curve where Trump is concerned.  I didn't like the guy back when liberals, Democrats and Hollywood power players loved the guy.  What changed?  For me, nothing.  But for them?  He put the dreaded 'R' in front of his name.  Once you do that, to those inclusive left of center activists you become discount Hitler.  Perhaps conservatives view that from the opposite perspective?   

I don't know.  It can't be just because of the 'R'.  After all, Mitt Romney has an 'R' in front of his name and I think there are more ostrich racing fans in the world than there are conservatives who care about him.  Perhaps Romney's is a case of conservatives learning lessons about blindly following people because they have an 'R' in front of their name?  

I just can't say.  I simply know as I watch so many still rally around Donald Trump, it's a question I keep asking.  A man who spent most of his life embodying so much of what conservatives oppose.  Not to mention supporting him despite his actions in recent years: Throwing conservatives under the bus where the Covid vaccines were concerned, declaring anyone who fails to conform an enemy of the Don (and having perhaps the least loyalty among his subordinates that I have ever seen), his open support for issues we conservatives are supposed to find unacceptable, his attacks against fellow Republicans over issues we are supposed to agree upon, and his continued behavior as if he is one of the highest paid employees on the 'Keep Democrats in the White House' committee, I wonder.  It's a mystery I can't figure. 

Of bread and circuses and convictions

The Right v. the Left

We all know the reference to bread and circuses.  It means providing the masses with superficial appeasement to keep them in check.  Of course in our wealthy, leisurely age, the bread and circuses morphed into sex and drugs.  Mere bread and circuses would not do.  Though in some ways, they do still play a part.  Consider movies or athletics for examples. 

Which brings us to now.  I just did something I've not purposefully done since I graduated OSU in 1990.  That is, I passed on purchasing tickets to this year's Ohio State Buckeyes football season.  Every year, since I was young, I've managed to go to a game, or at least purchase tickets.  Until now. 

Why?  Because first: prices.  The prices are quite staggering for what you get, and at a time when the cost of living is still back breaking, despite media narratives to the contrary.  It used to be if you were an alumnus, each year you got tickets the seats were better, and better, and better.  That stopped years ago.  Alumni means nosebleed.  If you want better, you pay extra, and I mean extra.  Given the spate of significant expenses we've had to absorb this year, can we justify such football tickets? 

Yes.  That would have been my answer in years gone by.  It's not like every year of my life saw me wallowing in endless money.  Nonetheless, I always found a way to pay for at least one game a year.  That way I took each of my sons, and sometimes went with my wife, and even took my mom and dad once.   

But this year?   No.  Ted Cruz said something the other day that I found disappointing.  He said boycotts don't generally work.  That's because people might grind their teeth and fuss, but in the end they'll be right back at the ticket counters putting money into the organizations' bank accounts, no matter what.  

Which really isn't true.  It tends to be true for conservatives, not liberals.  Liberals will declare unholy jihad when told, and burn the organization to the ground.  I remember that with the Chick fil-A debacle back in the day.  When the LGBTQ community began going after CFA, some within their ranks would say they still loved the food, but didn't like the establishment's bigotry.  But after a few years, you couldn't find anyone in that movement not wanting to burn CFA to the ground.  And if someone dared cross the battleline and order a chicken sandwich?  Retaliation was sift and merciless.  I'm recalling when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey mistakenly ordered a CFA sandwich during June one year.  He quickly repented his grave sin. 

So no, such boycotts and tactics work like a charm - for liberalism.  Just see the morphing of CFA.  That's because liberalism is a revolution, a new religion, a movement.  It has specific dogmas.  It has clear promises.  It has convictions.  It is prepared to do whatever to win.  If you're part of it, you're part of it top to bottom.  And you have the passion, zeal and fanaticism that goes with such revolutionary movements.

Conservatives?  Not so much.  When conservatives do move, it's often by those we normally wouldn't want representing the cause.  That's because the bulk of conservatives see what's happening as not worth giving up the game for, or giving up the movie experience for, or giving up our favorite restaurant for, or giving up that precious Netflix binging for, or whatever.  We're Rocky in Rocky III.  The Left is Clubber Lang.   

