There have been a myriad of diaries on DKos detailing exactly why
ALL conservatives are failures, particularly when it comes to governing. There's one on the recommend list right now, and while it may feel good to vent how is it productive?
There have been a few diaries calling for an end to angry rhetoric and `paranoid thinking' that then go on to foment exactly what they schizophrenically call for an end to.
As a community we would never accept an argument that begins "all liberals/progressives". Just as we should not be willing to accept the intellectually dishonest argument "all conservatives", no matter how impressive sounding the presentation that precedes or follows. While stereotyping is expected in the political world, to 'dumb down' the argument for mass consumption, this sort of rhetoric must have no place in our reality-based community.
There should be no question that the Bush 43 administrations political philosophy/ideology is an utter failure, but is it intellectually honest to label the Bush 43 administrations political philosophy/ideology as purely conservative?
Buckley, Fukuyama, Scowcroft, and a slew of other founders/thinkers of modern conservatism have disavowed themselves from the Bush 43 administration, and it is not for the premise put forth by some that `conservatives hate ALL government, including a government of their own making', it is a core ideological difference that divides conservatives from the neo-con agenda. An ideological difference that we could be using to our advantage by getting conservatives to stay at home on election day, rather then uniting them with our `feel good' political rhetoric.
More then a few of my good friends are conservatives, and they despise the Bush 43 administration, and what the Republican party has become, MORE then I do, and it is NOT a hatred of `government in general' that motivates them.
They understand that the Republican party and the conservative agenda has been hijacked by a group of powerful and politically connected intellectual Trotskyite socialist internationalists. People like: Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Sidney Hook, and Albert Wohlstetter, amongst others, who were able to take over a directionless Republican party in the 1970's, after the fall of Nixon.
When their focus - Russian Communism - died with the fall of the Berlin wall, or shortly thereafter, that ideological vacuum gave birth to a new generation of powerful and politically connected intellectual Trotskyite international socialists. People like: Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, Joshua Muravchik, Ben Wattenberg, amongst others, who saw America's role of democracy building not limited to just defeating communism but as American manifest destiny.
In their narrow 'win at any cost' ideology this administration throws political crumbs from time to time to the social and fiscal conservatives, but that does not make them conservative, it simply makes them serial panderers in their greater goal of democratic world dominion, and more then a few conservatives understand that they are being used.
In speaking with my conservative friends, over the last several years, the majority have come to the conclusion that, while they could never in good conscience vote Democratic, they will be staying home this November.
Rather then widening the divide between conservatives and liberals, with rhetorical `feel good' stereotyping hate speech that only serves to aid the neo-con agenda, as a community we would better serve our progressive/liberal cause in a message that informs, not attacks, and leaves the millions of conservatives, that are upset with the neo-con agenda, with only one alternative. To stay at home this November.
*(I didn't neglect to include links I believe that the subject matter has been discussed to death here, if not the same context, and should be common knowledge by now. More honestly, I'm feeling particularly lazy today:-)