Far as I’m concerned, conservatism (in the philosophical sense) has been effectively dead since at least 1980. True conservatives hold the Constitution to be sacred, and individual rights to be of primary importance. Now their absolute respect for the Constitution can make them look bad to liberals, who always want to right some wrong and don’t always think of long term consequences. For example, Barry Goldwater and those of his ilk did not think the Federal Government had the legal right to order local school boards to desegregate . Sort of like you don’t have the legal right to shoot drug dealers. But those true conservatives, while oldfashioned and stiff-necked by “progressive” standards, were not evil. They just thought that the Constitution was all that stands between the US and tyranny, and weakening it in any way was asking for trouble in the long run.
What we see in today’s GOP is not traditional conservatism-they have just usurped the NAME. What they are is, literally, Fascists. fascists as Mussolini himself defined Fascism. Fascists as the dictionary defines Fascism. Likewise, today’s repubs are NOT followers of Jesus the Christ, they are Calvinists, if not some modern heresy that is even worse. (Calvin thought that nothing is sinful for the Elect-they were going to Heaven no matter what they did! And you could tell who was Elect-they were rich!) They call themselves Christians but they are NOT.
Far as I’m concerned we ought to reopen Alcatraz for today’s neo-Fascist republicans. BUT. 1. dont confuse these psycopathic sacks of shite with either true conservatives or Christians; they are niether. 2. Remember that ideologs of the Left have done even more harm than ideologs of the Right