So I looked at what OSU has become.  I recall the recent OSU president sending endless messages to the student body, trashing conservatives, Trump and anything right of center.  I think on OSU moving as radical left of Stalin as the left will go.  I think of my son, working hard to achieve the highest honors in his degree, finding out that OSU will not recognize such accomplishments during graduation on the off chance it hurts someone's feelings.  Because we can't get enough of being a loser country filled with losers.  

True, during the Kaepernick kerfuffle, the OSU teams did not take part, and that is a feather in their cap.  But that doesn't offset the fact that OSU is actively against what I value.  When I was in college?  Sure, every professor was left of center.  But the school was still a school.  Those debates were in the class, not presented with official OSU president's letterhead. OSU wasn't in front of the cameras jockeying for the USSR (no matter how many would have liked to).   It was not an indoctrination camp.  Free speech and the free exchange of ideals were still promoted in and out of the classrooms.  In fact, per my sons, the school itself was worse than most of their classes.  

So for the first time in my adult life, I passed.  No tickets this year.  Yes, staggering inflation and cost of living would make it tough.  But in years past I would have pulled strings to make it work.  Not now.  Until conservatives take a stand and stop watching the movies, and frequenting the stores, and following the teams, and given money to those forces that want us and our values erased, we will lose.  If that's what we choose, let's just hope for the sake of our grandchildren that the movies and games and menus were worth it. 

The only way to win

Conservatism's greatest blunder

What youth associate with Capitalism, c. 2023

Was confusing the defense of corporate interests with defending capitalism.  

Back in the 1990s, when I was still in seminary, our oldest son was born.  At that time insurance companies were making news by cutting back on the days they would cover for new mothers.  By the time our oldest came along, it was dropping to a single day - 24 hours from the moment of birth - and then out you go. 

Now, if you've had a kiddo, you know that it takes more than a couple days in some cases for new moms to be ready to move out, or to make sure kids are altogether healthy.  In our case, he was born around 11 AM.  By the next day, he was supposed to be discharged.  The nurses knew neither he nor my wife were ready, though there was no 'smoking gun' problem to cite. They fudged things so she didn't have to leave until noon (and then dragged their feet about another hour getting things ready), so we didn't actually leave until about 1 PM.

That night, fluid developed in our son's throat that caused him to choke and stop breathing.  Fortunately my mother-in-law was staying with us.  As grandmothers are what I call 'pro-parents', she swung into action and was able to get him to cough it out and breath again.  Had she not been there, these two young and stupid parents likely would have been burying a first child. 

By the pediatrician's admission, this would have been avoided with an extra day or two of observation at the hospital.  Because of that, I became a staunch supporter of making insurance companies stop the madness.  I openly supported then President Clinton when he signed in the New Borns and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996. That act required insurance companies and hospitals to keep new mothers and newborns in the hospital for at least two days (48 hours).  Though I had several colleagues disagree with me and his legislation because free market and corporate liberty, I maintained something had to be done.  After all, it was obvious that insurance companies were happy to let come what may where kids' survival was concerned.

In subsequent years I had more than one colleague or acquaintance debate me on this (and other similar stances).  In almost every case the argument centered on some 'it's the government's fault, or this or that historical development's fault', but free market!  To which I would say it matters not, fix the cause eventually, but right now things have to be done to keep people from dying.  I especially enjoyed it when colleagues would explain to me that women were having babies for ages before our modern hospitals  (so obviously you don't have to have a hospital) - while deftly ignoring the cataclysmic infant mortality rate accompanying that fact.

The problem was that by the 90s, many conservatives decided that a company doing stuff and things for the bottom line, no matter what, was the deal breaker; the debate stopper.  That was it.  There is no moral compulsion for insurance companies, like any companies, to do anything other than what it takes to make gobs of money.  Never turn to the Government.  Perhaps consumer pressure in a better world.  But first and foremost it was that precious bottom line that was the Holy Grail.  No matter what insurance, or other companies, did, it was that bottom line that mattered.  The fault of anyone and anything might be true, but it always came down to defending corporate interests at all costs. 

That also included the clear and obvious development in the market we've seen in recent years of 'how to give less for more.'  Whether less includes shafting employees, bilking consumers, providing slipshod quality or diminishing quantity for ever higher prices - it was always defended under the principle that a corporation has got to corporation, and that's the important thing. 

