Now that the country is in financial freefall and liberals poised to take back the reins of the executive, I thought that this would be a good time for Conservatives to take some stock of what they've wrought.
Here are some nice questions to ponder about on the consequences of what passes for Big "C" Conservatism these days.
How did the following work out for you and for us?
- Vitriolic defense of the notion that a continued aggregation of ever increasing levels of income and wealth among an ever smaller demographic cohort was somehow economically positive, and that a widening gap between that top cohort and everyone else was an indicator of the superiority of the American economic system.
- Vituperative defense of the notion that unilateral action on the international stage (notably in matters of the application of military power and diplomatic disdain) was a positive indicator of American power and prestige.
- Smugly ignoring the consequences of energy speculation post-Katrina, all while pretending that the triple volume futures trades were actually required by the demand curve.
- Refusing to regulate the casino floor atmosphere of hedge trades on "free market" principles.
- Refusing meaningful mileage standards and jacking up speed limits to placate your yeehaw-shouting Dukes of Hazzard "base", thereby exacerbating our energy problem.
- Refusing to address corporate officer compensation issues in publicly traded corpoations by regulation, statute or tax rule, thus allowing mediocrity and cronyism among management and board members to fester.
- Weakening the equity power of courts to meaningfully address shareholder complaints of corporate mismangement and malfeasance by directors and officers.
- Writing tax and security rules that favor phantom stock price "growth" over dividends, leading to a whole lot of specious announcements, fake valuations and PR campaigns.
- Refusing to address the current failed model of health care in any way. You've not broken the medical guild by reworking the system of medical training, encouraged the added administrative layer of for-profit insurers and hospitals, and abandoned the traditional "not for profit" system completely.
- Refusal to actually do anything meaningful to rebuild the infrastructure or address the problem of housing in NOLA post Katrina, but shipping 800 billion to your friends in the flawed idea that paying them money without requiring results is a proper exercise of government.
- Spending your "earned" political capital on an astroturf campaign by fringe activists. That campaign was driven by the activists, who garnered the involvment of a few thousand fringe thinkers who relentlessly emailed the executive branch and congress, pretending to be voters and residents in districts that they'd never even visited or flown over. In other words, you got punked.
- Just Us Sunday.
- Lying about the real unemployment rate and real economic circumstance of the country over the past few years, all in order to continue living in the fantasyland of low tax rates and loose dollars.
- Calling everyone who utters any sort of criticism or urges introspection an America bahing troop hater.
As you oppose any possibility of an auto bailout, I know you won't be honest about your goal of crushing every state that relies on those industries for voting for Obama. In the end, though, do you really believe that your economies will escape the financial cataclysm that your opposition will wreak? Do you understand that you'll be ceding manufacture of our primary consumer transportation modality to foreign corporations in perpetuity? Or will you once again ignore potential ramifications and recklessly adopt whichever idiot vindictive strategy that life failures Hannity, Coulter and Limbaugh cook up?
Surprise us. Be rational for a change. Don't ignore the fact that foreign automakers are right now seeking (and going to obtain) bridge funding from their national governments in order to help them survive.