Thursday, May 04, 2006

More on the Bankruptcy of Conservatism

I admit, I'm pretty hard on Conservatives. At least with Liberals, you find honesty in the principles that guide their actions. They love government, they think government can do wonderful things, and they want to expand government as much as possible, so as to create a better society.

Not so with Conservatives, who claim to want small government, personal liberty, and individual responsibilty - yet, work at every turn to justify government encroachment of basic liberties, while consolidating and expanding Big Government programs. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find them advocating new programs, while claiming they'll make government smaller.

This morning, Lew Rockwell wrote a great article called The Conservative Hoax.
The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.

When I die, I want to be reincarnated as Lew Rockwell.

4 Comments:

Blogger Goggalor said...

Please do not mix Neocons with Conservatives, for neocons are liberals with guns, and really nothing more. Conservatism is not Bush, not Specter, Conservatism is Barry Goldwater.

11:16 PM  
Blogger Libertarian Jason said...

Really?

Tell that to just about every Republican voter. Tell that to Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage.

5:31 AM  
Blogger Jim Wetzel said...

"Conservative" and "liberal" have become meaningless terms, it is true. Where I live, though, "libertarian" is in pretty much the same condition. In northeast Indiana, the difference between the way those who are active in the LP and the GOP is ... well, subtle, is what it is. As George Wallace said about the donkeys and the elephants, back in the day, there's not a dime's worth of difference between them.

11:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been detecting more and more libertarianism in Hannity. I'm not sure where it's coming from (maybe hanging out with Boortz), but it's a good sign.

9:58 PM  

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