If pressed, I would be assured that market forces would save the day.  Eventually those market froces will rise up and smack the corporate interests around and force them into a world where providing  the most for the least and encouraging competition and quality would once again rule the day. As if the global economic context of the market in the age of Lady GaGa was no different than the global context of Tommy Dorsey. 

Of course that didn't happen.  I see more and more conservatives starting to wake up to the realization that corporations have finally learned that countries based on democracy, freedom and equality, as well as civilizations based on loving God and your neighbor as yourself, are no longer needed for that magical bottom line.  Those conservatives may still try some 'it must be the government's fault' appeal. Others might hyphenate the situation.  That is, add something like 'crony' to 'capitalism' to explain what happened.  But more are starting to wake up and smell the frozen coffee.

What happened is pretty simple, and pretty historical, IMHO.  Capitalism arose at a time when multiple other developments kept it in check.  For the longest time, those with the money and power decided it was in their best interests to support and defend and advance such freedom and Golden Rule thinking, along with a robust free market, since that was where the money was.

Today that's no longer the case.  With China, you have 1.4 billion customers.  And a brutal Communist totalitarian regime that has learned it can set its lofty communist principles aside in order to court vast corporate interests, and ensure those interests they have little to fear but an increased bank account when doing business in China.  Likewise, in more than one part of the Islamic world, traditionally conservative states are learning to loosen up a bit - at least for those wealthy and powerful.  We're talking billions of potential costumers here.  What is America, with its paltry 330 million population, next to that? 

In fact, not only are those lofty old Western principles no longer that big of a deal, but increasingly they could be seen as an obstacle.  After all, if you're making bank on countries that routinely oppress, discriminate, marginalize and outright persecute swaths of their population, it's tough to do if you're singing the praises of good old Western democracy and values.  But let people believe that the West is as bad, if not worse, than any other place in the galaxy, and you're free to do as you please.  After all, what right does a slave owning, genocidal racist nation have to complain about doing business in China, huh?  Huh?  

Despite all this, I still see conservatives beholden to the unchecked support of any corporate decision because of course they do.  Last year I caught a radio program interviewing some fellow who wrote a book about the harm being done in the name of transgender ideology.  Apparently his book was banned by Amazon.  His conclusion?  He wasn't happy, but he would gladly defend Amazon's right to ban his own book.  A book that could, by his own admission, help save young people from suffering under the crazy.  He did this because free market and corporate interests you know.  There's saving youth from suffering, but then there is the bottom line. 

There's a time when an unwillingness to see the writing on the wall ceases to be conservatism and becomes foolishness.  I'd say those conservatives continuing to support the goals and agendas of the marketplace today without hesitation, given the marketplace's growing war against that which conservatives are supposed to value, might just be getting close to the second observation.  Or, what they meant by conservative was a world of difference than my understanding of the term in the first place. 

Yes, I've actually seen these fictional characters defended over the years in the name of Capitalism

Long and short summary:  Capitalism should ever have been the means to an end, and not the end itself.  Having forgotten that, and having allowed the market to become the antithesis of the market, has allowed young people to see Capitalism not as conservatives insist it once was, but to see it for what it has become.  And that's something conservatives had best see soon, or they'll loose both bathwater and baby where the economy and society are concerned. 

I am about 14% convinced

That Donald Trump is a liberal mole.  I know, I know.  I'm half joking.  But there are times when he does things that seem 100% to do no good for conservatives, to play into leftwing stereotypes and hysterics about conservatives, and goes a long way toward undercutting conservative concerns about the emergent Left.

So news headlines exploded that Trump came out and said the election was so corrupt and illegal, it's time to ditch the Constitution.  Now there have been radicals wanting to abolish the Constitution since I was in school.  In recent years, the 'Constitution as racist slave doc' has picked up steam thanks to BLM and similar activism.  On Memorial Day in 2021, ABC News reported on a survey that found over 40% of Americans believe it's time to burn the old thing and start anew.  And this doesn't count those calling for parts of it, particularly certain Amendments to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, to be rewritten, reimagined, or done away with.

