Well folks, its been a great few days of diaries and a great week of trash talking about the failures of conservatism, conservative government and the great conservative walkback.
Hunter really outdid himself yesterday in his
The Great Conservative Walkback, a classic to be remembered for years to come, I have always wanted to use the phrase "unicorn fart" in a post and Hunter beat me to the punch by using it in that diary. If you have not read it, then I suggest you go take the time to do so now
However, I think that we need to get to the real root cause of why conservative government does not work and why Andrew Sullivan, Bob Barr, Paul Craig Roberts, blogger, The Cunning Realist, many republicans, and all of your friends and family who call themselves conservative, should really think of finding a new term for their philosophy on governing.
Why, well the truth is folks, conservatism is about and has always been about monarchical and religious rule over the people
More after the flip
"True Conservatism" is
Monarchical and religious rule over the people, wow, when you say it in plain terms you can see it smacking you right in the face, we now have a clear understanding of the elephant in the room, you can see the monarchical side of it in everything George Bush does, and you can see the religious side of it in many Republican legislators, people like Bill Frist and Tom Delay are two prime examples.
"True Conservatism" is the idea that a monarchy or a church grants the rights and privilidges to those it rules.
This goes all the way back to the storm that brewed surrounding Thomas Paines The Rights of Man, written in response to Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in France, while Burke to that point had seemed to repudiate the notion that the authority of monarchs, this writing seemed to many as expressly endorsing the opposite view.
Note in the above, I have italicized "rule". Well this is to make clear the difference between "ruling" and "governing", a ruler does not govern, he rules, and thus is not concerned with the principles of governing, he does no care if a city gets flooded, he does not care if those he rules go with out health insurance, he does no care about governing whatsoever. A quick look at the two words on dictionary.com
Govern
- To make and administer the public policy and affairs of; exercise sovereign authority in.
- To control the actions or behavior of: Govern yourselves like civilized people
Rule
- To exercise control, dominion, or direction over; govern.
- To dominate by powerful influence.
- To decide or declare authoritatively or judicially; decree.
- To be in total control or command; exercise supreme authority.
- To formulate and issue a decree or decision.
So does anyone see it now? Can you all see that what we are dealing with is the true face of conservatism, which is the old two headed monster of monarchies and organized religion, the only two forms of tyranny man has even known?
I said above that "true conservatisim" is a philophsy that believes it grants the rights and privileges to those it rules, well if that is so then what is the opposite of that.
The opposite of that is the people granting the rights and authority of the government they create to govern themselves.
This is "true liberalisim", while there is no identified and described bible describing the principles of liberalisim, the actual bible for liberalisim is the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
In those documents you see a categorical rejection of the principles of conservatism, the US Constitution is based on the principles of self government where we the people categorically reject the idea that we need a King or a Church to rule us. It is based on the principle that the people grant government its rights and not the other ways around.
And this is where things get really messy, these two principles cannot co-exist with one another, they are diametrically opposed to each other, the result of these two opposing forces, one monarchical and religious rule, and the other self government, is a chaotic form of government that cannot possibly serve the interests of the people.
And that's what we have right now folks, a chaotic governing body that is largely dominated by monarchical and religious rule constrained by the order imposed by the US constitution and the check and balances built into our system of self government.
This cannot and will not ever work, either the US Constitution prevails or monarchical and religious rule prevails.
I said early on that all of those people who have assigned a label to themselves that should only be reserved for monarchical and religious rule should consider finding another label.
Andrew Sullivan, Paul Craig Roberts, Bob Barr, many of the republican legislators, and your friends and family members who have tarred themselves with this label by getting into bed with monarchical and religious rule, are all actually liberals, who believe in the principles of liberalism to the core.
The reason they call themselves conservative goes back to what I said above, the idea of self governing liberalism is The principle that the people grant government its rights, all of these conservatives have always wanted to reduce or limit the rights granted to government and have felt that we were giving too many rights and too much power to government.
This is nothing more than a conservative/limited application of the principles of liberalism, and as you can see it is clearly the absolute opposite of "true conservatism".
So all of these so called conservatives have a fundamental choice to make, do they stand with the idea of monarchical and religious rule, "true conservatism" or do they stand with the idea of a conservative/limited application of self governing liberalism by seeking to limit the rights and power of the government?
They cannot stand on both sides of the fence, the two ideals are opposed to each other, so the question to all of you out there who call yourself conservative, is which side of the fence do you really stand on?