Conservatives are rightly incensed by this development. Not because they think the Constitution is holy Scripture, or God, or Gospel - a charge often leveled at them by those on the Left.  But because, just like those who say this non-heavenly planet is important in terms of climate change, how we order society is also important, even if society isn't Heaven.  And in the history of the human race, our Constitution is about as good as you get.  So the strong case for preserving it can be made.

Then lo, along comes Donald J. Trump and, according to media reports, says 'burn it, burn it now.'  Well conservatives just received another stone in their shoe when it comes to stopping this.  Oh, they can condemn Trump's statements, but it just gave those who want the Constitution burned an extra name to drop, and it gives the Left in general the chance to rise up and be bold defenders of our founding documents!

As a bonus, Trump did this just as the first Twitter dump occurred.  The dump suggested strongly that not only was Twitter purposefully targeting conservative accounts, but Democrats may have been party to the tactics.  This was a first in Elon Musk's grand restructuring and revealing of Twitter and its policies.  It should have been headline news.  But thanks be to Trump, most MSM outlets played an easy misdirection by plastering across the headlines that Trump was calling for an end to the Constitution.  The Musk and Twitter story being relegated to page fourteen behind the grocery ads. 

I get that Trump did some good things.  The Supreme Court likely being the best.  But there are times when he seems to go out of his way to harm the conservative brand as much as possible, to affirm leftwing stereotypes about conservatives, and undercut whatever opponents of the Left are trying to accomplish.  So while I wouldn't say I'm really 14% convinced he's a leftwing mole, I would put it around 4%. 

Goodbye Teddy Roosevelt

And thank you.  

In the Left's ongoing crusade to exterminate the heritage of the United States, the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that has greeted visitors to Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History has been removed.  As all evil things, it was done in the cover of darkness.  Just as the statue of Christopher Columbus was removed in our neck of the woods in the wee hours of the night. 

That is symbolic of the Left's iconoclasm against the West.  That which is evil is done in darkness, for darkness hates the light.  Of course on the other hand, expect crickets and chirps to be heard from Republicans about this, if not conservatives in general.  I'm stunned at how man "conservatives" I've run into over the last couple years who will at least excuse if not defend these actions.

Oh Dave, it's private property - if that's the case.  Or Dave, they're just relocating the statue.  Or Dave, we have to admit and come to grips with the fact that America was racist.  Or Dave, they're usually wrong, but in this case Roosevelt was a naked imperialist who exploited and oppressed people to further American imperialism.  And on and on.  I've seen them all on decidedly conservative sites by those who otherwise rail against the Left.

I often blame the Left wallowing in its cover of darkness.  And yet, I don't know why it bothers hiding what it is doing.  I have a feeling most who walk under the banner of conservative wouldn't do any different if the statue was removed at high noon on a sunny day. 

There is no Woke capitalism

There is only Capitalism.  As I've been told a million times over the years, it's the bottom line.  Why do businesses meet added expenses born of government regulation by screwing their employees?  It's the bottom line.  Why do businesses meet the burden of taxation by cutting quantity and diminishing quality?  It's the bottom line.  The bottom line doth solve a multitude of problems. 

Well, I suppose it's time to admit the obvious.  Why is corporate America at the vanguard of the movement to destroy America, the Western Christian tradition and its values, and even ideas of equality, liberty and democracy?  Well my friends, I guess it's the bottom line. 

At some point, corporate execs and bean counters ran the numbers and realized there's more money to be made sucking up to tyranny and totalitarianism and appealing to people who want to see America and the West burn, than there is trying to preserve those same traditions.  And since conservatives have sanctified the bottom line as the end all 'get out of jail free' card for whatever corporations do, it's hard now to hear them bemoan what is logical per their own sanctioning of corporate decision making.  

Why are corporations promoting racism, tyranny, censorship, group identity, and a basic assault on America's history and the heritage of the Judeo-Christian West?  Because that's where the money is.  That precious bottom line.  

So by now, if we are clever, we'd start thinking long and hard about how long this has been the case.  How many things did conservatives of old cherish that the corporate interest concluded had to go?  Ross Douthat ponders the relationship between Capitalism and Conservatism.  

I'm no economist, so I can't speak to the details.  I can, however, admit that the problems conservatives are now struggling with as the corporate interests they have so long defended turns on them, are problems that are nothing new.  It's just now, they're more obvious than ever. 

Why conservatism never wins

Because, well, define conservative.  I remember ages ago, in the stone age of higher education, we used to have 'comment boards'.  Those were bulletin boards where people would post an article or even write up a little paper, tack it to the board, and await comments.  One I recall was a story about how Scottish Fundamentalists had derided Jerry Falwell as a liberal.  I knew then that the term 'liberal' no longer had any meaning.  Conservative, too.

Donald McCleary, at the always interesting and informative The American Catholic, had this little reminder about why conservatism is a doomed alliance for Christians.  Not because of any evil or wicked conspiracy to destroy.  It's just that change, as they say, is inevitable.  So with each passing generation, what conservative means changes as new generations seek to 'conserve' entirely new understandings of what needs conserving. 

My oldest son, who had flirted with a career in politics, noticed that.  Since he takes his Catholic faith pretty seriously, he couldn't align with the Democrats, though he didn't say they were always wrong about everything.  Nonetheless, he felt the Republican Party was the better bet, all things considered.  Yet as he mixed and mingled, he noticed something.  Beyond the obvious, that many in the GOP are no more conservative than a liberal Democrat, he noticed many who called themselves conservative weren't what you would think was conservative at all.  This was especially true among the younger conservative Republican sector.

Many his age or thereabouts had no problem with LGBTQ interests or gay marriage.  They might oppose abortion, but to a limited degree.  Or they may be more open to it.  Perhaps socialism does work in some cases.   America is and always has been a racist nation, that much is true.  And on and on.   These were, again, the ones his age who wore the label 'conservative GOP' with honor. 

That's because that's what they've been born and raised into.  They may not go crazy communist or want America and the Christian West burned to the ground.  That's how they understand themselves as conservative.  But the conservatism they espouse are things that may well have shamed a 1960's counterculture hippie broadening his mind at Haight and Ashbury. After all, to many my sons' age, what us old timers call radical left is as 'status quo' as a tent revival was in the 1920s.  

That's why conservatism loses.  At the end of the day, it sees itself all too often as merely conservative compared to the liberalism it opposes.  That is, it stays firmly three steps behind and four years away from liberalism.  But as liberalism, or change, or progress, moves inevitably farther and farther away from today, the conservative inevitably moves, too.  He may still be three steps behind, but now he's five miles away from what older conservatives ever would have identified with.  He's still conservative compared to the liberals he sees, but he misses that the conservatism he's defending would likely have been too liberal even for yesterday's liberals. 

By the by, that might also explain why so many from my Protestant days who aligned so strongly with the Religious Right and conservative Republicans are the ones partying at gay wedding receptions and calling down religious liberty as the systemically white racist trick that it is.  They're still conservative Christians. And they're doing what conservative Christians do, and that's conserve.  It's just that they're now conserving what they and most 20 years ago would have condemned.  Such is conservatism in a nutshell. 

Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Murphy Timken throws truth under the bus

Why I don't support the GOP in a nutshell.  This woman, Candice Keller, said what is obvious to sane people - that the moral collapse of our nation is at least a major factor in the rise of the violent acts we're seeing.  She also said what many Republicans and conservatives are more than happy to say behind the scenes.  But let the cameras roll, and what do 70% of Republicans do?  Just what Jane Murphy Timken is doing, and that's turn on their fellows so that the Progressives won't say mean things to them.  Embarrassingly pathetic.

Attention Conservatives

If you don't want Americans, especially younger ones, to reject conservatism, then stop living up to as many negative stereotypes as possible.  To start with, stop trying to act as if Old Man Potter from It's a Wonderful Life or Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, or, worse, Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, are really the good guys. Stop coming in to say George Bailey's life still stinks because he doesn't have a huge home, expensive car, and massive bank account. 

In short, stop acting like the acquisition of financial gain is the source and summit of a meaningful life.  Stop acting as if the lusting for material wealth to the exclusion of all other priorities is what life is all about.  Stop acting as if what liberals say about conservatism being for the greedy and money obsessed and Mammon worshiper is actually onto something. 

Every year, you see things like this, whereby we're told that it's the money, stupid.  What's life?  What's friends?  What's the joy of a close family?  What's walking the extra mile?  What are these things if you don't have a crap ton of money in the bank?  Are kids or Christmas good?  Sure!  But only if you can squeeze that extra dollar out of them somehow!

Geeesh.  The point of this particular piece seemed to be that in light of the growing number of young'uns who are warming to a socialized economic model, despite what a logical appraisal of socialism should warrant, an obviously harsh message railing against greed and wealth might not be the best message.

Perhaps.  But did it ever dawn on conservatives that when conservatives write that a man's life isn't about family, friends, or helping others, but it's about the size of his home, car and bank account, you're falling into the very type of world that most people will ultimately rail against.  Yes, there are those who will become successful because that's all they care about.  But most people - God included - seem to think there are other things that are every bit as valuable.

What's more,  young people who see things like this article are apt to conclude that even if we might make more money following such a conservative message, in the end, we might end up more like Old Man Potter than George Bailey.  And if all conservatives can say is that they are wrong, and it's better to be Potter than Bailey if you just compare their bank accounts, I have a feeling we're in for a long, slow road down to the very socialism that conservatives are trying to avoid.

When Conservatives walked with God

"I came to understand out of my own observation, that all plans for India's progress were going to fail unless some effective and practicable system of population control were adopted. At one time I had publicly stated that the problem of population growth in other countries was not a proper responsibility of the US government.

My trip to India convinced me that we could not stand aloof if requested to help. In spite of a high rate of infant mortality and inadequate health facilities, India was adding each year more than 5 million souls to her population. This could not go on. Until this Indian problem is solved all others will grow worse rather than better."
Source: Waging Peace, by Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, p.504 , Jan 1, 1965    

Now I have no beef with Eisenhower.  I think he was an excellent General and a so-so president.  My dad, a veteran, was no fan, because he perceived several of the policies Eisenhower enacted regarding the military as baneful to veterans and servicemen.  Whether they were or not, that is how he perceived them.  Of course my Dad, at the time, was a Democrat, so there you go.

But I post this because one of the current memes among non-Conservative Conservatives is the story about how 'I once was a Conservative when Conservatives were real and beautiful, but ever since that liar Reagan and neo-cons took over and it's all gone to hell.'  This is sometimes why cozying up to the Left and hating on anything to do with Conservatism or Traditional values is seen as justified.  These folks hate what Conservatism has become, but if it was like it was back in the Eisenhower days, then it would all be hugs and kisses again.

Of course not.  That's laughable.  And I'm not saying, BTW, that Eisenhower was therefore some scum or pro-culture of death type.  I'm merely saying spare me the laughably false and demonstrably inaccurate notion that "Conservatism" is somehow all bad now, when it was almost all awesome then.  If you wish to trash Conservatism, then do so.  If you want to compare and contrast some military philosophies then and now, go ahead.  If you wish to cuddle up with the triumphant Left, no problem.  But if you take it to the next level and attempt to justify it all by suggesting that, unlike the glory days, Conservatives today are all evil and not being pro-life enough, then do your homework before you set modern Conservatives against some idyllic Eisenhower form of Conservative that, by the definitions used against Conservatives today, would have been no better. 

The Oregon Protesters

Must now be the most hated people in America.  I know so little about them it isn't funny.  For all I know the whole lot of them need rounded up and sent to jail.  But, again, the ones calling for them to be arrested and heaping scorn and contempt on them are many of the same ones who do the same for me simply because of my stance on, for instance, gay marriage.  So that's the first thing to give me pause.

The second is the almost blitzkrieg like assault on them from almost every corner of the Left.  Any time there appears to be such a deliberate desire to discredit and malign people, right or left, I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon.

Finally, it sounds like they are being attacked for a host of issues that have little to do with what they are really objecting to, which includes Federal overreach (from their POV at least) that many who are attacking them seem to otherwise complain about as well.  When it gets down to 'you're stupid and your mamma dresses you funny', something about the substance of the criticisms comes up short.  

That's my two cents.  Again, they might be as bad as all of those who are attacking them say.  I don't know.  But I will wait until I know more before I grab my verbal torch and rhetorical pitchfork.

Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle

We have this.  Next up, we see why old man Potter actually had a point.  Again, there is something out there called progressivism, or the Secular Left.  On the conservative side, it's not so clear.  Depends on what you are 'conserving.'  Likewise, many can be quite liberal and not be part of the Leftist movement.  But there is a movement, a world view, that is against the Christian belief of the world.  And not all who resist this are conservatives of the same stripe.

What seems to have happened - personal observation here - is that as this anti-Christian, anti-Western, and often anti-American movement gained  speed, those who would resist formed uneasy, and at times unnatural, alliances.  The blanket term 'conservative' came to be applied to anyone who wasn't part of this progressive tide.  

Likewise, those who were of a more liberal, open, tolerant mindset were pushed into the tent of the 'progressive' or 'liberal.'  And that was probably not too far off, because based on my observations over the decades, try as you might to draw a line in the sand with the progressive movement while accepting certain viewpoints or opinions, the fact is you'll eventually compromise your values and change to keep up with the latest, hippest.  Look at many of the Western theistic faiths that have tried the same. 

On the 'conservative' side, however, there were definite groups with little to nothing in common except a profound dislike for this new progressive movement.  Within their alliance, there was often no more in common than the USSR had with the USA in WWII.  But it was an alliance.

Then, during the disastrous Bush presidency, that alliance collapsed.  Whether it was Bush's deplorable communication abilities, or the disastrous policies, or basic incompetency, it was enough to push many within that alliance out.  And as the progressive movement became emboldened, and began to make its biases clear through such avenues as education and the media, the defeats began to pick up speed.  And with defeats, as any sports fan will tell you, comes the blaming.  

Even in the late 90s, when the GOP suffered setbacks during the Clinton scandals - which showed the power of this movement to change hearts and minds literally overnight - finger pointing and anger was common.  I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh, and hearing callers spewing forth against those religious nut types who needed to be sent packing.  

As those of the 'bombs and bank accounts' conservatives became more frustrated, their willingness to defend the indefensible became louder.  And as those who were team players and were going to do what they could to put the best face on the unthinkable, many who were allied against the threats of the progressive movement began to fall away, realizing that there were things within the tent of conservatism that were every bit as bad as that associated with the progressives.  Again, like realizing that the USSR, in the end, wasn't much better than Nazi Germany. 

But since that thing I currently call 'progressivism' is an actual movement, a distinct world view and religious and philosophical, social and political movement, as opposed to the somewhat loose alliance of varying and, at times conflicting, worldviews, that single movement is now winning victory after victory.  And it's not hard to see why.  When you have some who would resist this new threat to the Faith  turn around and try to spin for the bad guys simply because 'Money!', it's hard to imagine a world where decent folks won't scratch their heads and wonder if a victory by such people really would be a better alternative.  

Epic face palm

If you hate white cops and believe all white Americans are genetically programmed to be racists, or believe the greatest threat we face is gun wielding right wing racist radicals,  you just got a major boost to your case.  Where do people find these types?   Of course vintage racism is still alive and well.  As is modern acceptable racism (you can always tell a racist by the color of his skin).  As well as promoting, exploiting, and advocating racism for political gain.  And of course new racism, the kind Herman Cain or Condoleezza Rice experienced, suggesting that there are at least some who have denounced racism more out of convenience than actual belief.  In any event, tirades like this go a long way toward helping those who would use racism for whatever reasons do do away with the last shards of the dying West.

Why anger at the Right can be justified

Conservatism is no Christ.  And sometimes those who walk under the banner of conservative can be wrong.  Dead wrong.  For instance, torture.  Torture is wrong.  Always has been.  It's what the bad guys do.  From Reginald Front de Bowuf to Major Toht, one of the character traits meant to drive home their evilness was the use of torture.  The Gestapo, the Vietcong, the KJB, the Spanish Inquisition, American Indians, you name it.  Their use of torture was a black mark on their ledgers. Torture and evil, they go hand in hand.

And waterboarding?  Torture.  I'm no expert, but it doesn't take more than an ant's brains to figure if we found our terrorists were waterboarding our troops we'd be screaming from coast to coast.  And rightly so.  It is torture in the classic sense of the word.  Before the world heard of waterboarding, variations of it were long understood as horrifying, cruel and evil.

And yet, for reasons that are beyond this brief post, modern conservatives have thrown their lot in with the torturers of the past, not just shamefully using the practice, but almost boasting of their willingness to do so.  Here is Sarah Palin, whose star showed brightly for a brief time, and has since fallen to earth for most thinking people, pining for more torture via waterboarding.  And and not just advocating it, but invoking religious imagery connected to Christian rites and sacraments, an act one thinks of when thinking of Jesus and John the Baptist, of babies sprinkled and families celebrating a milestone in one's faith walk.  Sigh.

When Francis Ford Coppola fused the assassination of the heads of the Five Families with the baptism of Michael Corleon's nephew in the classic The Godfather, the juxtaposition is clear.  The sacred versus the profane.  What is good occurring alongside that which is evil.  Birth and new life, death and murder.  And here's Palin, mixing the two to whip up her followers and appeal to the base.  An appeal that rests heavily on a growing trend in our post-modern age: that right and wrong don't apply to us, they only apply to them.  The Right isn't the only ones to do this of course.  But since the Right claims to stand on the best of the past, one would expect better.  Especially since we've seen where that attitude - the attitude that rules don't apply to us, just them - tends to lead.

Ross Douthat is a credit

To Catholics, Conservatives and Americans.  Here he points out what many are figuring.  For those who scratch their heads and wonder how after 20 of 28 years of Republican control, we can be in a state in 2008 of electing perhaps the most openly and radically liberal president in history, here's the answer.  I knew a fellow who was a Catholic convert.  He was from Argentina (and had some pretty strong words about the Left's answer to illegal immigration).  He had also worked with the government for several decades.  He explained that it didn't matter who was in the White House, or Congress for that matter.  The overwhelming majority of government workers he had associated with were far to the Left, avid Democrats, and more liberal than most of the liberal Democrats the media interviews.

There are other reasons of course.  Many Republicans aren't much better.  And as for the presidents, at least two of the three last GOP executives had wives that would fit alongside of any MSNBC host.  And a few others would either embrace all the glories of liberalism completely, or at least, alongside most of the American mega-multinational corporations, promote everything from liberalism that leads to hedonism and debauchery, as long as it winds up lifting the bottom line.  Nonetheless, like it or not, we are and have been for many generations, a liberal society.  Douthat calls it like it is.  Perhaps others may begin to listen.

The way conservative should sound

Sometimes conservatives and conservatism get confused.  One of the triumphs of the progressive movement has been to define conservatism by the worst conservatives, while shielding liberalism from the character flaws of its adherents   As a result, the message of just what conservatism is supposed to be can get lost in the din of various progressive attacks, as well as various non-progressive oriented individuals insisting that they are the pure conservatives and it's everyone else's fault.  But in reading a link that a reader sent me, to an article by Jonah Goldberg, I stumbled across one of the best, and quite frankly beautiful, expositions of conservatism and what it's supposed to be:

My dad, a Jew, loved the spectacle of it all. (The Vatican, he said, was the last institution that “really knows how to dress.”) From what he could tell, he liked this new pope too. “We need more rocks in the river,” my dad explained. What he meant was that change comes so fast, in such a relentless torrent, that we need people and things that stand up to it and offer respite from the current.I loved the literary quality of the expression “more rocks in the river,” even though the imagery doesn’t quite convey what my dad really believed. Dad was a conservative, properly understood. By that I mean he didn’t think conservatism was merely an act of passive and futile defiance against what Shakespeare called “devouring time.” Unlike human institutions, the rocks do not fight the devouring river of time, it just seems like they do. My dad believed that conservatism was an affirmative act, a choice of prudence and will. In the cacophony of perpetual change, the conservative selects the notes worth savoring and repeats them for others to hear and, hopefully, appreciate.

I really like that.  An affirmative act, a choice of prudence and will, of selecting the notes worth savoring and repeating them for others to hear. If more who would resist the worst elements of this post-liberal progressive juggernaut ceased with the circular firing squad and reflected on this, I think there could be hope in maintaining the best of what conservative should really mean when people hear the term.